Long post, guys. the TL;DR is at the bottom.
Throughout history, we have been led through many paths where decisions need to be effectively made so that we can continue to exist peacefully and coherently. Whether it be the sake of progress, or for the sake of survival, decision-making is key to our existence.
Welcome everybody to another guide where I'll be talking you through what our decisions usually mean, and where they go when they are made in a wider scale such as in a community like ZARP.
Every decision makes an impact, that's true. Just deciding to buy a can of Coke rather than a can of Pepsi means that minute difference in profits. But there are times when decisions don't really matter as much as you think they might.
Autocracy
Autocracy is where supreme power lies in the hands of one person. You might think that this is like the president of the United States, or the prime minister of the United Kingdom. Actually, that's a common misconception. They do have the most power in the government; but that doesn't mean they get to call the shots entirely. Their decisions go through other people, whether it be Parliament, or through any other system of shared power. I'll go into more detail with this when we get to democracy.
Autocracy is - essentially - North Korea. It's where one person controls the entire system of government, everything that goes on in the system, and is a glorified puppetmaster for a nation. To give a purely fictitious example - it would be as though Paramontana or Tyler Durden or even Chute had complete control over the entirety of ZARP and wouldn't allow anyone else to have their say. We don't condone that system here, and as such, we're allowed to make suggestions, we're allowed to have our say in what goes on, and the staff alongside the users are instrumental in choosing other staff - especially our Community Managers.
Autocracy is a system where your opinions don't matter. I've made this guide in the hopes that people will understand that just because it seems a certain way isn't being allowed or listened to - it's not because one person is saying it can't happen. It's because a whole network of staff members - our lead team - is saying it can't happen, or possibly won't at this time. Which brings us to how your decisions work.
Democracy
People will joke about Trump being the worst leader the States could possibly have; but people voted him in because they believed he had the capacity to change the way the system works. Take note of what I just said - voted him in.
As I have said a couple times already, the difference between an autocratic and democratic system is that we are given the chance to make our voice heard in a democracy, and in an autocracy - that's simply not the case.
When you put up a poll to see if elevator basing will ever be allowed again; they're not denying it because they personally don't like it, they'll deny it for a whole bunch of reasons (one of which might be that they don't like it, yeah). It's been decided because of the original reasons that it was taken out. However, with that in mind, it doesn't necessarily mean that the community will never get elevator basing back because - and I can't stress this enough - we are a democracy and our opinions matter.
In our democracy, we vote in who we think will be the best fit for our community as a community manager. This means that someone with experience in multiple servers gets the best chance of being community manager - in the same way that someone campaigning to be president of the United States will have a better chance if they visit and appeal to as many places as possible. This is the fundamental basis of democracy in the sense that you don't have a chance unless people already like you.
Debate vs. Argument
Some of the more intellectual users might be scratching their heads at this one or just outright scoffing at it - "You use arguments in a debate to win the debate, what're you talking about?"
True, but... that's not what I'm getting at.
A debate is where people take opposing stances on a topic and try to see which stance comes out on top. This usually means hurling arguments for or against the issue.
An argument - in the way I'm speaking of - is what we might face every day in the ZARP community. An argument is where a person will do anything they can to be right. Even when they're wrong, even if they know they're wrong, they'll keep going because they want so desperately to be the victor of the argument.
Debates are easier said than done - literally. They're spoken (or in rare cases, written) and they're done under the predication that both sides are completely neutral towards each other and have no malicious intent. They're done with the intention of allowing both sides to see the full pros and cons of the topic and ultimately allowing it to be seen as positive or negative. Even with debates, the chances are that even if the person loses the debate, they won't change their mind - but they'll still come out of it with a positive view on the person that beat them because they opened their eyes to those different viewpoints.
Arguments are completely out of control. They're not conducive to anything fruitful and only serve to anger, frustrate, and pretty much just leave both parties in a negative state towards each other. It happens with F1s in our server, it happens with arguing for or against elevator basing (I'm legitimately not on anyone's side about this, I'm just using it as a placeholder example), it happens pretty much in ZARP on a daily basis because of immaturity, because people don't understand how to better use their words, etc.
TL;DR
My overarching point to this is that our primal nature is to defend ourselves if we feel threatened. This can happen even when we feel our intelligence is threatened by that of a superior intellect. We just need to learn to accept that we don't have all the answers, and that if someone knows better than us, maybe it isn't a bad idea to just hear them out.
On the other hand, it is always beneficial to hear both sides, and if you feel you have a better knowledge of something, don't be afraid to speak up.
Thanks for reading. If you liked this basic guide to democracy, autocracy, and what the difference is between having a productive discussion and a stupid argument, please drop me a thank you. If not, feel free to throw nitro at me in the SSRP server. (pls dont i permaban u 4 ar dee em)
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