The state of nature: Philosophy applied to EVE Online

by Seraphina Brennan on Apr 22nd 2009 3:00PM

Sci-fi, EVE Online, Culture, Game mechanics, PvP, Opinion, Massively Meta, Politics

EVE Online, in short, is constant, controlled chaos. Alliances are made daily, are trained upwards, and ultimately fall. It's all just a question of when they fall that really differentiates them. Yet, amazingly, out of this controlled game of warfare comes a spark of philosophical intrigue -- the concept of state of nature.

Steven Croop from the Warcry Network has written a feature article discussing the states of EVE Online's types of government versus the old philosophical concept. He theorizes that the same state of self-preservation, noted in the original philosophical concept, does make an appearance in EVE. While the state has changed from its original form (struggle for survival versus struggle to not lose expensive stuff) it still drives the individual of EVE to seek out forms of government for protection, such as corporations and alliances.

Interested in the full read? Check it out over at Warcry and get your dose of philosophical goodness.

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Tags: alliance, alliances, ccp, corporation, corporations, eve, eve-online, government, hobbes, locke, philosophical-discussion, philosophy, self-preservation, state-of-nature, steven-croop, warcry

Reader Comments (2)

I found the article to not really be all that interesting. The comparison of "governments" breaks down at a fundamental level. Real governments are coercive, not in any way voluntary. EvE alliances are strictly voluntary, what I would call self-government.

Exactly. EVE is more of an example of anarchy and "natural aristocracy" than anything. I'm sorta glad too, because it shows both the good and the bad of it (even though I am a market anarchist...). It shows it can work, but it's not always nice or pretty.

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