Theoretically this does already exist in AOE2, where in the custom lobbies players select the same player number/color and have total control of the same "player".
The backstabbing aspect would be difficult, with lobbies limited to 8 individuals, there would be a max of 4x paired "players" (e.g. pair1 & pair2 vs pair3 & pair4). If teams aren't locked like in FFA diplo matches it turns into a 3v1 (pair1, pair2, & pair3 vs pair4).
Unless the game could be modded to support lobbies > 12 or 16, the diplo aspect would be limited.
The primary point they are making is that the military is unlike a civilian job where you can quit and not show up tomorrow, the time remaining on your contract determines how long until your ETS date.
If you get sick of the green weenie in year two of your standard 4 year contract, you still have the threat of a less-than honorable discharge/UCMJ action forcing you to show up and put in a minimal effort.
Job satisfaction is huge civilian side, but is almost a foreign concept in the military--all until your retention counseling and you opt to renew your vows or chase that smart, young, DD214 hottie that just moved into town.
I also will be pleasantly surprised if AOE4's online multi is anywhere close to AOE2's scene.
Definitely managing my expectations due to what I've seen graphically regarding the micro/non-intuitive unit design as well as potential balancing issues due to the vastly divergent civ play styles/age-up mechanics (e.g. Mongol nomad movement & the dynasty system).
To add to this, the article mentions that half of the alleged 60k are SOF (~30k).
This includes units like the 75th Ranger Regiment, most likely the largest SOF organization. According to a quick glance at their Wiki task org, 14 of the 27 COs exist in either a support, command, or training capacity. This roughly breaks down to 50% of the entire Regiment, and the 75th should (in theory) have the highest ratio of trigger pullers to support personnel within the SOF world.
Additionally, most of these SOF organizations have other (more conventional) mission sets they would be supporting at the same time. It can also be assumed that less than half of an organization's personnel are deployed at any given time, while the remaining personnel remain stateside retraining and preparing for their rotation--leaving a relatively small percentage of the alleged 30k SOF personnel actively participating in clandestine operations.
Not really just kind of proves the point he didn't want people selling houses near him as. " buy now to live next to the. CEO of Facebook" that sounds like a HUGE safety problem for him AND his family.
Rich people have existed before today, you know, and yet they didn't do such things.
> sounds like a HUGE safety problem for him AND his family.
You watch too many action movies. No one's going to spend the months of background checks and negotiation and tens of millions of dollars it would take to buy a mansion next to Zuckerthing's just to kidnap him or something.
The threat to rich people are from career criminals, not other rich people.
Maybe I should have said he sounded like a feudal lord, it doesn't matter to me. I wasn't diving into the circumstances, just the phrasing of that last sentence I quoted.
He literally owns the property of his neighbors in order to make his living situation more comfortable. It's sort of like a king granting lands to lords he approves of.
Also, what's to stop him from kicking those people out if he changes his mind? I doubt Zuck would ever write a honest contract that held him accountable for anything.
Like everything else is a free economy, it was a consensual transaction. If Zuck offered me $1 mil for my small apartment, and said I could live in it, I'd take the deal. He purchased their homes and then leased them back to them, what's the problem here other than how it can be construed to "sound bad"?
That's how America works. It is a feudal system where the rich buy the laws, gated communities, college admissions, genes, designer babies, and pandemic vaccines they want.
Interesting aside. Back on topic: the homes were not granted to Zuckerberg; and his residents are not serfs. So they are not "perfectly comparable," they are barely comparable.
(not to mention serfs could not be bought alone, they could be sold with the land. Maybe you are thinking of slaves?)
So the transfer of state-owned assets to oligarchs is the significantly comparable as buying four houses and renting them to their owners? Do you even know what happened after the fall of the Soviet Union?
Man, you're reading too far into my comment. I was just saying the sentence reads like:
A wealthy individual (WI) coming to his neighbors.
WI: "I'm worried your homes might be bought by individuals that affect my privacy, I know you don't intend to move, so let's make a deal that you can still live here and pay rent."
Neighbors: "Ok"
Random YC Comment: "(WI) left them in their homes, rather than reneging on his deal and casting them out of their familial homes to the street."
----
A Feudal Lord (FL) dies and his heir receives the fiefdom.
FL: "You are now my serfs and I've decided you may continue to live here and pay me a percentage of the crop yield, I am a generous lord."
Serf: "OK, m'lord"
Random YC Comment: "(FL) left the peasants in their huts like the generous lord he is."
---
A state industry has been privatized and is now owned by an Oligarch, to include the housing provided to the workers.
Oligarch: "Party land now my land, you may continue to live and work here to provide me profit, I am a generous businessman."
Worker: "ХОРОШО"
Random YC Comment: "The Oligarch left the workers in their housing, as long as it still provided him a profit."
Not just useless, but a major PITA when the next inventory rolls around and you have to find the individual sub-components of that "tech" when no one has any idea of what it looks like because it's never been used and ultimately serves no purpose.
Then if it somehow falls through the cracks, it's on the commanders shoulders to pay for that piece of high-speed unused tech that the lobbyist swore would revolutionize the battle-space.
I actually met some of the contractors who were "in-country", as they called it, to train and re-train folks on how to use all these sensors. While I was at KAF, I had dinner with one of them and very clearly explained that the equipment he was representing was completely useless to my platoon and me and the rest of the PLs in the company ordered our guys to not worry about it and toss it back in the container. He was fully aware of the feedback that infantry folks had for this stuff, which was really eyeopening to me for how the defense contracting world really works.
It appears they know that; might just want to understand the scope of the data Matt provided and/or how in-depth the Automattic analytics are on self-hosted sites--which is something that I (as someone with a limited understanding of the platform) am interested in learning more about.
