Civcraft2Import:Groups/other/lsif

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Libertarian Socialist International FederationLSIF
File:/groups/other/lsif-flag.gif
Non-Governmental Organization (NGO)
Local Languages	English
Demonyms	LibSocs
Ideologies	Radical Anarcho-Communism, Libertarian Socialism, Mutualism
Leader	none
Establishment	pre-1.0
Population	40+
Abbreviation	LSIF
Location	Trans-Quadrantial
Subreddit	/r/LibSocMC
Associated Communes (Pre-1.0)	LibSoc Guildhouse, Proletaria
Associated Communes (1.0)	Panneton, Trotskya, Goldmayne, Ataraxia, Chiapas, Populi, The Great Sunflower, Zizek, Karlton, Engels Island, Connolly Island, Homestead, Kronstadt, Red Exodus, Tropico, Alpha Sierra Mutualist Co-Operative, Black Cat Commune
Associated Communes (2.0)	Catalonia, Maynedragon Co-Op, Principality of Loveshack, Camp Primitivist, Nanaton, Guernica, Zixuza, Aurora Commune, The Autonomous People's Collective of the Treehouse, People's Republic of Freyr, Sparticus, 42, Churchill, Bohemia, Fowl Farms

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Libertarian Socialist International Federation (LSIF)

Libertarian Socialist International Federation (LSIF) is the oldest surviving group within Civcraft, composed of multiple autonomous communes and individuals sharing left wing political philosophies, particularly Libertarian Socialism or Anarcho-Communism. Their history stretches from from pre-1.0 AnCapMinecraft to the present, during that time maintaining a member-base between 30 and 60 players, cumulatively enrolling hundreds of players over its lifetime.

History

Libsoc Guild formed in pre-1.0. Went "International" in 1.0 order to unite other AnCom factions. Became a largely homogeneous, nomadic group in 2.0.

Establishment: The LibSoc Guild

The LSIF traces its roots to the LibSoc Guild, formed by Bodhidharma and StraightFoolish in pre-1.0 AnCapMinecraft as the first left-wing group of the server. Originally formed in the city of Chxville, the LibSoc Guild built a guildhouse with communal farms and storage near the city center. Within weeks of completion, the guildhouse was damaged in a fire presumably set by an Anarcho-Capitalist terrorist. By this time, the Guild had grown to roughly 10 members, who decided to strike westward one kilometer (A large distance at the time) and form a new commune, Proletaria.

Proletaria came to have communal mines, farms, darkroom grinder, storage, and an administrative building where votes were held and which housed community sign-walls for notices and general communication. Netherside, members of the LibSoc Guild also formed the first Foreign Exchange (ForEx) market, where commune surpluses were sold to the larger Civcraft community at a modest profit which was absorbed into the collective. This ForEx also was the site of the invention of the first Wool Exchange, where players could trade all colors of wool at no charge by using white wool as a "currency". The wool exchange proved popular, such that similar stores appeared in many city markets afterwards and well into 1.0.

1.0: The LSIF

The LibSoc Guild moved seamlessly into 1.0 and founded its first commune within Day 1 of the map. Within the following week, Bodhi and Foolish devised a charter for an international union of anarcho-communist groups to be named "The Libertarian Socialist International Federation." As originally conceived, the Federation would be inclusive to a broad range of ideologies in the region of leftist anti-authoritarianism. Multiple groups soon joined, including the Anarcho-Communists of Minecraft (ACOM), The Black Cat Commune, and others.

Originally an agreement of mutual defense, open trade, and fluid membership, the organization slowly became more homogeneous, until it coalesced into an essentially unitary community of members which moved freely between member-communes. While the "International" in LSIF originally signified the diplomatic relationship between various communes, the ultimate organization eventually became more trans-national, as the LSIF's geographic character became more pluralistic and nomadic. Similarly, the monicker "Federation" originally signified the LSIF as a joint assembly of these member communes, but since then the character of the LSIF has become more of a confederation, with no formal central authority and instead a collection of autonomous communes united by a common ideology and culture. As the minimal libertarian states in early communes withered away, the political manifestation of the LSIF became Anarcho-Communist moreso than Libertarian-Socialist. Despite all this, LSIF has kept its original name for lack of a clear imperative to change it.

Panneton

Panneton was the first LibSoc commune in 1.0, as well as a founding commune of the LSIF. It was the first LSIF experiment in Hive design, as the entire commune was based around a 15-story darkroom grinder. Public facilities such as enchantment tables, breweries, storage, and others were centralized around the darkroom grinder, with larger farms and mob ranches spread around its immediate perimeter. Personal residences were built freely by individuals, attached to the central tower without zoning restrictions except that they not interfere with public walkways and operations. By the end of 1.0, Panneton also hosted a Testificate population in the hundreds, following the formation of a village at ground-level by LSIF activists for the rights of Civcraft's indigenous peoples.

Panneton was largely kept private and secret during the early months of the server, and as such avoided the large-scale griefings that occurred in many other major cities during the early days of 1.0. Only in the final months of the server was it made officially public, and at that point the majority of the population had moved to other cities, with Panneton standing more as a heritage site than a functioning commune.

Scylla The Terrible

One of the first griefer groups on the server was Infinius, headed by Scylla, and terrorized Civcraft in the early months of 1.0, primarily Columbia which had been a minarchist and capitalist city. During one such assault on Columbia, the LSIF gathered a fighting force of about 6 players who traveled to Columbia to face the gang. After arriving, Scylla immediately said, "Well, well, well, if it isn't the LSIF" and promptly fled with his gang, owing presumably to the LSIF's simple name-recognition, for they certainly had no reputation for PVP. The fighting force immediately began celebrating what would be their first and final definitive military victory.

Goldmayne

Goldmayne was an embedded commune founded within the first major city of Civcraft 1.0, Columbia. The project was conceived of by Pannetonians looking to increase LSIF interaction with the general public for the purposes of recruitment and spreading anarchism and related values throughout the server. A large set of adjacent plots in Columbia near the city center was negotiated, and a set of LSIF members built a commune which served as a staging ground. Given that LSIF membership between communes was fluid, and Columbian law allowed anyone living within the city to vote, this arrangement quickly led to a large bloc of LSIF members becoming voting citizens of Columbia. Combined with street activism, including the spreading of pamphlets and free food, as well as the opening of a ForEx market on the outer edge of the commune, these factors led to the LSIF quickly becoming a hugely influential group in city politics and culture.

2.0

Grundeswalde

Early in its founding, Grundeswald joined the LSIF as a member-commune, after being driven out of their old area in the +- they settled near Catalonia. However, following a series of incidents where Grundeswegians were witnessed uttering racial slurs in the presence of 5 year olds, the city was ejected from LSIF by unanimous vote. Members of Grundeswalde were offered the option of applying for individual memberships, but none expressed interest.

Maynedragon Co-Op

The Maynedragon Cooperative is an embedded commune founded within the city of Haven, a long-time ally and friend of the LSIF stretching back to its founding in 1.0 by LvmBastiat, a one-time LSIF member and close friend of the organization.

Occupy New Leningrad

Following the "death" of ZombieLenin, a power vacuum in the city of New Leningrad was apparent. Members of the LSIF, taking the vacuum as a sign of revolutionary conditions and potential, travelled to New Leningrad and set up a tent city in the main city square, in the shadow of the ZombieLenin statue. There they protested, distributed pamphlets on veganism, and repaired bicycles for roughly a week, the ultimate goal to be persuading the NL locals to throw off authoritarian state socialism and adopt fully anarchistic communism, to respond to the apparent power vacuum by abolishing power altogether. The protests continued for a week, gradually irritating locals apparently intent on ascension (Including now-leader Bolledeboll). The protests were ultimately broken up by authorities and the tent city dismantled, although a single pamphlet kiosk remains to this day as a memorial of the protest.

Carbon Bread War

The Carbon Bread War arguable began when Bodhidharma made a call to the general public to recognize the right to eat bread as a fundamental human right and chastise the Carbon leadership for banning the staple within city limits. This prohibition had been put in place originally to maximize wheat-based XP production, but had since become functionally moot and remained within the law books as a cultural relic.

Following the declaration of bread-as-a-human-right, LSIF activists visited Carbon during off-hours and constructed dozens of free bread dispensers littered throughout the city, as well as many more signs extolling the LSIF and the right to bread. Mid-operation, a group of locals began chasing the activists with the intent of pearling them for violating the prohibition. Eventually, they chased on LSIF member to the top of the city market, where he jumped off and yelled "For Brad!", an apparent typo which nonetheless became a slogan of the movement.

Government

The LSIF is stateless and classless, having no formally codified leaders, political process, or law. Granting, refusal, or revocation of membership is decided by majority vote of the existing community. Votes on any other of a wide range issues occur frequently, but results are typically symbolic and non-binding on the individual level. A set of community-wide standards are tacitly enforced by the community through social interaction and, at worst, votes of expulsion. These standards include a strict safe-space policy, forbidding the use of slurs (racial, homophobic, transphobic, or otherwise) and other oppressive language. These standards generalize to broad mutual respect within the group and discouragement of bullying, as well as a general wariness of members known to associate with groups operating outside of or in opposition to such standards.

Territory

The territorial model of the LSIF has changed substantial through its history. In AnCapMinecraft the LSIF precursor-organization, the LibSocGuild, built the first embedded commune in the city of Chxville in the form of the LibSoc Guildhouse. Following its razing by an Anarcho-Capitalist terrorist, the Guild moved a kilometer to the West and founded Proletaria, the first independent commune following a city-state territorial model. In 1.0, the LSIF first founded the city-state commune of Panneton, and then began branching out in the form of embedded communes.

City-State Communes

The LSIF has, since its creation, had communes and satellite outposts that fit the general Civcraft city-state model. While in early 1.0, the majority of LSIF member-communes were independently formed and later integrated, very soon after the standard [Need List]

Embedded Communes

In addition, beginning in the early days of 1.0, the LSIF began expanding by founding communes which were themselves embedded within other major cities. This was typically accomplished by pooling resources to purchase a set of adjacent city plots, or in some cases negotiating directly with city leaders. Once established, the LSIF operates these communes as microcosms of communal living within the city, while using them as a staging ground for political campaigns within the city, a model which has led to such incidents as Columbiagate and the string of Communist Mayors of Mt. Augusta in 1.0. In 2.0, LSIF embedded communes acted primarily as cultural centers, such as the Mayndragon Co-op in Haven which hosted the H-Dome spleef tournaments. In all cases, embedded communes allow members of cities to witness communism in action first-hand, and as such these communes have proven to be invaluable as a recruitment mechanism for the LSIF. Hosting city-states typically enjoy a host of benefits from the arrangement as well, including substantially increased social and economic activity within the city.

Era	Commune	Host City
Pre-1.0	LibSoc Guildhouse	Chxville
1.0	Goldmayne	Columbia
1.0	Ataraxia	Mt. Augusta
2.0	Maynedragon Co-op	Haven
2.0	Fowl Farms	Commonwealth

Pan-Leftist Cities

Chiapas, Populi, etc.

Economy

The economy within LSIF is primarily communistic. All means of production (factories, farms, mob herds, grinders) are held in common between all members, with their outputs going primarily to communal storage. Members are entitled to keep the full product of their labor (minus maintenance costs) for personal use and may contribute any portion at-will to communal storage. Once placed there, resources in communal storage become the common right of all members. In practice, most players maintain a single room or house to themselves, in which they keep personal items such as fighting gear, and otherwise use communal storage for everything else.

Culture

Commune Design

"Pannetonian" architecture reflects a strand of thought that began in the Panneton commune of 1.0, focused around tower-shaped communes that centralized both production and player activity within a small number of chunks to maximize efficiency and social interaction. The central theory behind Hive design was that the majority of Civcraft renewable resources required loaded chunks to grow, breed, spawn, etc., and so by placing both means of production for those resources and personal dwellings in the smallest space possible, everyday player activity would keep these spawns loaded and productive. Secondarily, this compact design also guaranteed a high degree of social interaction among members and encouraged the growth of a unique internal culture.

Such design persisted into 2.0 with the founding of Catalonia, which was designed and developed in the final months of 1.0 to serve as a culmination of the lessons learned in Panneton and a refinement of the model. In Catalonia, all non-farm means of production are kept underground in a central tower that includes a hopper-based sorting machine that can separate into chests over a hundred distinct items. Automated farms for pumpkins, melons, mushrooms, and chickens all feed directly into the sorter, allowing passive generation and storage of food whenever the chunks are loaded. Personal residences in Catalonia are confined to floating islands that surround the central tower and are connected by walkways. Any member is encouraged to construct his/her own island for such a residence, allowing the most literal form of "homesteading" wherein settlers construct the land itself before improving it.

Communes of this type have come to be known as "Hives", a tongue-in-cheek recognition of the often-cited "LSIF Hivemind."

Spleef

The first LSIF spleef court was constructed in Proletaria in AnCapMinecraft, where a single international match was played with representatives from the Great Ice Sheet (GIS)

The H-Dome was constructed by LSIF members of the Mayndragon Commune, which was itself embedded within the city of Haven. The H-Dome hosted five spleef tournaments in 2014 which were among the highest-profile in the history of the sport.

Security & Defense

Run and hide.