This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Let's kick this CW thread off with a discussion of the KiwiFarms attacks. Broad strokes include:
CloudFlare posted just yesterday on how they were turning off KiwiFarms use of their DDOS protection. This was 4 days after their post attempting to explain their "abuse policies" and how they would respond to such things, a casual reading of which would suggest that they would not do this. Their claimed justification for this was "potential criminal acts and imminent threats to human life that were posted to the site". They did not detail exactly what acts and threats were posted and the nature of the site moderator's response.
KiwiFarms is back up at https://kiwifarms.ru/ (note that this is somewhat spotty, they are still actively under attack) (https://archive.ph/2tS7Y should work if their site is not responding at the moment). The site admin has created a post here in which he lists the user and post that he suspects was the trigger for this, the reasons why he thinks the post was suspicious, and the actions the admins took in response, which included banning the user in about half an hour.
To me this looks like a flop on CloudFlare's part. KiwiFarms may or may not be honest in their explanation post, but it's a lot more detail than anyone's posted on the "ban it" side on exactly what were the posts of concern.
The moment Cloudflare started defending its actions, it was clear to me they were about to capitulate. Those who are steadfast in their principles do not bother justifying it; principle stands on its own two feet. Cloudflare is best understood as another tentacle of Left, Inc., with all that entails, and any protestations otherwise are a thin veneer of impartiality that will not be backed up by action.
This is the fatal flaw of centralization of power, regardless of the form that power takes; the internet is small now. Far too small.
I don't think that makes sense. You don't flaunt libertarian values as a progressive. A progressive response would have included a litany about "harms", "marginalised folx" etc.
But I really do not understand what made them cave this hard, this fast if they decided to spend at least some of their reputation points on handwringing about free speech just moments prior. It's also not like this is their first rodeo, given that they did this exact song and dance before. So they must have known what kind of firepower prog twitter would be able to bring to the battle and must have factored that into their initial decision not to budge. What changed? What kind of pressure did they apply they didn't apply the last time around?
You do when you're trying to pretend at being an impartial platform and a core element of critical internet infrastructure. Cloudflare's rhetoric grasps at libertarian values while their actual actions appease progressives. What you need to understand -- in my view -- is that Cloudflare is wearing libertarianism as a skin-suit. That ethos dominated the Old Internet, and there's still an impulse to talk it up in these corporate hearts.
But it's not real. These are partisan groups pretending they're not partisan groups. The sooner you acknowledge that the sooner you'll gain reliable predictive power over their actions.
Lots of companies successfully pretend being an impartial platform while being anything but (google, facebook), and they don't usually pay lip service to libertarian values. At least not to the degree cloudflare does. I still think it is very odd.
Once upon a time they did. The mask eventually fell off, and it will with Cloudflare, too.
A much more parsimonious explanation is that the people who did believe in libertarian principles at those companies either went out, lost power, changed their mind, or were slowly browbeaten into submission.
In all honesty, I don't care why they changed, nor do I think it's possible to dig deep into their minds and figure out. I personally avoid getting bogged down in wondering why someone is my enemy; it is enough to know they are.
I find your explanation plausible but impossible to verify, so it's beyond my concern. In practice, it means that these organizations were once X, and they are now Not-X, with any lingering trace of X being deceit.
moldbug's elves post was about - if the "enemies" control all centers of economic, political, technological, media power - you're not gonna "win" by posting really hard or declaring them enemies or shooting them, you win by converting some of them (construed broadly - maybe you convert some low-highs and then they win, whatever). And given that, it's quite important why they believe things, how that changes, etc. (it's important too even if you're just fighting them, say in a war - knowing when they'll attack, how they'll do it is important - but doubly so like this)
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link