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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022

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There is no gun that can shoot Cloudflare. There is no action that can be taken against Cloudflare now or in the future. Cloudflare wants them gone, and is committed to their existential termination. Bowing down to them is simply pathetic behavior that will not change the outcome. Groveling is always the wrong move, even if they can find no other refuge.

Cloudflare is not a charging bull. It's not a mindless animal. It's a collection of thinking, reasoned sadists, who want Kiwifarms gone but more than that want Kiwifarms humiliated and broken. Being removed is inevitable; giving Cloudflare more satisfaction is wholly unnecessary.

Cloudflare wants them gone, and is committed to their existential termination

This doesn't make sense given the way cloudflare acted. Probably Prince genuinely wanted to keep them, and chose to ban them for a variety of complicated (this does not imply good) reasons. I'm suggesting there were ways to influence the contingencies such that kiwi might've survived longer. The long article about "why we wouldn't refuse services" and then immediately after banning for supposed extreme risk isn't compatible with cloudflare "wanting them gone, certainly, entirely", because ... of how long prince kept them when most other companies wouldn't have. they could've just kicked kiwifarms years ago, there've been several such campaigns in the past. Again, this doesn't mean they wouldn't have anyway in practice, no matter what they did, i'm not sure tbh.

Groveling is always the wrong move, even if they can find no other refuge.

can you clarify the context in which you argue this? Groveling is a very useful move for people, organizations, even nations, and has saved many from death - which is why it exists. And "temporarily banning certain words in the thread" (and - not even telling anyone you're doing that) is not groveling in any obvious sense.

It's a collection of thinking, reasoned sadists, who want Kiwifarms gone but more than that want Kiwifarms humiliated and broken

this doesn't make sense at all. cloudflare kept kiwifarms up until a large social media campaign to drop them. and ... "sadists"? what? how are they sadists? "humiliated and broken"?

Even if the libs/cathedral/etc are your mortal enemy in every possible way, that doesn't mean they are "sadists" and "want to humiliate cloudflare in every way because they are sadists".

This doesn't make sense given the way cloudflare acted

Hard disagree. It makes perfect sense as I've argued elsewhere, which is how I was able to accurately predict Cloudflare's actions and was not caught off guard, unlike many who thought differently. Cloudflare is a tentacle of Left, Inc., and its facade of libertarian attitude is a relic of Old Internet mores which no longer exist and are no longer believed in. The progressive leviathan will continue to crush, oppress, and destroy, and there is nothing anyone can do to change it from the inside. No matter how much you beg your masters to take pity on you, they will not. They do not have it in their hearts.

The only path to success, long-term, is a total rejection of the progressive beast. Gather state power and martial power; accumulate resources; take both legal and extra-legal means to inflict harm on the corporations and the people that comprise them.

You know what won't stop Keffals? Fedposting bomb threats. You know what would stop Keffals? Actually doing it. You know what won't sway Prince? Apologizing, groveling, sniveling, accommodating. You know what would? Imposing costs on him as a person.

This is something the progressives have learned much, much better than non-progressives, for whatever reason. Progressives have a total war mentality. It works.

Groveling is a very useful move for people, organizations, even nations, and has saved many from death - which is why it exists. And "temporarily banning certain words in the thread" (and - not even telling anyone you're doing that) is not groveling in any obvious sense.

It's absolutely groveling in an obvious sense. It's the same thing Zorba did with AEO on Reddit for ages, with the end result being we're all here, anyway. Sucking off your betters so that they can enjoy the sadistic thrill of watching you squirm unhappily might buy you some time, but it will never actually lead to a good outcome for you. Just bite it.

Do you not think the fact that these 'betters' enjoy flexing their power is a weakness that can be exploited, even if you subscribe to a total war mindset?

In theory, sure, you could kowtow to a sadist so they lower their guard. In practice, there's no real way for Kiwifarms to do that to Cloudflare. What would them dropping their guard even look like?

Dropping their guard would theoretically be allowing Kiwifarms to continue to exist while they stealthily exit to another platform, and continue to keep up the same style of discourse that existed there pre-migration.

You mean that thing they've been doing for years, which led to them getting booted anyway. You need to actually make an exit strategy if you're going to do that.

Ahh, I see I am not up to speed on the history of the site. I had no idea that the Cathedral had been so ruthless in its pursuit of internet deviants. This is certainly more troubling than I thought.

I tend to hope that crytographic blockchains will develop to a point where we can have a technological solution to the problem of state censorship, at least for a time. I haven't seen many other promising options myself.

I agree with you that there is a time for violent resistance to a regime, but I still hold that we aren't currently in that position. Things have room to get much worse before I could justify such action.

This was not Kiwifarm's first brush with the specter of censorship and deplatforming. In the past, they've tried to comply, much like how TheMotte on Reddit strove to comply with Anti-Evil Operations. This can indeed buy time, but only a finite quantity.

And that's fine, re: your threshold. I support violence before reaching that point, because once things are super terrible it's much harder to fight back.