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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   44935 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022

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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.

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.

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?

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.

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)

Moldbug is an elf, so his ideas of what constitutes a valid and useful response to elves should not be taken seriously. I can say no more on that subject. As for learning the enemy's tactics and plans, of course that's useful, and I did not say otherwise.

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