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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022

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These are not warring states and militaries. Kiwifarms has no ability to threaten or harm Cloudflare, and so 'buying time' is pointless. Cloudflare will always stomp on them so long as they use Cloudflare's services. The only right move is to refuse to heel and find someone else.

kiwifarms.net says: Due to an imminent and emergency threat to human life, the content of this site is blocked from being accessed through Cloudflare’s infrastructure. For more details, please see: https://blog.cloudflare.com/kiwifarms-blocked/

Likely, the causes were both internal and external pressure and specific, recent posts on kiwifarms or elsewhere that cloudflare interpreted to be an "imminent and emergency threat to human life". Kiwifarms should have attempted to reduce outward signs of the latter to keep their site up. It might - or even probably wouldn't - have worked, but is worth doing anyway.

Kiwifarms has no ability to threaten or harm Cloudflare

Some users might argue otherwise - "we're spreading the truth, how disgusting the libs are, they can't let people see it because the regime would collapse". Most kiwis aren't there, it really is just a site for laughing at freaks, but there were a few posts to that effect that got a bunch of positive reactions. Ofc this is ... not entirely wrong, but wrong in every important way there's probably some impact of kiwifarms existing, but not in any simple way like that.

The only right move is to refuse to heel and find someone else

Yeah, if they had somewhere else to go. Josh isn't optimistic, as the recent t.me post shows. "refusing to heel", and having CF take away your site, is still losing. It's much, much worse for both 'laughing at lolcows' and 'spreading how disgusting trans grooming is' than wordfiltering the word 'bomb'.

Kiwifarms has taken hundreds of actions exactly like 'censoring a bit more to survive' over the past decade. Claiming this one is dishonorable ... it's a website for laughing at lolcows. If a bull running at you, you should move out of the way, whether you can shoot it later or not.

"Finding a gun to shoot the bull with" and "not moving out of the way" aren't the same action, at all. The latter doesn't help you win. Just because some meekly let the bull rampage - the answer isn't "letting it hit you in the chest".

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.

But it "proves too much" - if cloudflare was entirely anti-kiwifarms, they would've folded in 2017, surely?

The progressive leviathan will continue to crush, oppress, and destroy, and there is nothing anyone can do to change it from the inside

there are literally multiple different people in cloudflare. Prince is the CEO and as such probably makes decisions, but he does so for reasons, needs to make his people happy, investors, customers, etc.

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.

Actually killing keffals would ... uh ... not help stop progressives? It'd give them way more reason to fight back, while not materially impacting them at all (he's a random trans streamer popular on twitter). You'd argue that the way to stop christians was showing jesus's body really obviously on the cross, making it crystal clear his hands were bleeding, just in case any peasants missed it. Tell the world about john brown, so they learn from his example!

Sucking off your betters so that they can enjoy the sadistic thrill of watching you squirm unhappily might buying a mypillowbuy you some time, but it will never actually lead to a good outcome for you. Just bite it.

Okay, so you're kicked, then you bite. And what happens to dogs that bite? They get put down. This is the strategy - "this dog is dangerous. he bites when we kick him". Provoke the right, use their fighting back as an excuse to totally destroy them. Biting doesn't stop the progressives. Actually taking power would - killing keffals takes as much power away from progressives as calling them 'racist' does

But it "proves too much" - if cloudflare was entirely anti-kiwifarms, they would've folded in 2017, surely?

It's fun to make your enemies squirm. It's fun to make them obey you. It's fun to gather them in one place as a harmless boogeyman you can point to to help conjure up public support and sympathy. Up until they stop being so harmless, and someone actually wants to send a message, at which point there is nothing that can be done.

there are literally multiple different people in cloudflare. Prince is the CEO and as such probably makes decisions, but he does so for reasons, needs to make his people happy, investors, customers, etc.

Agreed. Prince is the most public-facing of the tentacles, not the only one.

Actually killing keffals would ... uh ... not help stop progressives?

I am still unsure to what extent I can advocate political violence here. Suffice to say "if you kill your enemies they win" was silly when Trudeau said it, and it's silly when you say it. You would in fact stop progressivism in its tracks if being a degenerate strongly elevated your risk of death. See: why even the woke don't tend to touch Islam.

If you commanded the US military and they took control of every central corporate office, every think tank, every executive agency, the internet, resisting law enforcement, significant courts, et cetera - either by killing or imprisonment (or just lustration) - then, yes, you win.

If you kill keffals, you don't win. It doesn't do anything, besides getting people mad. Keffals is a twitch streamer who posts about being trans on twitter.

You do not need to command a state or a military or a corporate office. Islamic terrorism is effective, consistently effective, because it is personal and unstoppable on a human level. No amount of political or social influence can stop the sheer mind-numbing fear of death that comes from a devoted and violent enemy.

Violence works. It has worked all throughout human history. Violence is the truest and most honest form of conflict resolution that exists, and it cuts through all bullshit. Violence's only downside is that once you commit to it your life is endangered, and so people shy away from it. But if you can cross that threshold, if you can accept you have no future that isn't soaked in your own blood, you can wield a level of power rivaling any President, any dictator, any CEO.

All power is a proxy for violence. At its core, influence of any kind is the ability to have violence inflicted on someone. When you embrace the violence yourself, you are power.

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