Simple Basic Preparations

[You’re not paranoid if they really are out to get you.]

Part 1: Vox: I mentioned yesterday that Vox Popoli went down. He was back online pretty much instantaneously. You’ll find him at milobookclub.com. (That may change in the future.) Vox continues to blog as if it is just one of many irons in the fire, which, for him, might be true.

As far as I can tell, Blogspot’s bullshit is a classic “deplatforming”. It goes like this; get one or a gaggle of hive minded groupthink unaccomplished losers into positions of control. Their host is invariably a bureaucracy (ANY bureaucracy). They will unhesitatingly turn that bureaucracy from it’s original purpose and even against its self preservation. They will make their host do their bidding. If the host dies, they’ll go to the next host. (Who hasn’t noticed the revolving door of bankruptcies that follow certain woke power brokers?)

It’s a weakness that hinders nearly all bureaucracies. Is there a reason HOA’s are universally loathed? Their job is to manage landscaping fer crissakes! Is there a reason Coke has a “policy” about race? They make a soft drink. They don’t need an opinion on anything. Does your local school seem particularly concerned with instilling true knowledge in kids? For that matter, how much of government is focused on core duties of governance? Does the FBI stop any crimes they didn’t start? Does the USPS need domestic spying to fuck up your mail?

Note that you never get pissed off with a bureaucracy that does what it’s supposed to do. If your local government is busy fixing potholes and plowing snow; you don’t mind. If the HOA keeps the streets clean without going apeshit; you’re happy. If a teacher is working really hard teaching a kid to read; it’s wonderful.

Blogspot, as is common with modern bureaucracy, deliberately sought people with an opinion different than theirs. Then someone somewhere, probably a committee or “work group” enjoyed the heady rush of fucking them over. The justification for why they just did an evil deed is irrelevant; “he was promulgating hate, dude is racist, it’s for the children, the jerk likes disco, the guy was fuckin’ Orange, the climate is not to my liking, etc…” The reason given is a means to an end. The purpose is control. If we ever wind up living in mud huts it’ll be because we let base people force subservience instead of keeping them on a short leash. (Or, as I prefer, mocking them!)

This deplatforming is one of many. I wouldn’t even mention it normally. However, Vox is not an “average” blogger. He’s no fool and claims to have been waiting for this opportunity. He aims to work the angles of legal resistance. He has an impressive track record and I see no reason to doubt his sincerity. He seems to relish challenges of this sort. This, to him, will be fun.

To each his own. I prefer obscurity; avoiding the bullshit lest it get stupid all over me. I’m happy raising butterflies, stacking firewood, and telling stories about squirrels. Vox lives to shiv corporate fuckheads in the wallet. I’ll admit, his hobby is cooler than mine. I suspect  his blog still lived at blogspot.com specifically to bait the Karen collective.

Alphabet, which owns Google, which owns Blogspot (all of whom have made “don’t be evil” a punchline) may wish they’d ignored this guy. In Vox they found a small but determined (and well prepared) hornet’s nest. They grabbed it, shoved it down their shorts, and are about to see what happens next.

Is this going to change the world? Nah, but it’s a step. Blogspot picked on a guy who’s rhetoric is excellent, in an arena where rhetoric matters. Just from reading his posts I suspect he and his lawyers are vicious and effective. I wouldn’t mess with the guy in any arena where he’s already prepared the ground. He wanted this!

Part 2: Wirecutter: Knuckledraggin My Life Away is nothing like the intellectual knife’s edge of Vox Popoli. It’s more a matter of joyous freedom and plentiful fart jokes; which is an excellent thing in it’s own right. I check it every day and always get a laugh. Here’s what he has to say:

So they took down Vox Popoli, and they could do it to me.

If they do, I’ll be down for a few days while I figure something out. In the meantime, keep an eye on The Feral Irishman and Phil over at Bustednuckles (which you should be doing anyway), and I’ll ask them to do a post with my new link. They both helped me out last time when my site crashed and thanks to their kindness, I regained all my own traffic.

Part 3: Bison Prepper: Bison Prepper is waaaaaaaay in front of the curve on this one. He just plain went off grid! I mentioned on my blog it a year ago. I mailed Bison Prepper a pittance using… get this… an envelope! Yes, I sent him what amounts to a buck a month (maybe double that because I added a tip) and I get a CD in the mail. I don’t always read it, but it just makes me super happy to get a CD in the mail. At the rate at which society is fucking itself into the ground, I’m very happy to support Bison Prepper as he develops and tests a genuine sneaker-net alternative to an online world that seems increasingly straitjacketed. If you’re interested in the full off-grid option, send the guy a small check and see for yourself that old ideas still work just fine.

So there you go; everyone falls somewhere on a spectrum of reactions and I just mentioned three entirely different approaches. All meant to adapt to a declining intellectual world. In general, the vast majority knuckle under immediately. “The masses are the asses.” Nearly all that escape the first clumsy swath will collapse on the second pass; the first hint of a threat of a possibility of the tiniest repression and they fold. A few show more spine. Some take on their enemy in a colorful and doomed fury; Ragnarok of the mind. They never last long. A tiny sliver scheme cleverly and lead excellent plans to fruition; Vox is my example of this. Some go old school, like Bison Prepper. Wirecutter is practical and has wisely staked his claim somewhere in the middle.

I, a rounding error in the universe, would rather evade than collide. Unwisely, I haven’t formed alliances as demonstrated by Wirecutter and Vox. I should, but I’m just not a people person. Stupid people acting stupidly (which is to say almost everyone almost all the time for years now) creep me out. I don’t like being around stupid. It’s contagious. It’s corrosive. It stinks of failure. Who needs the company of the failed? I yearn to saddle up and head for the horizon. How better to seek inner peace? What else is there?

If I can keep my soul and simultaneously let my blog merrily amble about, unnoticed by the maelstrom, I’ll do so. (Always with humor; “Karen and the Twitterfreaks” would be a good punk band name. “GoogleEvil” would be ideal for Finnish metal.) None of this is dire. I have optimistic expectations and have stayed online 11 years so far. However, if it can’t happen in a world gone mad; then that’s a problem for the mad society and not a concern of mine. If I disappear, it doesn’t mean I was defeated, only that the overall quest to live a meaningful life led me to scrape virtual lemming shit off my boots and and go camping where the bears do it for real.