Stop Killing Games (EU edition) - Moldman vs. Publishers

[Smashed & Slamed]

Damn, they're pathetic with those attempts, it's not even a smart one.

I'm not kidding, a 5 year old could come up with something better, whoever that anonymous person/entity is, they're an absolute disgrace & embarrassment.

Like it would be embarrassing for me to present that document.

Spoiler

Already in Preservetube, but whatever, local archive.
View attachment 7673555

>You volunteered your time
>How dare you, you should have been properly compensated
Rossman is right once again. Sorry Ross xisters but Louis is right. You can't champion for a cause for free.

 

[Bob's Fuckass Head]

I appreciate the openness and I think you're asking the right kind of question, even if we currently answer it differently

And if that's true, the problem is not just who holds it. It's that, once the gun exists, anyone can pick it up later. Whether that's Mald, LFJ, Rekieta, Ubisoft, or Epstein.
If you build power on the premise that someone must monopolize violence, then every regime change is just the next spin of the barrel. It doesn't solve oppression, it's just hopium that you end up on the right side of the gun next time.

I agree with the historical interpretation that early states grew out of surplus. But out of surplus also grew black markets, trade caravans, guild law, merchant courts, and mutual aid. Decentralized systems aren't some hypothetical ivory tower thought experiment, they are things that exist and have existed. The thing that makes the state different is that it's coercion first, consent second.
I'm not arguing against coordination itself, and that there must never be any coordination, the point I'm arguing is that coercion isn't the only way to coordinate. SKG may have good intentions, but aiming the gun at a problem is not the same as removing the gun from the room.

Quoting you not to call you out personally, but instead because I've skimmed a lot of this discussion and haven't seen anything that adequately addresses my biggest problem with Libertarian thinking: the universe fundamentally disagrees with it.

Asymmetry is the rule, and entropy expresses itself through dissipative structures. Energy and information always have directionality. This is reflected in all the observed patterns of the natural world, and living things organize their behavior to try and take advantage of it. Coercion will exist, because sometimes it is the winning strategy for controlling and directing energy. All the Libertarians are doing is ensuring they will always be at the bottom of the power structure.

The metaphorical gun is an inevitability. If you consistently refuse to touch it because you believe it's icky or futile or fundamentally immoral, someone else who doesn't share your concerns will grasp it first. The Libertarian way of thinking, as I've understood its expression so far in the thread, is always fated to sit grumbling at the back of the room about how it could have done things better. We'll never know whether that's true, because maintaining any conscious hold on power of any sort probably violates the NAP or something.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

Quoting you not to call you out personally

All good. If you believe you have a refutation or criticism of libertarianism, and you want the most competent available libertarian to engage honestly with it, then pinging or quoting me is probably the best move you could have made, short of finding out my phone number and giving me a phone call so I react even faster.

Coercion will exist

Describing coercion as a natural phenomenon doesn't justify it. The universe also allows for slavery, predation, extinction, genocide, child rape, animal torture, all sorts of things. That doesn't make these things principles.
You are right that power concentrates and you're right that force exists. But none of that answers the fundamental ethical question. Who gets to use it, and when?

Asymmetry is the rule

This is not something libertarianism denies. What libertarianism denies is the legitimacy of initiated coercion. If someone breaks that boundary, you match them or exceed them, in defense. But you don't pre-authorize every hand that reaches for the gun.
Saying "someone will always do it" isn't the insight you think it is, it's cope. You don't somehow obtain or achieve moral clarity by surrendering to entropy. You get it by drawing a line and refusing to pretend that domination becomes justice just because it works.

 

[Inspector Rex]

You can never hate corporations and lobbyists enough.

Damn, they're pathetic with those attempts, it's not even a smart one.

While it's not good, but they will throw everything they can to overwhelm the initiative with stuff like it.

 

[DubyaD4D]

SKG's very method (getting the EU to start a conversation on mandating game preservation) is an attempt to fix an anti-consumer landscape that only exists because of prior government interference...

You have to realise that the SKG movement's core (and only) goal is ensuring the possiblity of games preservation, which has taken the route of consumer rights as that is the only feasible path by the public to do so.
There are 3 camps that engage and benefit from it: media preservationists, consumer rights people, and those against the deranged furry.

• Media preservationists benefit because games stop getting killed!
• People who care about consumer rights benefit because it sets the reality of consumer rights back to how it was a decade or so ago, by essentially clarifying a legal grey zone.
• The vile narcissist "gets everything he asked for, but nothing he wanted", so we get to shove it in his face.

Any one person is usually a mix of the three and wants all those outcomes to varying degrees, but the only one that is core and was there from the start is games being saved.
SKG's goal is not to fix every single consumer issue that exists. If Ross found any other avenue to magically make publishers pinky promise not kill games any more till the end of time, then no consumer rights action / state intervention would've taken place.

...Copyright, DMCA, forced obsolescence, artificial license constraints, all of these things aren't some "free market" outcomes, they're the architecture of the cage that we've been put in

Copyright is irrelevant to the issue.
Whilst copyright certainly is an anti-consumer practice put by the state, I can't see how the state's involvement/existence cause forced obsolescence, nor "artificial license constraints", but I'd have to know what notion of "license" do you are describing.

At least from my perspective there is a gigantic red flag in SKG because it treats the state like a neutral referee instead of the creator of the problem
Even when the goal is good <...> channeling that goal through the same machine that created the cage... will just reinforce that machinery

The cause of games getting killed is only negligence (skirting of responsibility) or foolishly trying to increase profits by "forcing" people to move on to another game, which to me appear to be just part of the human condition, and I do not see how the state can be the cause.

Because, without the state, publishers would not have the legal power to block preservation
The reason player communities can't take over a dead game is that copyright law, DMCA takedowns, and artificial license terms make it illegal to run servers, share binaries, or bypass protections, even in the many cases where the original developer has walked away.

Remove the state from that equation and there is no one to enforce the lock. The cage is the law, the law is the cage.

They still certainly possess the alegal power to block preservation, regardless if the state exists or not. There is nothing stopping companies from isolating core game logic in a central server and keeping it under lock and key.

Also, just because something is illegal, doesn't mean it can't be done. The sole Perelman/rainman type of spergs, that live in some dingy village in Apsurdistan, 10000 miles away from civilisation, that reverse-engineer servers do not care about copyright law, to them it only means that it is not viable to monetise it or sometimes share it publicly on the most accessible areas of the Internet, meaning they just need to share on the most upper levels of the underground or keep it to themselves.

The problem is that it requires an cosmically unreasonable amount of effort to repair a killed game. In a copyright-free, IP-free, state-free world, games would still get killed; those restrictions are only minute hurdles.

---

When you use the state, you reinforce its license to <...> enforce dogshit EULAs.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't see how the state is responsible in enforcing EULAs. Either it doesn't care about such matters and directs people to refer to such an extralegal document, or it considers it null and void.

Regarding profit, Ross doesn't just critique predatory monetization, he frames financial motivation itself as something that corrupts art... while relying on copyright law to make creative work profitable. That's incoherence

How is it incoherence? There can be great art that is also unprofitable (or just freely distributed).

---

I listened to this and as I've guessed it seemed to be a repeat of the kind of debate Ross had with Eliezer Yudkowsky, where Ross just tests the defensiblity of the arguments of the other side and suggest strategies they could pursue in their goals, whilst the other side just tried to convert Ross, more or less.
It made me want to make this though:

---

The next episode of Freeman's Mind 2 will be filmed by Ross strapping a GoPro to his head, escaping Gdansk on foot, lead pipe in hand, while caving in the heads of metrocop and mold zombies alike.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

Appreciate the thoughtful reply, this is a good kind of disagreement that actually makes things move forward

[SKG's] core [...] goal is [...] games preservation

True, but that is exactly why the method matters. If the only way to "win" preservation is to embed the solution in state power (enforcement, regulation, EU-level policy) then that's not a tactical choice, it's a structural commitment.

You say publishers will still have

alegal power to block preservation

I mean, sure, they can withhold server code or refuse to patch DRM. But without they state, they can't stop others from sharing, emulating, reverse-engineering, or distributing fixed versions.
That is the difference. Today's publishers don't just restrict their own servers, they weaponize law to restrict yours
It's the same with EULAs. You're right that most people just click through them, but they do get enforced. Courts uphold EULAs under contract law. DMCA makes breaking DRM to preserve a game a felony. These are not "gray zones", these are cages with legal teeth

How is it incoherence? There can be great art that is also unprofitable

The second sentence is true, but Ross critiques profit while defending copyright which is the state's method of making creative work profitable. You can't reject profit and simultaneously support monopolistic legal enforcement to protect profit. That's the contradiction.

 

[George Lucas]

Call me cynical, but anything the EU ends up doing is just going to turn into a burden while doing nothing to actually help normal people. 'Bonjour miseur, zis game cannot be published in ze EU because it does not comply with ze SKG law blah blah blah...' Just like the GPDR, just like all the stupid standards the EU uses that nobody else does, etc., etc.

 

[StacticShock]

You can't champion for a cause for free.

i do it for the pussy, i know i am not alone in it as there are others that also have shared the pretty pussies they got.

Call me cynical, but anything the EU ends up doing is just going to turn into a burden while doing nothing to actually help normal people. 'Bonjour miseur, zis game cannot be published in ze EU because it does not comply with ze SKG law blah blah blah...' Just like the GPDR, just like all the stupid standards the EU uses that nobody else does, etc., etc.

akshually GDPR is a different thing than what ross is proposing, sure some devs have the capital to separate between two versions like one for borgars and one for europoors but you can bet most will just make one global version that adheres to euroistan demands.
also gdpr kind of works, i played a couple of online games and i often had to re-accept EULA terms that complied with GDPR for some reason even though i don't live in new islamistan, ops i mean europe.

 

[The Tall Man]

I mean, sure, they can withhold server code or refuse to patch DRM. But without they state, they can't stop others from sharing, emulating, reverse-engineering, or distributing fixed versions.

I could be locked in an eternal struggle against companies, trying to decrypt and reverse-engineer their stuff, which is a million times harder than encrypting and withholding it.
Or
I could just use violence to get what I want.

Man, Ancapistan arguments are always so persuasive.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

I could be locked in an eternal struggle against companies, trying to decrypt and reverse-engineer their stuff, which is a million times harder than encrypting and withholding it.
Or
I could just use violence to get what I want.

Man, Ancapistan arguments are always so persuasive.

You can always reach faster outcomes by skipping ethics. That's not a defense, it's an admission
Libertarianism doesn't forbid using force, all it forbids is starting the fight. Don't mistake it with pacifism. If someone blocks what you own or tries to control what you do with your own hardware, they're crossing a line and you have every right to push back.
But saying "just use violence" as if force creates right, that's not clever. That's just torching the concept of consent. Which would be a very bold move, but it would certainly help you save face against accusations of consent accidents

 

[lamppost]

Because, without the state, publishers would not have the legal power to block preservation
The reason player communities can't take over a dead game is that copyright law, DMCA takedowns, and artificial license terms make it illegal to run servers, share binaries, or bypass protections

lol wut

 

[DubyaD4D]

SKG movement's core (and only) goal is ensuring the possiblity of games preservation

True, but that is exactly why the method matters. If the only way to "win" preservation is to embed the solution in state power (enforcement, regulation, EU-level policy) then that's not a tactical choice, it's a structural commitment.

Translation:

SKG movement's core (and only) goal is ensuring the possiblity of games preservation

True, but that is exactly why the method matters. If the only way to "win" preservation is to use the state, then that does not drives us closer to to ancapistan, it's rejecting ancapistan.

Yes! SKG is not a movement about libertarianism.

---

You say publishers will still have

alegal power to block preservation

I mean, sure, they can withhold server code or refuse to patch DRM. But without they state, they can't stop others from sharing, emulating, reverse-engineering, or distributing fixed versions.
That is the difference. Today's publishers don't just restrict their own servers, they weaponize law to restrict yours

Translation:

You say publishers will still have

alegal power to block preservation

I mean, sure, they can still kill games. But in Ancapistan, they can't violate the NAP (annoy others) from sharing, emulating, reverse-engineering, or distributing fixed versions.
That is the difference. Today's publishers don't just restrict their own servers, they can mildly pester you.

Again, that is not the issue.

---

It's the same with EULAs. You're right that most people just click through them, but they do get enforced. Courts uphold EULAs under contract law.

Courts uphold EULAs (extralegal documents) as long as they don't contradict existing law.

DMCA makes breaking DRM to preserve a game a felony.

In America.

These are not "gray zones", these are cages with legal teeth

There is only one legal grey zone, the "neither a service nor a good" one.

 

[The Tall Man]

by skipping ethics

This really is the core issue that every libertarian has to be infantile about in order to keep being a libertarian.
Is initiating violence and coercion bad?

But saying "just use violence" as if force creates right, that's not clever.

You have a complex framework of philosophical writings designed to absolve yourself from action and personal responsibility.
Being "right" for you doesn't mean you did what was in your power to further a goal you care about. It means you followed the rules laid out by your high priests.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

Yes! SKG is not a movement about libertarianism.

You've replaced my argument with a more easily dismissable one. I didn't say SKG is bad because it "isn't libertarian".
I said that how a movement pursues its goals determines what structures it legitimizes. That's not a purity complaint, it's a structural warning.

Again, that is not the issue.

It is. Without state enforcement, companies could shut down their own servers. But they couldn't stop others from restoring, modifying, or distributing abandoned games. There would be no legal basis for suppressing voluntary action.
What happens today is not just them closing the door, they also criminalize anyone who tries to open a new one. That's not "mild pestering", that's the state using legal violence to enforce digital lock-in.
The state outlaws voluntary restoration. Courts upheld EULAs because state law gives them force. Copyright and DMCA make game preservation a felony (and yes, the DMCA shapes global behavior because major platforms comply by default)

Saying "that's not the issue" doesn't erase it.
If you route a solution through coercive machinery, you reinforce its legitimacy, and end up fortifying the cage that caused the problems you're complaining about.

---

This really is the core issue that every libertarian has to be infantile about in order to keep being a libertarian.
Is initiating violence and coercion bad?

You have a complex framework of philosophical writings designed to absolve yourself from action and personal responsibility.
Being "right" for you doesn't mean you did what was in your power to further a goal you care about. It means you followed the rules laid out by your high priests.

You've already said it very clearly earlier in the thread: Violence is "good" if it gets you what you want. That power justifies itself. That domination isn't wrong, just sometimes it's ineffective
So let's not pretend there is an ethical disagreement here. You've already made it clear that, in your worldview, there is no such thing as illegitimate force, only failed force.
Given that, calling libertarians "infantile" for drawing lines isn't an argument, it's just heckling from someone who already admitted he's playing a different game
... just don't go around pretending like your nihilism is some kind of maturity, shit looks ridiculous

 

[The Tall Man]

calling libertarians "infantile" for drawing lines isn't an argument

Correct. It’s an observation of an obvious reality.
You only use this line to absolve yourself of personal responsibility.

So let's not pretend there is an ethical disagreement here.

It’s an ethical question you don’t have an answer for. That’s why you don’t want to engage with it.
This is the reality you have to deny in order to remain a libertarian.

Initiating violence is good for the winner.
Coercion is good for the winner.

And if “initiating violence is evil” is an axiom of your worldview, then your worldview is infantile.
There are many scenarios where initiating violence (only through the government, of course) would help me achieve my goals. So what’s the reason not to? If it’s just because the NAP says so, that’s a circular argument.

I recognize that I lack power and that I am the loser in many power struggles. The only way to achieve my goals is to obtain more power.

You delude yourself into thinking you are above this reality, the reality of power struggles. You smugly chuckle to yourself at the idiots who are fighting for power, all while being completely beholden to those who already have it.
You are the nihilist who has given up on the struggle and copes by immersing yourself in an elaborate intellectual framework.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

You've stopped pretending that this is an ethical conversation, that helps.

Initiating violence is good for the winner.

Not justified, not rightful, just effective. But that's not an answer to anything. It's a confession that you don't believe right and wrong exist outside of power.
That's not some deep 300 IQ cynicism. It's surrender to entropy, brutality, whatever regime is next in line to point the gun. And then you turn around and say

You are the nihilist

the NAP

What do you think the NAP even is? It certainly isn't a cope for being powerless, it's a refusal to lie about what force means. It says "If I win by starting the fight, I don't get to pretend that makes me right"
That is a principle you have already thrown away, and now all you have left is the hope that, next time, you're not the one on the floor

If it helps you sleep better at night, call it "realism", but to me it's plain to see that you're living on your knees and coping by pretending it's clarity

 

[The Tall Man]

Spoiler: Libertarians are objectively wrong

right and wrong

I see you have some special concept of what "right" and "wrong" mean.
Right and wrong are answers to questions.

For example, imagine you and I are standing on a beach, looking down at a gray, motionless object. I ask, "Is this a stone?" You pick it up, examine it, and because you know what kind of object the word "stone" describes, and you can compare it with your memories of other objects called stones, you judge that it is a stone.
If you then say, "The Tall Man, my best friend in the world, let me tell you this is a stone," you are right according to yourself.
If you say, "The Tall Man, my best friend in the entire world, this object is not a stone," then you are wrong according to yourself.

Now let’s not confuse these kinds of questions with questions of morality.

Morality is a framework defined by axioms. All axioms are assumptions, that is simply what they are. And all assumptions are made by subjects, not by objects.
If one of your moral axioms is "initiating violence is evil," then your moral framework is infantile.
I will call it infantile because it is just a LARP, a fantasy assumption about something you think is nice.

A good moral framework is built on simple, Inter-subjective axioms like "family is important." This is an axiom that aligns with nature, not with a fantasy construct.

"If I win by starting the fight, I don't get to pretend that makes me right"

You do realize that all you're saying here is, "I assume starting a fight is morally wrong."
So the only thing stopping you from winning is your unjustified, irrational assumption.

What do you think the NAP even is? It certainly isn't a cope for being powerless, it's a refusal to lie about what force means. It says "If I win by starting the fight, I don't get to pretend that makes me right"
That is a principle you have already thrown away, and now all you have left is the hope that, next time, you're not the one on the floor

If it helps you sleep better at night, call it "realism", but to me it's plain to see that you're living on your knees and coping by pretending it's clarity

LMAO. Bro, you're on the floor next to me, getting your games bricked by Jewish CEOs who like the idea of erasing the past, abolishing ownership, and avoiding competition with their older products.
The only difference is that you have assumptions in your moral system that make you feel good about yourself while getting violated.
Because, in your mind, you did the right thing.

 

[DubyaD4D]

Spoiler: Rebuttal by just quoting earlier messages

I said that how a movement pursues its goals determines what structures it legitimizes. That's not a purity complaint, it's a structural warning.

If by using the state to stop companies from commiting fraud somehow do end up strenghtening copyright laws by making them into super-duper-mega-ultra-double-upper-copyright laws, ensuring they never-ever get repealed, as though they were enscribed it into the laws of physics, and if one gets caught breaking copyright, their domicile instantly gets shelled by artilerry, killing everyone...
...it still wouldn't matter to the movement itself as games are no longer getting killed; those who have legally purchased the game, or taken precautions pirating, can still play a game that would've been killed.

Copyright is irrelevant to the issue [which is stopping the killing of games].
<...>
The cause of games getting killed is only negligence...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Again, that is not the issue.

It is. Without state enforcement, companies could shut down their own servers [KILL GAMES BY MAKING THEM PROHIBITIVELY DIFFICULT TO REPAIR].

the SKG movement's core (and only) goal is ensuring the possiblity of games preservation
<...>
The problem is that it requires an cosmically unreasonable amount of effort to repair a killed game.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But they couldn't stop [hinder, stopping implies a degree of completeness] others from restoring, modifying, or distributing abandoned games. There would be no legal basis for suppressing voluntary action.
What happens today is not just them closing the door, they also criminalize anyone who tries to open a new one. That's not "mild pestering", that's the state using legal violence to enforce digital lock-in.

I can still play games that I have not bought that are "abandonware" and haven't been killed by the publisher, or even pirate an unabandoned game, and have the ability to preserve them until the end of time. But how can that be?! Wouldn't that constitue and infraction of the titan that is copyright, making that completely impossible?!

Miraculously, games killed by the publisher get revived by customers even in the present day, despite copyright making the sharing of revived games to anybody, who doesn't a proof of purchase of the original killed game, ILLEGAL!
If SKG does not ensure the possibility of games preservation, then it does not change anything, it will be the same as it is right now.

Copyright is irrelevant to the issue

just because something is illegal, doesn't mean it can't be done. The sole Perelman/rainman type of spergs, that live in some dingy village in Apsurdistan, 10000 miles away from civilisation, that reverse-engineer servers do not care about copyright law, to them it only means that it is not viable to monetise it or sometimes share it publicly on the most accessible areas of the Internet, meaning they just need to share on the most upper levels of the underground or keep it to themselves.
<...>
In a copyright-free, IP-free, state-free world, games would still get killed; those restrictions are only minute hurdles.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The state outlaws voluntary restoration.

The state currently outlaws voluntary restoration of something you don't own a copy of, id est the law states that you can't repair a game you pirated, meaning something you haven't bought.
You are allowed to repair games you have bought, but...

The problem is that it requires an cosmically unreasonable amount of effort to repair a killed game.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Courts upheld EULAs because state law gives them force.

Courts uphold EULAs (extralegal documents) as long as they don't contradict existing law[ such as a ]legal grey zone, [like ]the "neither a service nor a good" one.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Copyright and DMCA make game preservation a felony (and yes, the DMCA shapes global behavior because major platforms comply by default)

Oh no! I can't link to reverse-engineered server emulators on the front page of Reddit, because I can't make sure that everyone that downloads it has legally bought the game, thus I am subject to a DMCA takedown! Well, I guess that is it, time to pack up and leave as games preservation by customers is impossible.

it only means that it is not viable to monetise it or sometimes share it publicly on the most accessible areas of the Internet, meaning they just need to share on the most upper levels of the underground or keep it to themselves.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Saying "that's not the issue" doesn't erase it. [it does if you read and don't ignore everything else written before that]
If you route a solution through coercive machinery, you reinforce its legitimacy, and end up fortifying the cage that caused the problems you're complaining about.

The cause of games getting killed is only negligence (skirting of responsibility) or foolishly trying to increase profits by "forcing" people to move on to another game, which to me appear to be just part of the human condition, and I do not see how the state can be the cause.

If you are going to argue, do not isolate small portions of a whole argument whilst purposefully ignoring all of the points of your previous argument it addresses, only to continue arguing by repeating what you've said earlier.

 

[Vince McMahon]

Can someone take the libuhrtarian behind the shed already?

 

[StacticShock]

Can someone take the libuhrtarian behind the shed already?

jannies are out of rope to tardwrangle him to the corpo cocksucking thread, pls be patient.