>>4357853 prior bread most likely by now.

>>Number of shills-to-anons

I think this is a loaded question, in a sense. Most people tend to be something of a shill for their own viewpoint. The less tangible the subject, the more nebulous a discussion becomes and the more difficult it is to determine what is "anons" and what is "shills."

Night shift is especially prone to this kind of chatty behavior AND esoteric discussions involving things that are difficult to tie to a tangible, experimental/provable design. Though day shift is prone to its own slides, as well.

In a roundabout way, I think the "who is a real anon" is, in itself, something of a shill or slide in and of itself. It tries to get anons to worry more about who is or is not legitimate and spur them to argue with each other. Shills/trolls, particularly of specwar backgrounds, know that they only need to sow the seed, and a number of people will carry the argument either out of pride or paranoia. These are people who study human psychology and group dynamics, looking to deploy them on the internet to exploit our minds.

This is partly why these anonymous boards were chosen for this. While many anons can probably recognize my pattern of speech, an algo almost certainly could, etc - the point is not to hide, so much as it is to remove what is not necessary. Everyone on this board can have a day of being an idiot. Everyone can have a day of being the highest ranking anon. They can be both on the same day, depending on the bread or how many beers they've had. And no one is really any the wiser. It's not about who I am or what I posted two days ago. It's what I/we have to bring to the table here and now. Someone who was being a tard last bread can take point after discussion refocuses.

Identity politics, character, identity, integrity, etc - these are all things that, even if we were operating under screen names, would persist on the board. These things would be exploited to build credibility among some people, destroy it among others, and divide the community against itself.

True, it may work to some degree, here, for a little bit - but you and I can argue bitterly about what is or is not a topic of the shills, today - and tomorrow be working hand in hand to investigate some new find because our identity doesn't persist and it makes pride harder to exploit via these tactics.

That is, in part, why there has been considerable effort to create identities for anons. Whether AFLB is active still, or not, is kind of moot - but any time something weird with breads happens, that name crops up. Whether it is shills suggesting it is AFLB, or just an accident with the breads and the community still remembers it that well, it stands as an example of exactly why we are anonymous. Look at most of the major namefags … They have all been pitted against us, each other, etc. I don't think it is because there is something fundamentally different about a YT personality or a namefag - it is that identity can be so heavily and reliably exploited to destroy a community… Which is why we generally try to eliminate our identity here. Who we are is much less important than what we have to say. Well… That's the way it is supposed to be, at least.