wondering if we should be talking less about "decentralization" and more about "resilience"

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I'm not sure it's even that, I think the issue is that decentralization is a continuum relative to some frame of reference. It is not binary or absolute. But English semantics misleadingly imply that it is.

Resilience semantics imply "resilience against... what?" This is valuable framing for conversation.

Decentralisation is a means to an end, I think people tend to forget about that

The ends are something along the lines of permissionlessness, security and reliability

Agreed, that is the issue I have with it, the default english semantics around the word lead people astray: https://warpcast.com/shazow.eth/0x4eab2071

We need a vocabulary that focuses onto threat modeling, as you said.

Agree with the sentiment but not sure about resilience either 

Decentralization feels like an unmeasurable ideological quality whereas resilience at least has the context of being able to withstand something 

Need to quantify and agree on that something though (the attack vector / surface area)

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Yea, for example. Actually many failure modes are actually censorship/availability issues, but when people see censorship they think moderation/regulation.

I think most people don't understand in what way that's a component of decentralization (though I agree fundamentally).

On the other hand, everyone would agree that is a component of resilience!

To me it’s about censorship resistance OFAC sanctions are a good litmus test for “decentralization”

I'm not sure "decentralization" is itself semantically meaningful in absolute terms: https://warpcast.com/shazow.eth/0x4eab2071

How can we talk about decentralization being a way to achieve something when it's subjective to a frame of reference? Shouldn't we be talking about that frame instead?

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I agree. Decentralization has no value by itself and shouldn't be the goal. The goal is resilience (to something), and in many cases, decentralization is a way to achieve it.