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Want to wade into the sandy surf of the abyss? Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid: Welcome to the Stubsack, your first port of call for learning fresh Awful you’ll near-instantly regret.

Any awful.systems sub may be subsneered in this subthread, techtakes or no.

If your sneer seems higher quality than you thought, feel free to cut’n’paste it into its own post — there’s no quota for posting and the bar really isn’t that high.

The post Xitter web has spawned soo many “esoteric” right wing freaks, but there’s no appropriate sneer-space for them. I’m talking redscare-ish, reality challenged “culture critics” who write about everything but understand nothing. I’m talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. They’re inescapable at this point, yet I don’t see them mocked (as much as they should be)

Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldn’t be surgeons because they didn’t believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I can’t escape them, I would love to sneer at them.

(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this.)

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[-] swlabr@awful.systems 9 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

Do we have a word for people that are kind of like… AI concern trolls? Like they say they are critical of AI, or even against AI, but only ever really put forward pro-AI propaganda, especially in response to actual criticisms of AI. Kind of centrists or (neo) libs. But for AI.

Bonus points if they also for some reason say we should pivot to more nuclear power, because in their words, even though AI doesn’t use as much electricity as we think, we should still start using more nuclear power to meet the energy demands. (ofc this is bullshit)

E: Maybe it's just sealion

[-] blakestacey@awful.systems 4 points 11 hours ago
[-] Soyweiser@awful.systems 10 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

Sealions is a bit more specific, as they do not stop, and demand way more evidence than is normal, Scott had a term for this, forgot it already (one of those more useful Rationalist ideas, which they only employ themselves asymmetrically). Noticed it recently on reddit, some person was mad I didn't properly counter Yuds arguments, while misrepresenting my position (which wasn't that strong tbh, I just quickly typed them up before I had other things to do). But it is very important to take Yuds arguments seriously for some reason, reminds me of creationists.

Think just calling them AI concern trolls works.

this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2025
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