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.)
We regret to inform you that one of Google's "AI leader"s is a transphobe:
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/googles-2-7-billion-ai-hire-tests-companys-speech-limits-inflammatory-posts (paywall)
https://bsky.app/profile/alexhanna.bsky.social/post/3m52bffg2222x (screenshot of relevant section)
That must be one of the more dumber things I have read in a while.
I think he is stating that people don't have an invisible eternal Gender like a Christian thinks people have an invisible eternal Soul. I am a materialist so I don't think either exists. Shazeer goes on to complain about "sterilizing children" which is a red flag of transphobia (ie. people who post a lot about that tend to have a screw loose).
There is no need to give transphobes the benefit of the doubt really.
You don't believe in gender? I mean you're wrong IMO but we're cool. But if someone says the words "I don't believe have an attribute called gender" as part of a bunch of totally obvious anti-trans dog-whistles when butting into a discussion about transgender day of remembrance? Now it's a problem.
People who get angry about trans people and trans theory remind me of Dawkins and friends, because what starts as a factual/philosophical concern (there are probably no gods / the idea that people have a true gender inside them sounds mystical) gets twisted in a reactionary direction. I don't have to understand why trans or nonbinary people feel the way they do to support them as they explore ways of being humans in the world.
BTW the official way to support trans people as they "explore ways of being humans" is to punch Nazis in the face and dunk on techbros. Go forth and tell all your cis friends!
(If anyone finds some ways of not being human to explore do let me know, I'm holding out for Magical Girl)
I'd go for Motoko Kusanagi's prosthetic body, myself, as long as I could afford the upkeep. That whole "don't darken your Soul Gem" thing would go terribly for me.
Speaking this into existence. In an interview, Saltman suggests soul gems as the next phase in energy production for LLMs
I think that gender is a collection of roles in a specific society which people perform and have performed on them. Its not something which exists outside that context, any more than "being the king" exists outside of a legal system. Of the three statements on BlueSky, its the third (the statement about sterilizing children) which makes me think he has been consuming angry things about trans people online.
@CinnasVerses @sailor_sega_saturn two bits, the one about god and the one about sterilizing children. The second is obvious, straight from transphobic material. The first is directly against what I've seen some people say, "god put me in the wrong body", as their explanation why they seek gender reassignment treatment.
At that point, what he thinks about attributes people might or might not have is of little relevance.
Sure, saying that about being in the wrong body was a dick move. You don't have to accept all the theory to see that many people are in bodies that feel wrong to them, and many people are expected to present in ways that feel wrong to them. The quote implies that they should just try harder to perform the gender they were assigned at birth.
@CinnasVerses one would guess that they should work harder so his beliefs are not inconvenienced, or some similar egocentric drivel.
Now I'm wondering if that was written by gemini or grok.