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Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 16th November 2025 (awful.systems)
submitted 3 weeks ago by self@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems
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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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[-] blakestacey@awful.systems 12 points 3 weeks ago

Via Reddit!SneerClub: "Investors’ ‘dumb transhumanist ideas’ setting back neurotech progress, say experts"

[-] Architeuthis@awful.systems 13 points 3 weeks ago

Michael Hendricks, a professor of neurobiology at McGill, said: “Rich people who are fascinated with these dumb transhumanist ideas” are muddying public understanding of the potential of neurotechnology. “Neuralink is doing legitimate technology development for neuroscience, and then Elon Musk comes along and starts talking about telepathy and stuff.”

Fun article.

Altman, though quieter on the subject, has blogged about the impending “merge” between humans and machines – which he suggested would either through genetic engineering or plugging “an electrode into the brain”.

Occasionally I feel that Altman may be plugged into something that's even dumber and more under the radar than vanilla rationalism.

[-] istewart@awful.systems 6 points 3 weeks ago

Occasionally I feel that Altman may be plugged into something that’s even dumber and more under the radar than vanilla rationalism.

I think he exists in the tension between rationalism/transhumanism and what he can get away with selling to the public, and that necessarily means his schtick appears dumber and more incoherent. He's essentially got two major groups he's trying to manipulate simultaneously; true believers and those who have yet to be persuaded. As he runs out of hype on the public-facing side, it's suddenly a desperate scramble to keep the true believers that make up the bulk of his workforce on board. Hence his pivot to marketing his latest and by far most important product: publicly traded shares in OpenAI.

Apropos of nothing, L. Ron Hubbard died in a dingy trailer in Creston. Ever been to Creston? It's a long ways from Hollywood.

[-] bitofhope@awful.systems 5 points 3 weeks ago

Pretty sure this brand of cyborg fantasizing is quite popular in mainstream rationalism, unless you're reading something more creative in this than superbabies, brain uploading and HDMI to visual nerve for undetectable on-demand pornography.

[-] Architeuthis@awful.systems 5 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

'Genetic engineering to merge with machines' is both a stream of words with negative meaning and something I don't think he could come up with on his own, like the solar system sized dyson sphere or the lab leak stuff. He just strikes me as too incurious to have come across the concepts he mashes together on his own.

Simplest explanation I guess is he's just deliberately joeroganing the CEO thing and that's about as deep as it goes.

[-] istewart@awful.systems 7 points 3 weeks ago

‘Genetic engineering to merge with machines’ is both a stream of words with negative meaning

Iron-compatible osteoblasts that build bio-steel! Synapses with silicon, no, make that graphene neurotransmitter filters in the gap! C'mon, Sam, hire me and we can technobabble so much harder than this!

I must insist on cash payment, though. No stock options. And I prefer to be paid weekly.

[-] bitofhope@awful.systems 5 points 3 weeks ago

"What if we figure out DNA well enough that we could edit a babby to grow NAND gate cells and put a calculator inside their body so they can do instant arithmetic like a computer?"

I assume he's talking about that kind of stuff, but being vague so you can't call him out if he gets details wrong.

[-] swlabr@awful.systems 6 points 3 weeks ago

Brb gonna go collect a trillion dollars for my startup idea that makes babies grow a malignant style parasitic twin that is actually a compute farm

[-] fullsquare@awful.systems 10 points 3 weeks ago

These people aren't looking for scientists, they're looking for alchemists

this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2025
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