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Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 19th April 2026 (awful.systems)
submitted 3 weeks ago by BlueMonday1984@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 so 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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[-] sansruse@awful.systems 10 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

i regret to inform you all that another technonce manifesto has hit our collective psyches. If you woke up with a headache today, this is probably why, gratis Alex Karp:

https://archive.is/N20zm

greatest hits:

  1. Public servants need not be our priests. Any business that compensated its employees in the way that the federal government compensates public servants would struggle to survive.

the "government is like a business and should be run like one" meme, for the dumbguys

  1. Our society has grown too eager to hasten, and is often gleeful at, the demise of its enemies. The vanquishing of an opponent is a moment to pause, not rejoice.

naked hypocrisy from the man who wants to erase a nebulously defined "leftism" from public life.

  1. No other country in the history of the world has advanced progressive values more than this one. The United States is far from perfect. But it is easy to forget how much more opportunity exists in this country for those who are not hereditary elites than in any other nation on the planet.

Sure, our society structurally requires an increasingly large fraction of the population to be economically precarious and eternally on the precipice of financial ruin and death, but it could be even worse! you should be grateful.

  1. We should applaud those who attempt to build where the market has failed to act. The culture almost snickers at Musk’s interest in grand narrative, as if billionaires ought to simply stay in their lane of enriching themselves . . . .

BE NICE TO ELON! sure, his ideas are vaporware bullshit that don't make sense, but he produced a lot of shareholder value and is definitely not just enriching himself. Another one for the dumbest people you know to seal clap over.

Every single bullet point here is sneerable, but i'll stop there and let other people have some fun.

[-] CinnasVerses@awful.systems 9 points 2 weeks ago

There is quite a contrast between the call for conscription (6.), the whining that civil servants have too much pay and respect (8.) and the praise for public life (9. We should show far more grace towards those who have subjected themselves to public life. 18. The ruthless exposure of the private lives of public figures drives far too much talent away from government service.) I think he means that earning a living wage for getting up every morning rain or shine and delivering an old man's bank statements is BAD, but if you accept a modest position as Chief Technology Officer or Cabinet Secretary nobody should be allowed to criticize you.

[-] CinnasVerses@awful.systems 9 points 2 weeks ago

The notorious socialists at the (checks notes) World Economic Forum rank social mobility in the USA as 27th in the world behind Sweden, Germany, Canada, and Japan (!) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socioeconomic_mobility_in_the_United_States So this seems like another demonstration that being very rich is like being kicked in the head by a horse or drinking a bottle of wine a day.

[-] YourNetworkIsHaunted@awful.systems 6 points 2 weeks ago

Okay much as I'm angry and want to I'm resisting the urge to go point-by-point until I have more time. But I also want to point out that in form it seems like The Beigeness has really caught on as a writing style. Like, we have 22(!) individual points, each of which gestures vaguely at the kind of militant interventionist white nationalist technocracy that could conceivably power the unholy chimera of a silicon valley tech giant and a murderous beltway defense contractor. But unless the book does so more openly, they avoid clearly stating the actual thesis. It's not really surprising, just interesting to note the pattern spreading from Rat spaces into the broader right wing.

this post was submitted on 12 Apr 2026
24 points (100.0% liked)

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