Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 16th February 2025 (awful.systems)

submitted 2 weeks ago by BlueMonday1984@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems

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Need to let loose a primal scream without collecting footnotes first? 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.

(Taking over for Gerard this time. Special thanks to him for starting this.)

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[-] dgerard@awful.systems 12 points 1 week ago

Original writing prompt: “Write a romantic comedy. Difficulty: both lovers are emotionally mature and have excellent communication skills.”

What our good friend Eliezer makes of it

Oscar Wilde's job is in no danger

[-] istewart@awful.systems 12 points 1 week ago

Nice try, but you're going to have to work a lot harder if you want to trick me into clicking on that. I lived through browsing peak Slashdot at -1, you know

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[-] saucerwizard@awful.systems 12 points 1 week ago

https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/business/money-report/google-calendar-no-longer-includes-start-of-black-history-month-pride-month/6143829/

[-] bitofhope@awful.systems 10 points 1 week ago

Making my service slightly worse once again to own the libs.

[-] gerikson@awful.systems 12 points 1 week ago

MoreWronger is concerned that the shitty fanfic the community excretes is limited to LW and Xhitter and wonders if The Atlantic is a better venue

Look I have nothing against fanfic myself but if there's one powerful corrective it lacks, it is commercial content editorial feedback.

[-] Amoeba_Girl@awful.systems 12 points 1 week ago

The way the responses talk about "polarization", ugh fucking ghouls.

[-] fasterandworse@awful.systems 11 points 1 week ago

hay guys, sorry for spam - I just want to shill my videos/audios i'm trying to put out twice a week (I've already done 9!). They are 3-5 mins long and all around one particular theme of tech crit

video versions: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwvAAoSdsXWxHwFbULgbpVGiLmJZv4X1g audio versions:

apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/faster-and-worse/id1792154689
spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/62Q7vclARxKjMAOtwXfOIu
they are also in all the other major podcast platforms. Let me know if you're interested but can't find it.

Let me know if you like it/hate it

[-] Soyweiser@awful.systems 11 points 1 week ago

I randomly remembered crying wolf and decided to make that everybodies problem

[-] YourNetworkIsHaunted@awful.systems 10 points 1 week ago

I had forgotten about that one. Thanks, I hate it.

I was already largely out of step with the Rats at this point, and I definitely hadn't read it with the new "actually I feel like I was right about this one, neener neener" header. What strikes me now is the attitude here. Like, it takes a staggering degree of reflexive contrarianism to frame this as "see Trump isn't that racist" instead of "hey look how fast the rest of the political establishment embraced this overt racism. Maybe we should have listened when everyone tries to tell us how racist the political establishment was underneath the respectable and reasonable public face". Just because the wolves have taken off the wool suits now doesn't mean they weren't wolves the whole fucking time.

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[-] gerikson@awful.systems 10 points 1 week ago

AI researchers continue to daub soot on the walls of Plato's cave, scaring themselves witless:

https://www.emergent-values.ai/

At least I've IDd the transmission vector from LW to lobste.rs

[-] froztbyte@awful.systems 11 points 1 week ago

other vein

it's amazing that the paper site has its own little pretty marketing pictures. easily digestible unseriousness!

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[-] sc_griffith@awful.systems 10 points 1 week ago

does anyone know why Venmo has a faux social media presentation? a feed, payments visible to other users (??) by default, etc

[-] swlabr@awful.systems 10 points 1 week ago

Not even venmo knows.

[-] swlabr@awful.systems 10 points 1 week ago

Though if I had to guess: data tagging for data mining.

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[-] froztbyte@awful.systems 10 points 1 week ago

so apparently one of the weird creeps went to go shittalk europe (video, transcript (archive))

it's some full-on doublespeak and utterly wild shit. some of the best tho:

The US innovators of all sizes already know what it’s like to deal with onerous international rules.

"waaaaaaaah how dare you have your own rules we need to care about, so hard"

[-] DeviantNull@awful.systems 10 points 1 week ago

Nothing to see here, just a strong implication that in the minds of these lizards “AI” is a weapon, and the only thing that can stop a bad guy with an AI is a good guy with an AI. Because this precise line of thinking has yielded such good results historically.

Also, think of the GDP growth! Imagine the shareholder value we could create boiling an ocean to predict how many letters “r” there are in “strawberry” and failing after billions in VC funding. This should not be regulated, lest progress is halted!

And don’t fret about safety kids, because once we build the genie we get three wishes for sure, and then Sam Altman’s dad will finally look him in the eye and say “I’m proud of you” for the first time, and all will be well in the world.

[-] froztbyte@awful.systems 10 points 1 week ago

nasb, Curtis Yarvin's Cult For Billionaire Morons

the comment around 13:00 onwards, "it was very hard to get people to care about this before". felt in my bones.

[-] mii@awful.systems 11 points 1 week ago

Peter thiel looks like if nosferatu never hit puberty

This image will now forever live in my head. Thanks, random YT commenter.

[-] Soyweiser@awful.systems 11 points 1 week ago

Okey, what is with these dweebs and never taking their leather jackets off? (Talking about the opening still, have not even started the video)

[-] swlabr@awful.systems 10 points 1 week ago

They think leather jackets are cool but don’t know why, and have never been challenged on their fashion choices. Fuckers need a good mugging to change their ways.