Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 13th September 2026 - awful.systems
awful.systems
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.)

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. Apologies for not getting the previous one up - my old laptop died)

    • lagrangeinterpolator@awful.systemsEnglish
      0·
      2 days ago

      A comparative demands a comparison class, and the natural completion is “superior to us.” The President is supplying a foundation premise of many superintelligence arguments: how does the less intelligent party remain durably in charge of the superior one?

      A strange question to ask given the existence of Donald Trump in the first place.

      As of the time of posting, “Superior” has a narrow lead. I’ll be hoping it remains so, as it seems like the most positive-world-leaning outcome to me.

      Is this some kind of strange 5D chess gambit that if Trump picks the name that pisses people off the most, then people will try the hardest to regulate it or something? Somehow assuming that people will take this Trump renaming stunt seriously after all the other Trump renaming stunts? Why do I even bother? Fuck. This is so stupid.

      • BioMan@awful.systemsEnglish
        0·
        1 day ago

        When you think you are at the Hinge of Ages that decides the Fate of the Very Universe Forever And Ever Amen, how many waffles you eat this morning has cosmic significance. This is part of what drove the Zizians insane.

        • scruiser@awful.systemsEnglish
          0·
          2 days ago

          The EA/lesswronger attitude of “assuming good faith” (to the right people) and taking shit too seriously does play perfectly off of Trump’s blatantly hollow and shallow rhetorical shenanigans.

          • BioMan@awful.systemsEnglish
            0·
            2 days ago

            That’s precisely the reason they were ripe for infiltration by and platforming authoritarian whackdoodles to young tech types

            • scruiser@awful.systemsEnglish
              0·
              2 days ago

              True… except for the fact that some of them were there at the start. Like, for example, Nick Bostrom had some pretty racist/eugenicist stuff come out from the 90s when he was on some mailing lists and 90s nets. Nick Bostrom was a founding member of the Future of Humanity Institute, along with Toby Ord (another EA founding member) and they got money from Elon Musk.

              • YourNetworkIsHaunted@awful.systemsEnglish
                0·
                23 hours ago

                I feel like the problem is less one of infiltration and more one of context drift. The racism and eugenics were in there, but it wasn’t as central to the group as the fun sci-fi stuff so people could pretend it wasn’t there, the same way that people pretend not to know that their coworker heretically believes in the wrong pizza toppings or whatever. Effectively they’re saying “Sure, they may have some bad takes on race or gender or economics but they’re the only ones who will talk about the second coming of Robot Jesus with me.” This dynamic also largely explains why these groups (and arguably sci-fi in general?) are so goddamn white and male.

                Of course, as the tech industry took off and these people sought and acquired actual wealth and influence, the dynamic started to reverse. The fascists may not be appropriately invested in the second coming of Robot Jesus, but they are in agreement about eugenics and deregulation, and that’s enough for the tech oligarchs to throw their now-considerable resources behind them.