this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2025
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TechTakes

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Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here's the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.

This is not debate club. Unless it’s amusing debate.

For actually-good tech, you want our NotAwfulTech community

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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.

(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this.)

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[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 18 points 3 days ago (3 children)

From the comments:

Finally, I dislike the arrogant, brash, confident, tone of many posts on LessWrong.

Hmm, OK. Where might this be going?

Plausibly, I think a lot of this is inherited from Eliezer, who is used to communicating complex ideas to people less intelligent and/or rational than he is. This is not the experience of a typical poster on LessWrong, and I think it's maladaptive for people to use Eliezer's style and epistemic confidence in their own writings and thinking.

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

yes, instead they use Scott's and just keep typing forever

[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

"Which Scott?"

"Any of them."

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 5 points 2 days ago
[–] CinnasVerses@awful.systems 7 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Yud once debated Massimo Pigliucci and did poorly. He tried and failed to publish academic research in a journal not controlled by his groupies (desk reject? failed to pass peer review?).

Have there been any other times when he engaged with someone with actual education and experience who was not his fan? It sounds like he was on twitter.

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 7 points 2 days ago

You can't talk to us like that, we are not the biassed masses, we are unbiased!