this post was submitted on 14 Sep 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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[–] gerikson@awful.systems 6 points 1 week ago (4 children)
[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 13 points 1 week ago (2 children)

If you use physical force to stop me however, I will make it a priority to ensure you regret doing this when you are on your deathbed. You have probably never met an enemy as intelligent, creative and willing to play the decade-long game as I am.

"When you were partying, I studied the blade."

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

“‘Revenge is a dish best served cold’ - wait, now I’m really hungry”

[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 7 points 1 week ago

"I have a particular set of skills. Mostly 20,000-word blog posts."

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

NoEstuans interius

Ira vehementi.

Estuans interius

Ira vehementi.

Sephiroth!

E: Have a snickers you turn into a real Sephiroth when you are hungry.

[–] YourNetworkIsHaunted@awful.systems 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Now I want to mod an item that reverts a boss fight to phase 1.

"Have a snickers, Malenia, you turn into a real Goddess of Rot when you're hungry"

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 3 points 1 week ago

That is pretty good tbh. Would also be funny as an undocumented feature in a game.

[–] sus@programming.dev 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Also the point is to get attention of broader public, not just those at the labs.

The highest possible attainment, to generate several popular memes about crazy cult member does something slightly odd to show his devotion, but isn't brave enough to do it outside his own home

disclaimermemes often contain mild inaccuracies

[–] scruiser@awful.systems 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The way typical US educations (idk about other parts of the world) portray historical protests and activist movements has been disastrous to the ability of people to actually succeed in their activism. My cynical assumption is that is exactly as intended.

[–] V0ldek@awful.systems 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] scruiser@awful.systems 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

So, to give the first example that comes to mind, in my education from Elementary School to High School, the (US) Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s was taught with a lot of emphasis on passive nonviolent resistance, downplaying just how disruptive they had to make their protests to make them effective and completely ignoring armed movements like the Black Panthers. Martin Luther King Jr.'s interest and advocacy for socialism is ignored. The level of organization and careful planning by some of the organizations isn't properly explained. (For instance, Rosa Parks didn't just spontaneously decide to not move her seat one day, they planned it and picked her in order to advance a test case, but I don't think any of my school classes explained that until High School.) Some of the level of force the federal government had to bring in against the Southern States (i.e. Federal Marshals escorting Ruby Bridges) is properly explained, but the full scale is hard to visualize so. So the overall misleading impression someone could develop or subconsciously perceive is that rights were given to black people through democratic processes after they politely asked for them with just a touch of protests.

Someone taking the way their education presents the Civil Rights protests at face value without further study will miss the role of armed resistance, miss the level of organization and planning going on behind pivotal acts, and miss just how disruptive protests had to get to be effective. If you are a capital owner benefiting from the current status quo (or well paid middle class that perceives themselves as more aligned with the capital owners than other people that work for a living), then you have a class interest in keeping protests orderly and quiet and harmless and non-disruptive. It vents off frustration in a way that ultimately doesn't force any kind of change.

This hunger strike and other rationalist attempts at protesting AI advancement seems to suffer from this kind of mentality. They aren't organized on a large scale and they don't have coherent demands they agree on (which is partly a symptom of the fact that the thing they are trying to stop is so speculative and uncertain). Key leaders like Eliezer have come out strongly against any form of (non-state) violence. (Which is a good thing, because their fears are unfounded, but if I actually thought we were doomed with p=.98 I would certainly be contemplating vigilante violence.) (Also, note form the nuke the datacenter's comments, Eliezer is okay with state level violence.) Additionally, the rationalist often have financial and social ties to the very AI companies they are protesting, further weakening their ability to engage in effective activism.

[–] V0ldek@awful.systems 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

That's interesting, because in Poland 95% of all history you are taught is "and then they grabbed guns because they were just so fed up with their* shit" and from modern history it's mostly anti-commumist worker movements that were all about general strikes and loud, disruptive protests.

*Russians', Germans', Austrians', king's, ...

[–] scruiser@awful.systems 6 points 1 week ago

So us Americans do get some of "grabbed guns and openly fought" in the history of our revolutionary war, but its taught in a way that doesn't link it to any modern movements that armed themselves. And the people most willing to lean into guns and revolutionary war imagery/iconography tend to be far right wing (and against movement for worker's rights or minorities' rights or such).

[–] TinyTimmyTokyo@awful.systems 8 points 1 week ago

But he's getting so much attention.

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Hmm, it’s still on the funny side of graph for me. I think it could go on for at least another week.

[–] o7___o7@awful.systems 4 points 1 week ago

Depends if he's cheating or not, heh

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I almost wanna use some reverse psychology to try and make him stop.

'hey im from sneerclub and we are loving this please dont stop this strike'

(I mean he clearly mentally prepped against arguments and even force (and billionaires), but not someone just making fun of him. Of course he prob doesn't know about any of these places and hasn't build us up to Boogeyman status, but imagine it worked)