this post was submitted on 12 Apr 2026
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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.

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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.

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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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[–] fullsquare@awful.systems 10 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

eliezer misses that (as used in decolonization/civil rights era) nonviolence is effectively a sophisticated propaganda strategy that takes existing injustices and violence and uses it to bait opponent into attacking you, all while your own people take photos and show to entire world carefully crafted messaging that appeals to general public conscience. the messaging part is extremely important in this. there's no fucking way this could work for him because his cause is comprehensible only to those who already buy his cult messaging as ground truth. he's in just for the moral superiority of being nonviolent. he's never gonna get it because comprehending it requires touching grass

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 6 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah both non-violence and pure terrorism are communication forms at the root. I remember reading long ago that the Rote Armee Fraktion's master plan was:

  1. commit horrific acts of violence against pillars of the community / rob banks to get money
  2. said acts would unleash a repressive wave of violence from the state
  3. the proletariat would see this repressive wave, wake up, and cause the revolution

It kinda stopped at stage 2, because the BRD's security services were a bit less ex-Nazi than they expected, and also there was basically no proletariat.

Also the Southern police chief who correctly deduced that mass arrests were what the civil rights activists wanted, got the go-ahead from neighboring county jails, and then politely and non-violently arrested everyone protesting and spread them out over a wider area, thus preventing the media-friendly repression that was the goal.

[–] fullsquare@awful.systems 6 points 17 hours ago

Yeah there are only so many ways to get it going, you don't hear about these that don't figure it out because cops bust them making them look like clowns and nobody wants to get associated with them afterwards

there is also a barrier between step 2 and 3, because sometimes news like that are suppressed. american school shootings get that treatment sometimes, not to mention all the info filtering at facebook and friends. this is why sympathetic media is an important bit to have in advance. there's also this bit where any serious insurgency needs money and it looks like what they got didn't work out

that southern police chief was per blogpost Laurie Pritchett and this kind of thinking is also what makes COIN tick. worry not, Hegseth declared it all woke nonsense