this post was submitted on 14 Jun 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 rainbow-ridden 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.

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.)

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[–] saucerwizard@awful.systems 4 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Did you see the Brent Dill stuff today?

[–] CinnasVerses@awful.systems 10 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (3 children)

Did you see the Brent Dill stuff today?

No, it seems to be on the Nazi bar? So Brent Dill now has a YouTube channel and gave a talk about sasquatch.

Some Vibecamp organizer tweeted that he organized a weekend event with young women and Brent Dill. He agrees with Scott Alexander that figures like Curtis Yarvin are sexy and attract women to your events!

(ProTip: if you aren't getting enough feminine energy at your events, advertising it as an opportunity to meet a reputedly DANGEROUS man is a fantastic way to fix that ... Like wait...this guy who's rumored to be <every_bad_male_coded_thing> is the same guy holding space generously and openly with no 'grabby' or fearful / aversive energy towards anyone? When was the last time a rationalist guy showed aptitude at THAT?! (For those who don't know, rat-adjacent women tolerate --or, darkly, cultivate-- bizarre behavior from men as a matter of course, so it was startling that the supposed exemplar of rat-man badness was so far from that energy).

...

I love my friends, of course. But many live in this bubble, have never meaningfully connected outside the bubble, and don't know how: highly unskilled at basic normie relational skills. In a way that reads as very rude if you're not accustomed to the norms (rather, the lack thereof) in the ffgk bubble. And they have better visibility into the OUTRAGEOUS behavior of the truly danger characters in the scene --the sexual violence, the fraud, the lying, more lying...so much lying.

...

AND TO BE ABUNDANTLY CLEAR: sometimes Brent still says he needs outrageous amounts of power and control that no sane person should ever give a person so wounded. To which I say...DON'T DO THAT. THAT WAS REALLY STUPID WHEN BLACK LOTUS DID IT, AND IT WOULD BE BEYOND PROFOUNDLY STUPID TO REPEAT.

A vibecamp peson replied with screenshots of a chat with with Dill where he claimed that during 2014-2018 he was living in a rationalist group home and had his expenses paid in exchange for serving as an "emotional support dom" for a barely-legal person who had had sex with housemates while under 18, and that drama inside the house lead to the accusations against him (reminder, Dill confessed to doing some very disturbing things to much younger partners on his blog).

Yuan tweeted in response:

i was heavily involved with brent dill for a substantial chunk of 2018, when he was embedded in the bay area rationality community. based on those experiences i never want to get involved with him ever again and i highly recommend none of you ever do so either. please note that this is the strongest condemnation i have ever written publicly about anybody

...

when this is happening to you, from the inside it feels like finally you've found someone who's saying things that make sense, that matter, who's bravely pointing out the elephants in the room nobody else is willing to, who is being unfairly persecuted by the popular monkeys, who's showing you all the social rot and promising in so many words that maybe, just maybe, you and him can fix it together, because you get it, right? you're not like the others. you see the truth. you're so special. or whatever. he will tailor different versions of this pitch to different people based on what he's figured out about you. the pitch includes, among other things, a sophisticated defense against any attempts to warn you about him, which look like confirmation of his persecution thesis

There is a 2 hour 39 minute YouTube video called "The Legend of Brent Dill: An Outsider's Perspective on the Human Sacrifice Rituals of the Rationalist Cult." I ain't watching that.

Can we just take off and drop a small asteroid on Oakland?

[–] maol@awful.systems 3 points 58 minutes ago* (last edited 55 minutes ago) (1 children)

this is just PUA bullshit right? Oh akshually women are ATTRACTED to "dominant" men, dangerous men, bad boyz, anyone who challenges this is just too woke to admit the truth

[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 2 points 18 minutes ago (1 children)

I'm extraordinarily reluctant to take the guy's description at face value. It seems ripe for that thing guys do where a crowd that's 1/3 women becomes "mostly women" in their perception. But even taking it at face value, what the Hell, you know? He's holding an event that self-selects for women who are vulnerable to predation and puts them in harm's way. "Protip: to get more feminine energy at your events, advertise it to alcoholic women and hold it at a brewery!"

[–] CinnasVerses@awful.systems 1 points 4 minutes ago* (last edited 3 minutes ago)

Scott Alexander literally says this before his story about 'Henry' the patient who beat his fifth wife because she objected to him cheating with the ex who had left him after he beat her:

I feel obligated to say at this point that the specific details of these patient stories are made up, and several of them are composites of multiple different people, in order to protect confidentiality. I’m preserving the general gist, nothing more)

/s And male rationalists would never, ever hang out with an edgy scary person like Yarvin, Sailer, or Vassar for the thrill and bragging rights! Only teh fe-males would do such a thing. /s

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 5 points 12 hours ago

<every_bad_male_coded_thing>

"Come to our event where men cut their toenails in public"

[–] mawhrin@awful.systems 4 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

a precise ukrainian drone might be a safer option

[–] CinnasVerses@awful.systems 2 points 9 hours ago

A lot of people want to know if the Law of Armed Conflict has a "wicked advisors" or "misogynist influencers" clause.