this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2026
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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.

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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.

last week's edition

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[–] nfultz@awful.systems 6 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

John Michael Greer writes:

Second, I’ve had various people try to launch discussions about AIs — that is to say, large language models (LLMs) and the utilities they power — on this and my other forums. The initial statements and their follow-up comments always end up reading as though they were written by LLMs — that is, long strings of words superficially resembling meaningful sentences but not actually communicating anything. That’s neither useful nor entertaining. Thus I’ve decided to ban further discussion of this latest wet dream of the lumpen-internetariat here, and have extended that ban to LLM-generated content of all kinds. https://ecosophia.net/july-2026-open-post/

Good for you, you peak-oil meme-magic druid, for keeping your corner of the net weird.

[–] istewart@awful.systems 6 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah, I began losing interest in Greer as it became clear that he was perfectly happy squatting in the middle of the red-brown alliance during the Trump era. His critiques of industrialism and unquestioning belief in technological progress broadly align with what we discuss here, but he will always coddle MAHA types and tale a shrugging "well, what can ya do?" attitude towards people like Trump, as it fits his preference for cyclical theories of civilization.

I noticed a couple months ago that he actually managed to dig Nick Land out of whatever tweaker den that guy's been hiding in for a podcast, which says a lot about what he's willing to indulge these days.

[–] CinnasVerses@awful.systems 3 points 10 hours ago

I like to keep my analysis separate from my word-magic (making things happen by saying them). Greer is trying to remake the world and not just work up his courage which is a harmless and consensual form of word-magic.

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 6 points 14 hours ago

and covid vaccine denier