TechTakes

2677 readers

113 users here now

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

founded 3 years ago

MODERATORS

dgerard@awful.systems

Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 6th September 2026 (awful.systems)

submitted 3 days ago by BlueMonday1984@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems

102 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.)

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] CinnasVerses@awful.systems 6 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

Not sure about the Libertarian connection, but the comments feature Eliezer Yudkowsky and at least one member of the MAPLE cult (Goldenberg).

A "no attacks on people's characters" policy seems like a terrible idea in this space because so many people are grifters, liars, and apocalyptic cultists. At some point you have to say "you are a bad person who uses false words to do bad things."

[–] scruiser@awful.systems 5 points 11 hours ago

A “no attacks on people’s characters” policy seems like a terrible idea

Rationalists: "Its not our fault that we got deceived and manipulated by SBF, lots of people were fooled by him! ~~pay no attention to the fact we repeated the pattern of falling for it with OpenAI and Anthropic also~~"

Also Rationalists: "You can't jsut call people ~~in or adjacent to our in-group~~ bad people!"

Also Eliezer: "There's a standard Internet phenomenon (I generalize) of a Sneer Club of people who enjoy getting together and picking on designated targets. Sneer Clubs (I expect) attract people with high Dark Triad characteristics, which is (I suspect) where Asshole Internet Atheists come from - if you get a club together for the purpose of sneering at religious people, it doesn't matter that God doesn't actually exist, the club attracts psychologically f'd-up people. Bullies, in a word, people who are powerfully reinforced by getting in what feels like good hits on Designated Targets, in the company of others doing the same and congratulating each other on it. "

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 5 points 18 hours ago

not Libertarian in the organized political sense, more like steeped in the dominant California ideology