Want to wade into the snowy 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 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.
(2026 is off to a great start, isn't it? Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this.)
I've always thought of linux as a vaguely commie thing but it seems like a) there were more libertarians in there than I thought, b) using linux appeals to some very right wing freaks who don't like the idea of not being in total control, and c) there's a right wing computer culture promoted by online influencers to nerdy young men, not dissimilar to right wing gamer culture.
The above site is hosted on neocities. I've been involved in the small web/personal web/indie web for a while (almost 6 years now, Jesus) and I knew there's a more right wing side to it but I hadn't come across it much (except for digdeeper linked to above, whose online privacy guides I read and took seriously before he started posting about Covid and I realized he was a conspiracy theorist). Then recently I found a neonazi's site on neocities through a Christian webring* and spent a while looking around in morbid fascination.
*You can't join if you support abortion or gay people, but apparently they don't check to make sure you're not a Nazi. I'm tempted to set up a competing webring for Christians with normal views....
I could see Linux attracting the "I am a superior intellect" types and then those people drifting rightward over the last ten years. If they didn't start out far right.
definitely. plus the woman-hating background radiation of a lot of online communities and media for teenage boys.
I found out about the rightwing / misogynist strain of FOSS mostly via the furore over RMS defending Minsky from Epstein allegations.
i was aware of "left-wing but rancid about women" as a common political perspective in techy fields, but I wasn't aware of many out and out right-wingers in the FOSS world specifically (beyond the odd TempleOS type kook).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_S._Raymond#Political_beliefs_and_activism
nice find there:
Oh I saw that name before - https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/contra-ptaceks-terrible-article-on-ai/