this post was submitted on 26 Jan 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 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 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. What a year, huh?)

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[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Jeff Sharlet (@jeffsharlet.bsky.social):

The college at which I'm employed, which has signed a contract with the AI firm that stole books from 131 colleagues & me, paid a student to write an op-ed for the student paper promoting AI, guided the writing of it, and did not disclose this to the paper. [...] the student says while the college coached him to write the oped, he was paid by the AI project, which is connected with the college. The student paper’s position is that the college paid him. And there’s no question that college attempted to place a pro-AI op-ed.

https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2026/01/zhang-college-approached-and-paid-student-to-write-op-ed-in-the-dartmouth

[–] BurgersMcSlopshot@awful.systems 6 points 21 hours ago

$81.25 is an astonishingly cheap price for selling one's soul.