Need to let loose a primal scream without collecting footnotes first? 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.

(Semi-obligatory thanks to @dgerard for starting this.)

  • David Gerard@awful.systemsMEnglish
    12·
    1 day ago

    lol holy shit this just came into reddit sneerclub (and was zapped immediately)

    user HardboiledHack

    also tried r/lesswrong and r/slatestarcodex

    i’m sure the guardian can be trusted to report on anything involving trans people

    the journalist is J Oliver Conroy https://www.theguardian.com/profile/j-oliver-conroy who now writes for the Washington Examiner and used to write for Quillette (the article has been deleted from the site) https://archive.is/aSBjW

    from http://joliverconroy.net/

    I am a journalist who specializes in features and profiles. I write about the American right, ideologues, intellectuals, extremist movements, the culture wars, true crime, and strange events and strange places.

    by “about”, he means “for”

    I’m a journalist at the Guardian working on a piece about the Zizians. If you have encountered members of the group or had interactions with them, or know people who have, please contact me: oliver.conroy@theguardian.com.

    I’m also interested in chatting with people who can talk about the Zizians’ beliefs and where they fit (or did not fit) in the rationalist/EA/risk community.

    I prefer to talk to people on the record but if you prefer to be anonymous/speak on background/etc. that can possibly be arranged.

    Thanks very much.

    i’ve also warned over at the old place

      • YourNetworkIsHaunted@awful.systemsEnglish
        11·
        1 day ago

        From what I’ve been able to piece together from the various theological disputes people have had with the murder cult it seems like the only two differences are that Ziz and friends are much more committed to nonhuman animal welfare than the average rat and that they have decided that the correct approach to conflict is always to escalate. This makes them more aggressive about basically everything which looks like a much deeper ideological gap than there actually is. I’m not going to evaluate whether these are reasonable conclusions to take from the same bizarre set of premises that lead to Roko’s Basilisk being a concern.

        • YourNetworkIsHaunted@awful.systemsEnglish
          4·
          13 hours ago

          However, I do think that the unfolding of this story presents an object lesson in why “always escalate to the max” is a wildly stupid idea. It turns out that even when you have guns (metaphorical or otherwise) and a complete disregard for the consequences of failure the average group of citizens is still at a decided disadvantage to the state at higher points on the escalation ladder.

          • Architeuthis@awful.systemsEnglish
            3·
            12 hours ago

            You misunderstand, they escalate to the max to keep themselves (including selves in parallel dimensions or far future simulations) from being blackmailed by future super intelligent beings, not to survive shootouts with border patrol agents.

            I am fairly certain Yud had said something very close to that effect in reference to preventing blackmail from the basilisk, even though he tries to no-true-scotchman zizians wrt his functional decision ‘theory’ these days.