this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2025
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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.

This is not debate club. Unless it’s amusing debate.

For actually-good tech, you want our NotAwfulTech community

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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.

(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this.)

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[–] istewart@awful.systems 17 points 1 day ago (2 children)

bahahahaha "judge every molecule." I can't believe I ever took this guy even slightly seriously.

[–] Jayjader@jlai.lu 8 points 11 hours ago

I swear these dudes really need to supplement their Ayn Rand with some Terry Pratchett....

“All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable."

REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.

"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—"

YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.

"So we can believe the big ones?"

YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

"They're not the same at all!"

YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.

"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—"

MY POINT EXACTLY.”

-- Hogfather

[–] sailor_sega_saturn@awful.systems 11 points 1 day ago (3 children)

The worst part is I can't tell if that's not meant to be taken literally or if it is.

[–] BigMuffin69@awful.systems 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Yud be like: "kek you absolute rubes. ofc I simply meant AI would be like a super accountant. I didn't literally mean it would be able to analyze gov't waste from studying the flow of matter at the molecular level... heh, I was just kidding... unless 🥺 ? "

[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

He retweeted somebody saying this:

The cheat code to reading Yudkowsky- at least if you're not doing death-of-the-author stuff- is that he believes the AI doom stuff with completely literal sincerity. To borrow Orwell's formulation, he believes in it the way he believes in China.

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 7 points 1 day ago

That thread is quite something, going from "yud is extraordinarily thorough (much more thorough than i could possibly be) in examining the ground directly below a streetlamp, in his search for his keys", that 'he believes it like he believes in China' to 'honestly, i should be reading him. we have starkly different spiritual premises- and i smugly presume my spiritual premises are informed by better epistemology'

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

"judge every molecule" and "simulation hypothesis" probably have a bit of a fling going

[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

"The AI is attuned to every molecular vibration and can reconstruct you by extrapolation from a piece of fairy cake" is a necessary premise of the Basilisk that they've spent all that time saying they don't believe in.

[–] istewart@awful.systems 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Quantum computing will enable the AGI to entangle with all surrounding molecular vibrations! I saw another press release today

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 4 points 1 day ago

ah, the novel QC RSA attack: shaking the algorithm so much it gets annoyed and gives up the plaintext out of desperation