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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. Apologies for not getting the previous one up - my old laptop died)

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[-] gerikson@awful.systems 6 points 11 hours ago

here's another Rat-explainer piece

https://www.iankduncan.com/personal/2026-09-16-sex-ai-and-the-apocalypse/

(via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49746654, where commenters are predictably blasé about it all... "yeah yeah doesn't everyone know who Big Yud is?")

in general, I don't think EA breaking into the mainstream like this led to the outcome they wanted - there's way more discussion about weird sex and eugenics than the dangers of Robot Satan

[-] BlueMonday1984@awful.systems 3 points 5 hours ago

in general, I don’t think EA breaking into the mainstream like this led to the outcome they wanted - there’s way more discussion about weird sex and eugenics than the dangers of Robot Satan

The Dangers of Robot Satan™ are unbelievable and/or incomprehensible to most audiences, the weird sex/eugenics shit is easy to grasp and laugh at. Mainly the weird sex shit, the eugenics is too morally fucked to laugh at

The AI Doom™ shit's much harder for the public to wrap their heads around, but there's definitely good joke fodder there as well. At the bare minimum, the fact Anthropic's building something they believe could kill them Terminator style makes for some easy Skynet comparisons.

[-] cstross@wandering.shop 4 points 5 hours ago

@BlueMonday1984 Excuse me my friends, but have you heard the Good News about Our Lord and Saviour, Clankie Lucifer™?

[-] o7___o7@awful.systems 4 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

If we're lucky, they'll get left on the same dusty historical shelf as the raelians when this is all over. They're just too fuckin weird for general consumption.

[-] BlueMonday1984@awful.systems 2 points 2 hours ago

On the one hand, you do have precedent to point to in hoping they get consigned to the dustbin of history.

On the other hand, the rats have had a colossal(ly negative) effect on the general public (FTX, the AI bubble, the second Trump admin, etcetera), and their extremely high profile makes them much harder to ignore.

this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2026
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