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Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 27th September 2026 (awful.systems)
submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by BlueMonday1984@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems
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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.)

(OT: 🎶 Do you remember...)

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[-] mirrorwitch@awful.systems 13 points 4 days ago

Just heard about tic-80 falling to slop.

After reading the obligatory forum thread where climate justice and concentration of wealth continue to not even factor into consideration, this how the world of open source feels to me these days:

  • Phew, my favourite embroidery crafts shop has a clear policy against concentration camp labour! it's a niche project but what a relief!
  • Well everyone is resorting to concentration camp labour these days, what can you do
  • We don't want to lose all our contributors by banning those who hire concentration camp inmates to do chores
  • It is discriminatory against embroidery beginners if you don't let people use kits assembled with concentration camp labour
  • I know concentration camp labour often comes with mistakes but as long as there's a mensch in the loop to inspect it for errors and take responsibility, it's just another tool
  • The community of hobbysts has come to a vote and concluded that it's ok to use concentration camp labour to assist your crafting, as long as you do it responsibly.
[-] BlueMonday1984@awful.systems 7 points 4 days ago

It honestly bewilders me how badly tech has failed to resist the slop machines.

Basically everyone else has recognised LLMs for the attack on labour they are and fought back against them, whilst a shocking number of coders and FOSS projects have thrown themselves headfirst into the deskilling machines, all-but forcing the foxes into the henhouse and shouting down anyone who tries to keep them out.

When this bubble finally blows, we need to work out just how we got to this point, and how to ensure it never happens again.

[-] YourNetworkIsHaunted@awful.systems 2 points 1 day ago

I think the FOSS angle kinda works just off of the inherently unsustainable economics of the space. Relying on unpaid labor makes the worker protection arguments inherently less valuable because it's not like this was your livelihood to begin with (ostensibly). Keeping up with the next thing is a pretty clear way to keep a mostly-volunteer workforce interested.

[-] sansruse@awful.systems 13 points 4 days ago

maybe a hot take but there's no fix for this. The ideology built into the american tech industry makes it permanently susceptible to the Next Big Thing regardless of the second order effects or ideological baggage. Coders have been riding high making extremely inflated salaries for the better part of the last 25 years, and they (mostly) all view themselves as unique brain geniuses that don't need to work in solidarity with others. Just a collection of monads pursuing their rational self interest via computer touching.

this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2026
24 points (96.2% liked)

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