this post was submitted on 01 Jun 2025
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TechTakes

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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. Also, happy Pride :3)

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[–] BigMuffin69@awful.systems 11 points 2 days ago (4 children)
[–] scruiser@awful.systems 7 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I've been waiting for this. I wish it had happened sooner, before DOGE could do as much damage it did, but better late than never. Donald Trump isn't going to screw around, and, ironically, DOGE has shown you don't need congressional approval or actual legal authority to screw over people funded by the government, so I am looking forward to Donald screwing over SpaceX or Starlink's government contracts. On the returning end... Elon doesn't have that many ways of properly screwing with Trump, even if he has stockpiled blackmail material I don't think it will be enough to turn MAGA against Trump. Still, I'm somewhat hopeful this will lead to larger infighting between the techbro alt-righters and the Christofascist alt-righters.

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 5 points 16 hours ago

I've been waiting for this. I wish it had happened sooner, before DOGE could do as much damage it did, but better late than never

as I said elsewhere (and have from early around the doge announcement): he was never going to last because orange was never going to felon lead, and felon was never going to settle. and everyone who brought him in did so knowing that, but that was fine for them because they were using him as a useful idiot, as a politically useful wrecking ball who they could dump all blame on later and wash their hands of

DOGE has shown you don't need congressional approval or actual legal authority to screw over people funded by the government

this tracks with historical fascist power seizures, although ofc updated in the detail of “let felon run wild, then just accept the outcome and use it as a new precedent”. he provided them with a test run of finding just how egregious they could go without pushback (and thus where they need to machinate more)

I am looking forward to Donald screwing over SpaceX or Starlink's government contracts. On the returning end... Elon doesn't have that many ways of properly screwing with Trump, even if he has stockpiled blackmail material I don't think it will be enough to turn MAGA against Trump. Still, I'm somewhat hopeful this will lead to larger infighting between the techbro alt-righters and the Christofascist alt-righters.

overall, same yeah. felon’s long appeared to be comfortable socking for outside influences, so maybe he might go knocking for some more russian/chinese/indian/emirati/whatever war funding, but maaaybe not find some soon enough to prop up his whole house of cards?

(besides, the entire ai craze is begging in the same corners, which maybe is a good thing in this light)

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 5 points 22 hours ago

Would be best if he treated Musk like how they treated the four icc judges. Sanction Musk. (I heard this has basically destroyed the ICCs ability to do things btw)

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 11 points 2 days ago

there's no anime avatar, how do we know it's really Elon?

[–] o7___o7@awful.systems 5 points 2 days ago (3 children)
[–] ShakingMyHead@awful.systems 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Elon's mother was born in Regina.

If Canada became the 51st State, that makes Elon the son of an American born citizen and thus eligible for the Presidency.

If Alberta and Saskatchewan leave Canada (and join the States), this also occurs.

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 11 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I wonder if the US is closing in on the “imprison inconvenient billionaires for tax evasion” stage of managed democracy

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

I don’t think it’sa stretch to see the independence of spacex classified as a national security risk and have it nationalised (though not called that, because that sounds too socialist) and have associated people such as elon declared traitors. Shouldn’t even be that difficult these days, seeing how he’s trashed his own reputation, and it’ll be good to encourage the other plutocrats to stay in line.

Night of the long knives is in the playbook, after all

[–] cstross@wandering.shop 11 points 1 day ago (2 children)

@rook @techtakes The real problem would be persuading Gwynne Shotwell to stay on as COO/President in event of nationalization. (I know nothing about her politics but she's the one who got SpaceX the NASA contracts and ramped Falcon 9 up to being the global launch superpower. If she's a personal friend of Elon a takeover that pushes her out could cause chaos.)

[–] rook@awful.systems 12 points 1 day ago

It isn’t clear that anyone in trump’s government has ever paused to consider than any of their plans might have downsides.

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

Trump has 3.5 years left as President, but I will be around for 40+ years …

Elon Musk thinking he's going to make it to 90 and more is even more delusional than the Mars stuff.

[–] o7___o7@awful.systems 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

he's going on an all-psyker diet