this post was submitted on 14 Jul 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.)

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[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 12 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Recently, I've realized that there is a decent explanation for why so many people believe that - if we model them as operating under a strict zero-sum game model of the world… ‘everyone loses’ is basically an incoherent statement - as a best approximation it would either denote no change and therefore be morally neutral, or an equal outcome, and would therefore be preferable to some.

Yes, this is why people think that. This is a normal thought to think others have.

[–] bitofhope@awful.systems 8 points 1 day ago

Here's my unified theory of human psychology, based on the assumption most people believe in the Tooth Fairy and absolutely no other unstated bizarre and incorrect assumptions no siree!

[–] o7___o7@awful.systems 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Why do these guys all sound like deathnote, but stupid?

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 15 points 1 day ago

because they cribbed their ideas from deathnote, and they're stupid

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

I mean if you want to be exceedingly generous (I sadly have my moments), this is actually remarkably close to the "intentional acts" and "shit happens" distinction, in a perverse Rationalist way. ^^

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 5 points 1 day ago

Thats fair, if you want to be generous, if you are not going to be Id say there are still conceptually large differences between the quote and "shit happens". But yes, you are right. If only they had listened to Scott when he said "talk less like robots"