this post was submitted on 06 Jan 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.

(Semi-obligatory thanks to @dgerard for starting this.)

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[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 15 points 1 week ago (7 children)

Thiel has fully lost it, and as I assume nobody around him has warned him about how crazy this ~~manifesto found after the shooting~~ oped in the ft makes him sound, so do the people around him.

[–] mii@awful.systems 11 points 1 week ago

That reads like some bullshit you'd find on r/iamverysmart on Reddit.

Maybe side effects of all the substances he uses to become the Übermensch.

[–] Amoeba_Girl@awful.systems 9 points 6 days ago

jesus christ

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 8 points 6 days ago (1 children)

the amount of doublethink and newspeak this is attempting to push is remarkable

also afaik thiel isn't one to regularly demean himself to writing tidbits such as this, is he? I don't recall seeing nearly as many words from mr likes-it-private as I have from andreesen et al

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[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 6 days ago (1 children)

for someone that runs a surveillance company he sure as fuck can't help yapping about his plans

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 9 points 6 days ago (2 children)

they're all just so fucking ...... smug

it appears they don't think anything can possibly go wrong

[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 5 days ago

i also like that implied statement that no other country than us has any agency at all, and internal affairs of a couple mentioned countries were really result of american activities

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[–] V0ldek@awful.systems 8 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Sir, this is a Wendy's, also

There will be no reactionary restoration of the pre-internet past.

did you get sucked up your ass so deep you forgot who's on the reactionary side?

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[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 5 days ago

i hope thiel keeps writing these, because every minute he does he doesn't spend on horrible shit like implementing them

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[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 13 points 1 week ago (3 children)

[Fiction] [Comic] Effective Altruism and Rationality meet at a Secular Solstice afterparty

When the very first thing you say about a character is that they "have money in crypto", you may already be doing it wrong

[–] Amoeba_Girl@awful.systems 13 points 6 days ago (1 children)

wow i hate this so much

it's neat how the cartooning gets lazier and lazier as it goes though

[–] self@awful.systems 7 points 6 days ago (1 children)

holy shit you really weren’t kidding about how lazy it gets. there’s a bunch of frames that are just text I’m not gonna read on a black background???

[–] self@awful.systems 10 points 6 days ago
  • has money in crypto
  • skin is actively melting
  • will keep monologuing even when unconscious, like a broken video game cutscene
[–] V0ldek@awful.systems 6 points 5 days ago (2 children)

The FDA thing gave me whiplash what the fuck, what did I miss

[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

evil regulators prevent sv megaminds from unrestricted access to adderall probably

idk what specifically, there has been a thing with anti-cavity bacteria that didn't work or maybe that's about some transhumanist bs

[–] YourNetworkIsHaunted@awful.systems 6 points 5 days ago (3 children)

I remember from my misspent youth reading Scott's ramblings a fair bit of antipathy towards FDA regulations in particular. What I can only attribute to ignorance of history makes them fall prey to the standard libertarian talking points about slowing down drugs that could improve people's lives, never mind the fact that in the absence of those regulations everybody who could hypothetically benefit from psychedelic nootropics or whatever would have been too busy dealing with phocomelia to care.

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[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 11 points 1 week ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

we regret to inform you that mullenweg is still posting through it

no matter how unhinged you may expect this to be on starting to read it, you're probably guessing low

[–] mii@awful.systems 15 points 6 days ago (3 children)

[The] SEO space, an industry known for making the web better.

end_me_now.jpg

[–] sailor_sega_saturn@awful.systems 13 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

SEOs match quality websites to those users trying to find them. As much as Google and Bing like to pretend that they're perfect there are very real indexing issues that crop up and need experts to debug, mitigate, and prevent; so in a very real way the SEOs do make the web better for users.

[comment continues below the ad]

For example let's say there was a user who wanted to read a website full of LLM written articles and ads but they keep stumbling across low quality websites with poor SEO practices like Wikipedia instead, why that would be terrible. In order to prevent this terrible possiblity it is the noble duty of SEOs to buy well respected high ranking domain names so that users get a brand they can trust. Like Forbes. Or Radioshack.

[comment continues below the ad]

Sincerely, the myseonews.now "staff".

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 10 points 6 days ago

the sheer amount and rapidity of times it goes from "fucking wot m8" to moments where you can just see him cackling to himself, "hee heeeeee..... that'll teach 'em!", just constant whiplash

my neck hurts and I should've stretched

[–] bitofhope@awful.systems 10 points 6 days ago

You could hook Cthulhu with bait that big.

[–] mountainriver@awful.systems 6 points 5 days ago

To make this easy and hopefully give this project the push it needs to get off the ground, I’m deactivating the .org accounts of Joost, Karim, Se Reed, Heather Burns, and Morten Rand-Hendriksen. I strongly encourage anyone who wants to try different leadership models or align with WP Engine to join up with their new effort.

The passive-aggressive language and the pettyness is such a combination.

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 7 points 5 days ago (4 children)
[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 9 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I think it could be very valuable to alignment-pill these people.

Zoom and enhance!

alignment-pill

The inability to hear what their own words sound like is terminal. At this stage, we can only provide palliative care, i.e., shoving into lockers.

[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 7 points 5 days ago

Man, now I'm bummed that I don't have a cult trying to distribute translations of my Daria fic in which Jane becomes Hell Priest of the Cenobites.

[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 5 days ago

big sending bibles to north korea energy

[–] BigMuffin69@awful.systems 6 points 5 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Lmaou. "We need to alignment pill the Russian youth." Fast forward to the year 20XX and the haunted alignment pilled adults are now 'aligning' their bots to the world's top nuclear armed despot.

tony_soprano_how_could_this_happen.jpg (for some reason awful systems won't let me upload pictures anymore (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ)

Holy Moses in heaven, iirc both Sam and Dario have said that their urge to build the torment nexus came from being inspired by online RAT forums. Maybe alignment 'pilling' youths is counterproductive to human flourishing? As the LWers say, "update your priors fuckheads"

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 6 points 5 days ago

people in the Russian-speaking EA community are all busy with other things.

i.e. working for Putin, running from Putin, or dying for Putin

[–] rook@awful.systems 7 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

Apparently, the OpenMandriva folk (the inheritors of the venerable mandrake/mandriva Linux distro) are now best buddies with Bryan Lunduke (right wing tech grifter and q-anon fan) are decrying the left wing bias of Linux projects with a hilarious “wokeOS shell”

Archive of openmandriva forum post: https://archive.is/2025.01.11-001057/https://forum.openmandriva.org/t/came-here-from-lunduke/5516/1

Lovely juxtaposition of “let’s stick it to the gay fags” and “we’re accepting of everyone and there’s no hate here”. Seems like a classy community all round. It’s a little sad to see how mandrake ended up, but there you go.

WokeOS here: https://web.archive.org/web/20250110234818/https://lindev.ch/wokeos.cpp

It’s pretty tedious and unimaginative. No idea who lindev are.

(eta: wasn’t me who originally found this, but I’m never quite sure whether it’s ok to include sources for this sort of thing given the subject. on the other hand, the op has it as public post that’s been boosted a bunch of times, so here it is: https://tech.lgbt/@GeopJr/113807022917800887)

[–] mii@awful.systems 5 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Bryan Lunduke

Holy shit, the Linux Action Show guy? I remember listening to that podcast occasionally fifteen years ago and found it quite entertaining.

I had no idea he was even still around, let alone going techfash.

[–] nightsky@awful.systems 3 points 5 days ago

Thanks for the heads-up. I couldn't finish reading through all postings in that forum thread, it's all just making me so tired... always the same shit.

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 4 points 5 days ago (5 children)

please excuse me while I infinitely recursively scream into the void

Large Generative AI Models in telecommunications

(this shit has been getting airtime at a couple of different networking conferences, and it's all as ridiculous and pointless as you'd blindly guess)

[–] V0ldek@awful.systems 5 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

It still has to go through peer review, so I fully expect one (1) accepted paper with the title "Large Generative AI Models in Telecommunications - What? No. Why? No!"

Hit me up if you want to collaborate on one lol

[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Here's a start:

Given their enormous environmental cost and their foundation upon exploited labor, justifying the use of Large Generative AI Models in telecommunications is an uphill task. Since their output is, in the technical sense of the term, bullshit, climbing that hill has no merit.

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[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

here have incomprehensible meme

inb4

[–] V0ldek@awful.systems 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I love the leaves and gold meme and I use it constantly even though quite literally no one ever understands it, so, thank you, now I know there's two of us.

[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 5 days ago

Zapisz obrazek jako ahgsfds doesn't translate well, i think that's why

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