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dgerard@awful.systems

Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending Sunday 28 April 2024 (awful.systems)

submitted 6 months ago by dgerard@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!

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.

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[–] mii@awful.systems 9 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Okay, that was actually funny, even though I understood zero of the in-world references. Is the whole SCP project like that or is this one an outlier?

I was of the impression that it's just X-files meets bad creepypasta (I remember the one from years back where some paper-mâché statue chased you around when you weren't looking at it) and never paid much attention to it.

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 7 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

This seems a bit typical for an scp apart from the length (which does work as a meta criticism on Rationalist writing), the focus on a real life irrelevant person, and the weird strawmanning of that person. (Not a big fan of making Yudkowsky into an allpowerful god who acts like a 20-40 year old far right hentai addicted incel (Otoh, if you used the real Yudkowsky as a model this would get mean and distasteful (from the writers side I mean) really fast, so that is a good choice) who is then re-purposed by the foundation into living a fulfilling life in consensus reality (aka, the implication is that in the real world their trick worked, and he is now using his godlike powers to fight the acausalrobotgod, critihype). The idea that to stop him we also created the patriarchy and misogyny also missed the mark a little bit imho, but they saw a previous SCP and used it so it does fit). Seeing flawed Rationalist rationalizations of their dubious actions made this explicit was amusing however.

I'm sure Yudkowsky was just as amused as we were when reading this, and considering a picture of his was used, and how the SCP files think about consent like things, I assume he was at least asked for permission.

Edit, anyway if you want to know more about the SCP files, or want to read some of their best more accessible writings (imho, and take into account this is the 'more accessible SCP files' writings not a general accessible writings remark), I talked about the There Is No Antimemetics Division storyline in a previous comment.

edit2: Hahah, lol, I partially agree (on why the thing is bad, not their opinions about r/sc) with this sneerclub hater. congrats on failing the intellectual turing test palindromordnilap, im almost tempted to make an account just to post in agreement with them.

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

a lot of it's that, but it's also got some really good horror writing

[–] Dtl@mastodon.social 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

@dgerard @mii the There is no Antimemetics Division series is particularly good.

[–] BillySmith@social.coop 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

@Dtl @dgerard @mii

The world-building in that narrative thread is extremely chewy. :D

Because of the silo-ed nature of the OCP bureaucracy, no-one really knows how many times that the world has been destroyed and re-built. :D

[–] BillySmith@social.coop 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

@Dtl @dgerard @mii
@cstross

There's another good example in The Secret World :D

https://www.secretworldlegends.com/

It's an early and ongoing experiment in machinima that stands out as being one of the few MMO's that was publicly LBTQ+ friendly. :D

It is known from interviews that some of the writers are fans of @cstross as is evidenced by the world-building for the main story arc. :D

[–] BillySmith@social.coop 0 points 6 months ago

@Dtl @dgerard @mii @cstross

The game mechanics are similar to most tactical MMORPG's, but it's the quality of the storytelling that stands out. :D

In the first section that you are sent to explore, the player is acting as an investigator/cleaner in an HP Lovecraft story. :D

What is also interesting from the pov of gameplay, is that you can only make some of the choices once in the main story arc. :D

Want to make different choices, you have to start again with a new character. :D

[–] megatronicthronbanks@mastodon.social 5 points 6 months ago

@mii @o7___o7

There are also some nicely logically contradictory ones that are cleverly done. One SCP in particular cannot be defined, as the act of doing so changes its nature again.

There's a YouTuber called Dr Bob who does an exceptional amount of work animating and narrating SCPs.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEm_0Cv-bdGNSDiG55QJ0Yw