this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2024
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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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[–] o7___o7@awful.systems 9 points 2 months ago (3 children)
[–] Amoeba_Girl@awful.systems 12 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I think Zizek is a super nice guy, despite disagreeing with 90% of what he says. I still think he's a great person with a nice soul.

The sentences these people post, man.

Anyway, it's great that he chose a cryptofascist crank who tries to pass himself off as a communist to show how open minded he is. Damn, you respect Habsburg, Orban and Zizek, let me guess how you feel about Putin.

[–] self@awful.systems 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Anyway, it’s great that he chose a cryptofascist crank who tries to pass himself off as a communist

oh thank fuck I’m not the only one who knows about Zizek. there’s still so many people whose first introduction to leftist thought was The Pervert’s Guide to Film on Netflix or whatever who never went back to check if Zizek was maybe a fucking asshole

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I'm still blissfully clueless as to who zizek is

although saying that here now might cause an accidental crash course

[–] YourNetworkIsHaunted@awful.systems 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

I mean, my awareness extends as far as "pure sniff ideology" and basically no context. Definitely heard some extremely bad takes on Ukraine though, which has quickly turned into my number one red flag for "actually pretty okay with Nazis when you get down to it"

EDIT: special thanks to skillissuer below for the correction re: Ukraine takes. Please trust his actual sources over my half-remembered reddit nonsense.

[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

wait wdym as extremely bad takes on ukraine, because some of these i've been able to find before going to darknet (second page of startpage search results) seem rather sane

If we pressure Ukraine now, demanding peace, it will mean creating space for Russian expansion.

https://www.instagram.com/slavojzizeks/p/C8g0yYRvLFL/

The paradox of this combination is that what presents itself as a principled stance – peace at any price – is a mask for the worst ethnic egotism and ignorance of the other’s suffering: are we aware that, although Ukraine has defended its independence, it has already lost up to a third of its population through emigration, kidnapping and death?

It is not just with respect to the oligarchs and the cultural conservatives that Ukraine must go to war with itself.

https://www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2023/08/ukraine-must-go-to-war-with-itself

We now know what the call to allow Putin to “save his face” means. It means accepting not a minor territorial compromise in Donbas but Putin’s imperial ambition.

What is absolutely unacceptable for a true leftist today is not only to support Russia but also to make a more “modest” neutral claim that the left is divided between pacifists and supporters of Ukraine, and that one should treat this division as a minor fact which shouldn’t affect the left’s global struggle against global capitalism.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jun/21/pacificsm-is-the-wrong-response-to-the-war-in-ukraine

...huh. Your sources are certainly more credible than my half-remembered reddit posts. I think I was probably mistaken on this one.

[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

my bias against self-described hegelians is reinforced, bonus points for lacanism. every single one i've heard of in some detail (not that i'm looking for them) turns out to be a crank in some capacity. n=3

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 6 points 2 months ago

Basing my opinions on who seems nice or not. I'm visualizing a very angry Taleb shouting about how these assholes learned nothing from him.

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

oh boy, some of the comments there

I think that the people in the breadline would have better things to do than be rude on twitter. Or maybe not, it is a fun way to pass the time for some.

how to instantly identify someone with a social circle barely stretching past their own nose. and I’d bet there’s some “work = moral” thinking held there, too

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

followed up by a real winner of a comment:

If you're in the breadline, hobbies and other idle time activities cost money in comparison to twitter that is "free". Don't be surprised the rhetoric is toxic like 4chan and its hordes of basement dwelling NEETs.

"dont be surprised that rhetoric is toxic"

mr pot, I have a call for you from mr kettle

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 5 points 2 months ago

generally my rule is "don't read the comments" and super double triple-mega-bonus so for the orange site, so I only glance-scan through some when I do happen to open comment threads (such as from here)

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 9 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Maybe it's because I've started reading a book about Germany and Austro-Hungary in WW1 (Ring of Steel) but I've suddenly started pattern-matching a bunch of pro A-H comments in HN. "It was a peaceful multi-national nation" well yeah until they pointlessly insisted on invading Serbia (and fucking that up twice before being bailed out by Germany) thus setting of the wider war. And when refugees from Galicia had to flee the Russians they were not happily accepted by the rest of the Empire.

Anyway, A-H was teetering on the edge before WW1 and signed their own death warrant willingly.

As always in HN you can find links to new horrifying examples of fascism: https://theworthyhouse.com/2021/06/17/the-foundationalist-manifesto-the-politics-of-future-past/

[–] sc_griffith@awful.systems 7 points 2 months ago

I guess if we're doing the rise of fascism again it's inevitable that we're doing fucking austro-hungarian empire discourse again. somehow the 1940s returned

Jesus Christ that was the most on-the-nose distillation of tech fascism that I've ever seen. Can't wait for the book to get published and see Elon et al endorsing it.

[–] o7___o7@awful.systems 5 points 2 months ago

We need a high-quality Guards! Guards! movie so that monarchists can be given the Clockwork Orange treatment with it.