this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2025
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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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[–] sailor_sega_saturn@awful.systems 13 points 1 month ago (6 children)

Computer understanders, click this link for some psychic damage! :D (aside: I tried to upload this as an image but it didn't work)

[–] bitofhope@awful.systems 13 points 1 month ago

Coiners are terminally brain poisoned by financialization of everything. HTTP represented by three payment processors (and I don't even know if paying with Google or Apple pay involves HTTP but whatever).

Yet the money protocol is Bitcoin, apparently.

[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 11 points 1 month ago (2 children)
[–] nightsky@awful.systems 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Ah, so Google Search runs on UDP, interesting, that must be why it's so unreliable now.

[–] self@awful.systems 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

HTTP: famous for doing Google pay, Apple Pay, PayPal, and nothing else. no other use has been found for http

(also, FTP! as indicated by these apps that famously don’t use or support it!)

Well obviously they can't be the money protocol, whatever that even means. Surely something like FIX would be the closest thing to an actual protocol for money, as opposed to a system.

[–] mountainriver@awful.systems 10 points 1 month ago

12 of the most valuable protocols on earth!

Counting like a chatbot.

[–] self@awful.systems 9 points 1 month ago

huh, pict-rs has been acting up a lot lately. I’m gonna give the whole node a quick reboot later and see if that fixes things

[–] khalid_salad@awful.systems 7 points 1 month ago

my pants are an anti-embarrassment protocol

The fact that DNS is "Domain Name Protocol" rather than the actual acronym (Domain Name System) is baffling and maddening.

[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 13 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Welp, time to start the thread with fresh Awful for everyone to regret:

r/phenotypes

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 7 points 1 month ago

Really? Right in the front of the clean new thread?

image descriptionExtremely simplistic drawing of a somewhat sad looking person. Drawn by the artist 'flork of crows'[sic]. Reference to the 'Really? Right In Front Of My X?' meme

[–] flowerysong@awful.systems 2 points 1 month ago

Thanks, I hate it.

Many of these threads are made in good faith and out of curiousity, but often times the comments become filled with hatred, ignorance, and trolling.

You don't say.

[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 12 points 1 month ago (6 children)

Paul I am begging you to actually write out a fucking timeline. Apparently woke started in the 80s in universities when the (white) civil rights protestors of the 70s got tenure in the 60s, as an inevitable and predictable extension of political correctness in the 90s. From the title you're obviously going to indulge the conservative fantasy that "wokeness" is a coherent thing rather than a political tool to dismiss calls for action to actually address blatant injustice. But if you're going to bullshit me, at least do it competently and have an internally consistent narrative that allows for the natural passage of time.

[–] BlueMonday1984@awful.systems 11 points 1 month ago

Man wrote nearly 5k words of pure unfiltered cap:

I'm not sure how someone can read all this without capping themselves. We could sneer this all fucking day.

[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 10 points 1 month ago

If you can't get through two short paragraphs without equating Stalinism and "social justice", you may be a cockwomble.

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I'm not reading that shit but for the masochists out there who like to read HN licking VC boots, here ya go

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42682305

[–] slopjockey@awful.systems 9 points 1 month ago

I've been a big fan of HN comments lately

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

As many writers (perhaps most eloquently George Orwell) have observed, women seem more attracted than men to the idea of being moral enforcers.

Ah, thanks Paul for validating my disdain for Orwell at least.

[–] mosiacmango@lemm.ee 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

George was writing his stories in the 40s, so at least has "product of his time" as an excuse.

Paul's just a flat out piece of shit to be writing this nearly 100 years later.

[–] Amoeba_Girl@awful.systems 6 points 1 month ago

Fair, though in Orwell's case the misogyny is not accidental either, but an essential aspect of the mostly conservative ideology he adopted for 1984 (contempt for the working class, linguistic purism, just really being a little too enamoured with his perfect crystal of unending oppression etc).

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 2 points 1 month ago

Considering popes, priests in general, politicians etc are usually male (historically) i have a feeling these quotes also exclude some groups from being moral enforcers.

It also neatly ignores social pressures, which provides good reasons for women being into certain types of 'moral enforcement'. Either because 'it is their duty to protect the kids' or the revolutionary idea that people are all people and should have equal rites, bodily autonomy, a political voice etc.

But nope: "me and the boys agree, this wokeness stuff is for girls".

This all makes me wonder, we know he has proofreaders who help him. Did he either get rid of all the people who disagree with him, or did they give up, as some people dont want understand the other side they just want to argue their forever cause they believe they are correct (so disagreement is a massive waste of time).

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

The opening statement is also quite silly already (and makes me belief in a companion to the dead internet theory, the dementia internet theory, as I was sure we have had conversations like this as 'the internet' already, Zuck turning manospherian all of a sudden also makes me thing this (same with the fight over H-1B on the US right, they had that in 2018 already, Trump likes H-1B)).

We had the whole 'they act like they are morally superior' discussion already a lot, and that was about vegans. Only one problem, they are morally superior on almost all ethical/moral/ideological systems you can think of. Sure hedonists, stoics (who are not allowed to complain), sadists, accelerationist extinctionists, ironic nihilistic status quo pushing postmodernists, all disagree they are superior morally but who cares about the opinion of those people. Sure some of them might be annoying to people, but annoying people can be morally superior.

His statements about how politically correctness comes from the 80's is also wrong (it predates that, and has quite a complex history of being used by various different groups for different meanings), but at that moment I knew I was going to be wasting my time reading this as I would disagree with every paragraph. (as I have seen these types of articles before, they were popular a decade ago or so).

E:

Thanks to Sam Altman, Ben Miller, Daniel Gackle, Robin Hanson, Jessica Livingston, Greg Lukianoff, Harj Taggar, Garry Tan, and Tim Urban for reading drafts of this. {emph mine, the names that really jumped out to me]

Ah. Also 1 name which jumps out to me as prob a woman. Let me google her. Ah right. His wife, and co-founder.

[–] o7___o7@awful.systems 12 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (5 children)

Read a rumor that zuck's marriage is falling apart, which scans.

A second divorced man is about to hit the tower.

[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 1 month ago

i wonder where his roman empire fascination fits the pattern? also, who's next, maybe thiel?

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

my first thought on hearing the same was "if this is what he's like in public, imagine what it's like at home"

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

He has two sisters, and one of them wrote a book about the manosphere/redpill (from a non rw way) shit in 2018. So fam gatherings will be wild.

Does creating a cover of Get Low called "Z-Pain" for your wife, or commissioning the creation of a giant green statue for your wife strike you as the sorts of things someone in an unhealthy marriage would do? I think not!

[–] pikesley@mastodon.me.uk 7 points 1 month ago

@o7___o7 @blakestacey

This does have "Divorced Dad" vibes tbh

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 4 points 1 month ago

I wish that men would go to therapy instead of going full fascist. Fuck this whole society. The West cannot fall sooner.

[–] self@awful.systems 10 points 1 month ago (2 children)

MDN has fucking ads now????

(also, image uploads are back, weird how pict-rs sometimes just shits the bed)

image descriptiona fucking “ads by Mozilla” banner at the top of mdn web docs advertising mongodb’s LLM of all fucking things

[–] sailor_sega_saturn@awful.systems 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

After this post I went back and read all the fallout from when they added and subsequently "paused" AI Explain and it was as entertaining as I remember (1, 2, 3, 4, 5).

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

that tracks

it's one of their best places to start boiling the frog

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

mdn’s only job is to be better than w3schools but here comes Mozilla removing the value from another one of their own projects

also not pictured: there was a fucking side banner ad I didn’t feel like screenshotting too, of course

[–] self@awful.systems 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

holy fuck I just realized the diabolical part of this horseshit:

I only know about the mdn ads cause my development browser doesn’t have an adblocker as a matter of practice (which I’m very quickly considering revising)

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 5 points 1 month ago

that, but also I meant specifically that it allows them to "build confidence" inside the company

"look, we've been running ads on mdn for weeks now, and no-one's complained! obvies we can put it on $xyz other places now too!" with a heavy subtext of "why are you being the one that's obstructing this?"

I possess no insider information whatsoever and I'll fairly confidently state that I think it's a fucking strategic choice. guess we get to wait 6~12mo to see how cassandra that statement is

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 7 points 1 month ago

nasb, it warms my cold diamond heart to continue seeing instances of people going "oh, yeah, uh.... actually, no, fuck that shit. we'll do it ourselves" in response to broadcom's attempt to Raise Revenue Through Product Capture

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 5 points 1 month ago

Looks like LW/Lightcone managed to convince enough people to give then $2M, which will totally not be used to settle sexual assault lawsuits in the future.

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 4 points 1 month ago

With risk of falling into the 'classify people into two binary groups' thing which I have often criticized the Rationalist for. Move over jock vs nerd. There is Jock vs Creep.