this post was submitted on 14 Sep 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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[–] zogwarg@awful.systems 4 points 1 week ago (6 children)

It's nice to be reminded that the past was also crazy.

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (5 children)

much of the lore of the early/earlier internet being built is also full of some extremely, extremely unhinged stuff. I've had some first-hand in-the-trenches accounts from people I've known active from the early-mid 90s to middle 00s and holy shit there are some batshit things happening in places. often think of it when I see the kinds of shit thiel/musk/etc are all up to (a lot of it boils down to "they're big mad that they have to even consider other people and can't just do whatever they like")

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 3 points 6 days ago (4 children)

Mark Dery and Paulina Borsook nailed these fuckers square on in the '90s, but nobody reads books

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I’m down with reading books it’s just hard to select them without known reference recommendations

Gonna acquire the works of both, ty :D

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

largely not available digitally, though someone's putting together a Borsook reissue

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