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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.

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dgerard@awful.systems

Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending Sunday 24 March 2024 (awful.systems)

submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by dgerard@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems

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Feel like you want to sneer about something but you don't quite have a snappy post in you? 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 here 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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[–] fasterandworse@awful.systems 8 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

CZ created the Giggle Academy (from prison?) which seems to be an NFT fuelled education thing that wants everything to be automated with as little effort as possible.

https://web.archive.org/web/20240320105524/https://www.giggleacademy.com/

the website links to a "concept paper" which is nothing but a brainstorm doc which has a clear problem statement followed by a list of mushy, kinda, sorta, items that don't add up to much at all

https://web.archive.org/web/20240320105858/https://www.giggleacademy.com/Giggle%20Academy%20v0.4%2020240221.pdf

such as these under "gamification";

Badges (NFTs), points, scores, rankings, etc.

Early education (elementary school levels) are easier to gamify. High school subjects become more difficult as the subject becomes more complex. Hopefully by then, the kids have developed enough learning habits to sustain their on-going learning.

or under "completely online"

There are some drawbacks to the online approach, such as lack of peer support, group learning, etc. We won’t be able to solve all problems. We will try to address some of these issues in later iterations.

Use AI & automation

Scalable

The page has a careers page, looking for gamification people and content creators, so there's at least some money there (?)

anyway, dodgy af

[–] fasterandworse@awful.systems 6 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

this project intrigues me because we're able to see the brainstorm doc that he believes is shareworthy, combined with a reasonably slick website and a careers page.

There is no open position for a "product designer" or any kind of role that would be interested in concretely working on addressing the clear problem statement in the brainstorm doc. I have to assume there isn't anyone in the group doing that already because they would not let a brainstorm doc be published like that, as if it has any value.

This is what bothers me so much about iterative design culture and the "doing something is better than nothing" mantra. It makes out that identifying the problem/purpose is the assignment, and undermines the REAL design work of coming up with a good response to that purpose.

If this project gets off the ground, they'll start building and they'll hire UX designers and they'll just make something that resembles an online school and focus on making sure it has blockchains and nfts and all that shit, and the whole concept of "design" will be relegated to user acceptance and finding frictions to remove.

At no point will anyone sit down and say "how can we effectively address illiteracy in developing countries" and find out why, what, how, and all the barriers, all the realities, the complexities, the options for means to achieve certain things, all the DESIGN.

Its no different for everything else in tech, they all start from this point where nothing was initially designed beyond throwing together an idea and iterating it into a behemoth that needs an army of staff to groom its hair and clip its toenails. The people given design titles (ux designers, product designers) are not answering to an overarching design or any principled basis for design.

it should also be said that the giggle academy is probably a publicity thing for CZ's character

[–] jonhendry@awful.systems 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

"Children's website launched by inmates" ought to be the end of it.

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)

skibidi toilet, right, but on the blockchain

[–] V0ldek@awful.systems 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I like the character arc of David learning about skibidi toilet and having his entire understanding of the universe pivoted with respect to it.

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 4 points 8 months ago

TELL ME I'M WRONG

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 6 points 8 months ago

Giggle Academy (from prison?)

my brain latches onto this as "gigglepig" (a la Brooklyn 99), and will accept no other meanings