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dgerard@awful.systems

Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending Sunday 26 May 2024 (awful.systems)

submitted 7 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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[–] dgerard@awful.systems 12 points 7 months ago (6 children)

so cultish that even the LW comments worry it's cultish - don't worry about my feet bleeding

[–] zogwarg@awful.systems 15 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Meanwhile some of the comments are downright terrifying, also the whole "research" output is overly-detailed yet lacking any substance, and deeply deeply in fantasy land, but all the comments a debating in favour of or against what is perceived as "real work", and in terms of presentation "vibes".

I mean my parents always said that fascist/cultish movements have issues distinguishing signified and signifier, but good grief. (Yes too much Lacan in the household)

[–] sinedpick@awful.systems 11 points 7 months ago

I love the guy who goes in and says "but you really should give this guy money! I know he has produced absolutely no research or work worthy of a second glance but he's my friend and I promise he SOUNDS suuuuper smart! btw I read the Sequences once. funding now??"

I wonder what Peter Thiel would think about using disability benefits. Does he fly Ayn Rand style, where it's okay to benefit from it while actively campaigning against it?

[–] earthquake@lemm.ee 11 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

None of the commenters seem to think keeping a safe work environment is part of work.

EA overdue to all be wiped out from a disease contracted from a dirty telephone.

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 7 points 7 months ago

Just like everybody else, i understood that reference!

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Please hire me for AI safety, I create active work place hazards around me and therefore small children and animals are not safe around me, but I really work hard (unless it is cleaning up).

Wonder if he is single.

This post also reminds me of the story I heard about a brilliant but weird math professor who had a tendency to touch walls when he walked around in the building. Eventually, in supreme cargo cult behavior, students also started to touch walls in an unconscious hope this would improve their math skills. Anyway this guys hopes and dreams to be hired would be shattered if he ever hears the people hiring him are a fan of Taleb.

Good that the communities first reaction is saying this is a mh red flag. (It is also a workplace red flag)

[+] gnomicutterance@hachyderm.io 12 points 7 months ago (1 children)

[deleted]

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I have worked with a couple of these eager shitwits over the years, and they are awful. they'll effortgraft waaaay into a thing that they think is totes the solution, "deliver" it as "done" (aka "here's a branch that already does all that, we can take it live now"), which all so handily allows them to frame any questions/criticism/etc as "don't you think we need ${problem} to be solved?"

the. fucking. worst.

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 5 points 7 months ago

sudden flashback to when $eagerdev pushed a branch that implemented test-infra steered by ansible.. in which you needed to write secondary, entirely separate, roles/specs for the test-infra thing to "verify"

(didn't even try to hook ansible definitions (frankly I wouldn't want to either (but if ansible weren't so fucking shit at what it does _that whole thing wouldn't have been necessary in the first place)))

[–] sinedpick@awful.systems 10 points 7 months ago

Back when I used reddit, r/badmathematics would feature weirdos that posted REAMS of shit just like that guy's whiteboard pictures. There, we called them cranks.

[–] jonhendry@iosdev.space 5 points 7 months ago (2 children)

@dgerard

Never occurred to them to simply put shoes on.

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 8 points 7 months ago

Shoes aren’t rational

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

you know what

a not-insignificant element of the TPOT cluster is the "cozy"/"vibes" aspect

and for some reason your reply just made me think the thought "while they espouse their shitty views they want to be comfortable, to maximize feeling unchallenged, to really get into it"

on the one hand it feels like an obvious realisation, but I also hadn't really thought of it specifically like that before

(admittedly I'm briefly jumping from "rats -> postrats" there by referencing the TPOT cluster, but as is known the latter haven't really changed their beliefs just their rendering)