this post was submitted on 29 Mar 2026
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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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Want to wade into the ~~snowy~~ sandy surf of the abyss? 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 so 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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[–] nfultz@awful.systems 3 points 7 hours ago

Internet Comment Etiquette: "Relationships with AI"

... hadn't thought about Glenn Beck in a decade, that last interview was pretty wtf.

Not sure what the etiquette is for how long they should be dead before you talk to the AI-geist on youtube, but George Washington somehow feels weirder than Kirk did; idk.

[–] lurker@awful.systems 5 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (1 children)

This article on the brand of journalism that's just parroting what the CEOs say, otherwise known as "CEO said a thing!" journalism

The grand irony is I'm not even sure most people click on or read this sort of stuff. I don't think it's often even created to be read by anyone. I think it's created as a sort of swaddling fan fiction for MBAs, advertisers, event sponsors and sources, so they can tune out ethical quibbles and feel good about how clever they are.

Every time someone hypes up Steve Jobs' "reality distortion field" this is what they're actually talking about whether they realize it or not.

[–] CinnasVerses@awful.systems 3 points 10 hours ago

Is Trace (Tracing Woodgrains) the only one of our friends who has served in the military? A lot of neurodivergent young people spend some time in the US military and some of our friends were the right age to get in before the War on Abstract Nouns began.

[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 8 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

A pretty staid-sounding law firm warns that the AI industry is partying like it's 2007:

Lenders who originated data center loans [...] have begun pooling those loans and selling tranches to asset managers and pension funds, spreading risk well beyond the original lending institutions.

Also of note:

The most basic litigation risk in AI infrastructure finance is that the revenues generated by the sector may prove insufficient to service the fixed obligations incurred to build it. The industry brought in approximately $60 billion in revenue in 2025 against roughly $400 billion in capital expenditure.

(Via.)

[–] samvines@awful.systems 7 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)
[–] nfultz@awful.systems 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

https://mail.cyberneticforests.com/the-computer-science-fetish/

The fetishism of the computer scientist therefore refers less to specific expertise than to whatever we imagine a credentialed expert can bestow: an external voice that says, "ask, and you shall receive.” The computer scientist becomes a mirror where those who work with the social, practical impacts of the tech hope to see our understanding affirmed. The people who offer that validation — who position themselves against the discourse of critique, who seem unbothered and detached, even ridiculing the same critical lingo that exhausts you — are not doing it out of sober objectivity or insight.

Sometimes they just don't respect you. Sometimes they're just annoyed by calls for accountability. And sometimes, they do it because they've fused with an interacting swarm of chatbots and transcended their human identity.

[–] picklefactory@awful.systems 3 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

I've been reading this guy's blog and techpolicy.press articles for about a year and have found them very worthwhile.

I was sufficiently interested based off of this that I tracked down a few others of his. This one felt like a good take for an era where these things are being used for more than just slop generation despite the underlying flaws not being resolved.