this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2024
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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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Need to make a primal scream without gathering 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 facts of 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.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Couldn't find the way to turn this into a pithy blog post so just dumping it here:

does anyone else feel that the rationalists want a future of a billion trillion virtual humans, each and every one with an immutable gender bit set?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago

Yeah, in my opinion Slatestarcodex also said something like that, that the idea of Rationalism lead to transphobia. (others read that part as being more anti-transphobia, or with a more positive slant re Rationalism/Scott).

Not a huge surprise if you fetishise math and numbers, and miss the point of seeing like a state.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

Case in point, or the exception that proves the rule: Is being a trans woman (or just low-T) +20 IQ?

Warning: This post might be depressing to read for everyone except trans women.

Actual warning: This post and the comments is a particularly bad example of rationalists being red-pilled sexists. Even by rationalist standards. Don't say I didn't warn you.


But yeah this goes way back and is really enmeshed in their worldview. Robin Hanson has been blogging terrible takes about gender for almost 20 years on Overcoming Bias, which Lesswrong split off from.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

it is a little entertaining to hear them do extended pontifications on what society would look like if we had pocket-size AGI, life-extension or immortality tech, total-immersion VR, actually-good brain-computer interfaces, mind uploading, etc. etc. and then turn around and pitch a fit when someone says "okay so imagine if there were a type of person that wasn't a guy or a girl"

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (4 children)

Shouldn't they be fans of The Culture? And didn't The Culture have people changing gender for any reason (including curiosity), and it was accepted?

(It was years since I read those books, so I could confuse it with something else.)

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (12 children)

the Culture humans accepted being subsumed into a Mind after 400 years, so Yudkowsky disapproves. He also dislikes The Minds.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (4 children)

Off Topic: Politcs

spoiler

Best of luck to our folks in the UK, enjoy the Tory tears!

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I’d sure love to “gamify” my health for $10 a month 🥴

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago

This is just the Glucoboy but worse

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

When I eventually shuffle off this mortal coil (not any time soon don't worry!) I'll do so with a cell-phone in my hand, open to whatever god-forsaken replacement for the American healthcare system Silicon Valley dreams up.

My family would find me lying there unconscious. The animated corporate mascot, looking slightly uncertain but still happy, would just repeat in a sing-song cartoonish voice "You might want to check your blood pressure!" and "you still haven't completed today's tasks for Health+ points! But don't worry, there's still time!"

Eventually they manage to shut Healthy Bob up; but continue to receive birthday reminders from Pinstagrambook long after my passing, with no setting to turn it off.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago

Thanks I hate it

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

never really seen ludicity blog before, now that i read up ten posts on so in a single sitting i lowkey want to fuck off to live in a cabin in the woods

the sheer wastefulness of it all, bubbleness of its economics, piling technical debt, institutional stupidity, and the man also feels off in a way that i can't put my finger on (maybe just by association)

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (2 children)

ludic be like: this industry makes no sense and causes untold suffering, but if you emit right vibes you can get by and make a pile of cash. Let me help you make a bank off those rubes

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Well, there is no ethical work under capitalism.

Also he clearly has good intentions when it comes to what jobs he seeks.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (3 children)

me talking to someone after describing a dumb and horrible LW thing:

i feel like i'm describing a livejournal fanfic cult, which i guess i am

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

one of the worse things about LW is that even just explaining their beliefs to uninvolved people makes you look like a complete weirdo

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago

I’ve (irl) met a “part-time” LW reader and tried to have a conversation about some of the shit, and … same experience

just utterly had no ability to even receive the information about the longstanding sexual abuse or statements of yud being a charisma-for-nerds grifter

(had an earlier conversation with ‘em some many months prior calling out many of issues in coiner world after they’d gone laser-eyes having read the bitcoin paper, and they eventually got their head out of their ass, so…. I’m hopeful it’s not all lost yet)

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

as a former member of multiple livejournal fanfic circlejerks, I am so sad that LW didn't join the rest of LJ in (1) getting off or (2) being mean on fandom_wank, and instead decided to create the torment nexus.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

i expect dreamwidth took one look and Denise got out the flamethrower

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago

hahaha no failfandomanon is extremely at Dreamwidth, but I think the wankiest people mostly moved to other places in recent years.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Well the FFVII house was kinda like a rationalist grouphouse…

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

wait. You’re telling me a poly nest based on FF7 fandom exist(s/ed)? And I wasn’t part of it?!?!?!

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Aaaand, there it is.

I remember I used to watch this guy's videos, and the icon for the image viewer in serenity was pepe the frog. And he also admitted to browsing 4chan. And he changed his twitter link to x.com before even twitter changed it. Also it was kinda weird that he had some private discord channels whose contents he was very secretive of. Now that he's making a nonprofit with github's former CEO, there is absolutely zero barriers to the exact same bullshit from all the companies he complains about.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Ehhhh. This is the identical PR they ended up accepting: https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/pull/24648

I have feels about the implied “the author behaves like a shithead because he’s ESL” but eh. If it works.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago

yeah, pretending that this is just a misunderstanding of the language is a bit disingenuous, but i'm not going to argue with the results.

this:

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