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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[–] 12 points 1 year ago* (18 children)

This is an absolutely fascinating selection of people to have speaking at your event.

How TheLightGetsIn
HAY 2025
THE WORLD'S LARGEST PHILOSOPHY & MUSIC FESTIVAL
SPEAKERS STEVEN PINKER | LIONEL SHRIVER
SLAVOJ LIZEK | JEREMY CORBYN
SHASHI THAROOR | CLAUDIA DE RHAM | ROGER PENROSE
JORDAN STEPHENS | NICOLA STURGEON | YANIS VAROUFAKIS
RICHARD TICE | INAYA FOLARIN 'IMAN | CARLO ROVELL
ROBERT SAPOLSKY | MYRIAM FRANÇOIS | BARBARA TVERSKY PAUL BLOOM | CATHERINE LIU | ALENKA ZUPANCIC MALCOLM RIFKIND | MICHELLE TERRY | HILARY LAWSON
ROMAN YAMPOLSKIY | JO DUNKLEY | JESSE NORMAN | AARON BASTANI
KARL FRISTON | AARON MATÉ | ALYSSA NEY | IVETTE FUENTES

Whilst looking for an easily cut'n'pasted list for alt-text purposes, I discover it is even worse than it looks, because there are folk like Gad Saad too who don't get an entry on the poster for whatever reason. To steal someone else's summary, "just look at this fucking parade of grifters, scammers and out-and-out Russian assets".

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

    I opened the site for it and browsed a bit, my first thought being something like “christ, the worst of glamper festivals”, shortly after followed by “god this like is like if the worst of burning man fucked TED”

    then, bottom of the “music & performances” page:

    Europe’s answer to TED

    gnnnnnnngh

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago

    Putting philosophy talks at a music festival is one of those ideas you come up with to try and sound smart, cool, and edgy, but as a high schooler who has never done drugs nor been to a live show before.

    Anyway I went through the lineup summaries on the wikipedia page, two notes:

    1. No Jay Shetty! His particular brand of grift philosophy and thinly veiled clout chasing would fit in exactly at this sort of event. Then again, this festival might actually be beneath him, as he hangs out with hollywood a-listers.
    2. The lineup noticeably hits its turning point into a nosedive when they start hosting Pinker in 2018.
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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    'nightmare blunt roration' as people say. See the greyzone is also present.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    as in the tankies? i don't see blumenthal in there

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (4 children)
  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

    ah okay, it's been a while since they were relevant

    grayzone, the: low quality disinformation source constantly praising putin and assad while downplaying their warcrimes and amplifying conspiracy theories favourable to these two. not to be confused with greyzone, a wagner group associated telegram channel

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Ah my bad, i always mess the spelling of gray/grey up.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    weirder thing is that blumenthal (american) uses british spelling, and russians (where british english was taught more commonly when it was relevant for them? i think?) used american spelling

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    I'm glad that messing it up is at least common.

    Search engines also must wonder why I'm so interested in couches and coaches because I know which word I mean, I don't always know how it is spelled. There prob is a nice mnemonic involving Vance and Waltz I could think off that would help me with that problem however.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    The only one I've met is Carlo Rovelli, at the APS March Meeting in 2019. We work in adjacent topics, but I don't travel much. I know people who know him better, and I haven't heard stories of him being horrible, for whatever that's worth. He does come across as a bit of an eager self-promoter. I can easily imagine him accepting an invitation on the "a gig's a gig" principle.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    "Philosophy & Music" are indeed two categories of things that share one letter between them.

    Feel very happy to recognise only Corbyn and Penrose by name, no idea what any of them are doing there.

    I mean, I know who Penrose was, but from the context I assume he's probably acutely suffering from Nobel Disease and I have zero idea what he's been up to outside of physics.

    And isn't Corbyn just a boring lefty UK politician? Does he have like a philosophy background or something?

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Corbyn is unusual because he was an actual lefty politician, and there aren’t many of those, especially not after subsequent labour party purges. The weirder one is Rifkind, who was a politician alongside Thatcher, but sometimes disagreed with her soft and centrist views. Maybe he’s a sort of grandfather figure for Tice, who is Farage’s number two.

    Weird mix of wingnuts. Probably all united by their transphobia, though.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    I mean, I know who Penrose was, but from the context I assume he’s probably acutely suffering from Nobel Disease and I have zero idea what he’s been up to outside of physics.

    He is busy being 93 fucking years old, lol

    And isn’t Corbyn just a boring lefty UK politician? Does he have like a philosophy background or something?

    They probably couldn’t get Bernie.

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