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Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 12th October 2025 (awful.systems)
submitted 4 months ago by BlueMonday1984@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems
183 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Want to wade into the 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 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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[-] sc_griffith@awful.systems 13 points 4 months ago

what are some of the all time most ludicrous and/or bigoted lesswrong posts? i am starting a podcast where my cohost and i show each other shockingly weird or bigoted texts and discuss them. mostly we're doing historical ones but rationalist stuff is fair game

[-] Architeuthis@awful.systems 12 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

The reflective altruism guy has an ongoing series on hbd in the rat community that includes a bunch of that, you should check him out.

For example https://reflectivealtruism.com/2025/04/18/human-biodiversity-part-7-lesswrong/

[-] mii@awful.systems 9 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I think Yud's "ethical solution" to pedophilia will always have a place in my top ten of maximally unhinged shit I've ever seen on LW.

(The whole thread is a doozy.)

[-] Architeuthis@awful.systems 7 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

So much psychic damage (and also /r/brandnewsentence material) in that thread...

The problem is solved by pairing those who wish to live longer at personal cost to themselves with virtuous pedophiles.

edit: That's not the alluded Yud's solution btw

edit edit:

I still wouldn't be all that tempted in his place, if pedophilia is merely a positive description. There's little advantage in not being a pedophile.

Man rationalists from back when they didn't worry about being youtube-ready were something else.

[-] sc_griffith@awful.systems 7 points 3 months ago

this post is so mentally damaging that seeing it here two years ago is one of my most vivid sneer memories

https://awful.systems/post/694102

[-] Soyweiser@awful.systems 6 points 3 months ago

Also amazing how he, who wants to teach others rationality, writes a post like that which such an obvious flaw. (How do you know you can trust the sign? What stops people abusing this by writing signs themselves?)

[-] hrrrngh@awful.systems 9 points 3 months ago

Sadly I misremembered and this one wasn't from LW but I'll share it anyway. I think I had just finished reading a bunch of the "Most effective aid for Gaza?" reddit drama which was like a nuclear bomb going off, and then stumbled into this shrimp thing and it physically broke me.

If we came across very mentally disabled people or extremely early babies (perhaps in a world where we could extract fetuses from the womb after just a few weeks) that could feel pain but only had cognition as complex as shrimp, it would be bad if they were burned with a hot iron, so that they cried out. It's not just because they'd be smart later, as their hurting would still be bad if the babies were terminally ill so that they wouldn't be smart later, or, in the case of the cognitively enfeebled who'd be permanently mentally stunted.

source: https://benthams.substack.com/p/the-best-charity-isnt-what-you-think

Discussion here (special mention to the comment that says "Did the human pet guy write this"): https://awful.systems/comment/5412818

[-] YourNetworkIsHaunted@awful.systems 9 points 4 months ago

Scott's Reactionary Philosophy In A Nutshell comes to mind. Also, don't forget to plug it here once the pilot is up somewhere. Count me as very interested.

[-] sc_griffith@awful.systems 4 points 3 months ago

I will! @odiumsymposium on bsky in the meantime

[-] Soyweiser@awful.systems 7 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

If you want a little hit of an unfair one, might want to look into the some of the weird manosphere guys who joined LW early on. Like https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Davis_Aurini.

E: Ah doesnt seem he wrote much (e: ah seems the site doesnt show the comments, change the ones it shows and they turn up): https://www.lesswrong.com/users/aurini (or it got purged). Amazingly, he is actually not the worst: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/aPCKiEd2G8H3kkdnN/the-dark-arts-preamble?commentId=3nrQddAAYnZzegPt5

[-] saucerwizard@awful.systems 7 points 3 months ago

Does Anissimov count?

[-] hrrrngh@awful.systems 5 points 3 months ago

ah seems the site doesnt show the comments, change the ones it shows and they turn up

Oh man, I've found the old LW accounts of a few weird people and they didn't have any comments. Now I'm wondering if they did and I just didn't sort it

[-] blakestacey@awful.systems 5 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

It wasn't on LW proper, but Yud endorsing a pedo science-fiction book as "basically Safe For Work" has to be up there.

https://awful.systems/post/2972738

Also PrimalPoly's dating advice:

https://awful.systems/post/67

[-] self@awful.systems 5 points 3 months ago

ooh finally I’ve got a second podcast to listen to other than BtB

this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2025
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