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Want to wade into the snowy 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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[-] Amoeba_Girl@awful.systems 4 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

Suppose you're a college grad who has to decide between the usual unpaid internships at dumb startups vs. getting to be a 'research fellow' for a group that says it's going to solve philosophy and save the world, and the only catch is that the group is actually a cult. Still seems pretty tempting honestly.

Oh?

I mean, giving inflated titles and grandiose plans is part of the sales pitch. Y'know, for the cult.

Like, I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding here. The problem isn't that the people who want to be cult leaders are able to attract a lot of people who are preinclined to be cult followers and those people suffer the associated psychic damages. It's that even the less culty parts of the rationalist subculture seem to produce a weirdly high number of wannabe cult leaders, even if they don't conceptualize themselves that way.

[-] Soyweiser@awful.systems 4 points 8 hours ago

a group that says it’s going to solve philosophy

This must hit really hard if you are Wittgenstein

[-] CinnasVerses@awful.systems 3 points 14 hours ago

My first degree was a professional degree, so after college I went out and got a paid job doing that, using the experience I had developed in paid summer jobs. Even when I was young I think I would have said no to Leverage Research.

this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2026
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