1y ago

Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending Sunday 7 April 2024

Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid!

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.

133 comments

Scott Aaronson: "Open Letter to Anti-Zionists on Twitter"
Posting here rather than in a separate thread because I'm probably the only one who rememembers him from the old /r/sneerclub days, but he's an endlessly fascinating figure to me - his ability to view literally every possible scenario through the lens of "poor innocent little smol-bean Scott just wants to discuss things rationally, but is persecuted by his ontologically evil foes and their self-righteous dupes" - doesn't matter if it's feminists objecting to his older incel-y posts, Sneer Club dunking on him, cops arresting him for stealing from an airport store or leftists not being fans of the genocide he supports... He must always be the victim. His enemies must always be unreasonable and motivated by hatred of him, specifically.
- And now, maybe, I can at last go back to happier topics, like how to prevent the destruction of the world by AI.
  
  looks like he did a shit job in this area https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/
- What's he referring to when he says he's most famous for something about confronting radical feminists with his personal issues?
  
  my god, you missed out on that?
  here is way too much background reading!
  commenter on Shtetl-Optimized talks about the rapey "nice guys" she suffered at college
  Scott Aa takes this as a brutal personal attack on him
  Laurie Penny tries to be nice about it
  Amanda Marcotte? not so nice about it
  Scott Alexander weighs in with one zillion words, unreadable, so relentlessly awful that Scott demands readers not form an opinion of him based on a thousands of words essay he worked hard on and chose to publish
  Elizabeth Sandifer with the correct and readable opinion of this bilge (also long, but worth it)
Because I feel like picking on him again: https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/04/02/google-podcasts
The only Google services I use are YouTube, Google Search, Gmail, YT Studio, Chrome, and Google Keep. Oh, and the Nest app.
It’s rather glorious living a nearly Google-free digital life.
- Okay, but apart from YouTube, Google Search, Gmail, YT Studio, Chrome, Google Keep and Nest, what have the Romans ever done for us?
- I haven’t been bitten by Google killing an app or service since Google Reader, because I never again trusted them. I suppose this might be a lot more difficult for Android users, but I honestly don’t even remember the last time I added a new Google app or service to the set of tools I rely upon.
  yeah he sure as fuck won’t be bitten by trusting anything Google made after Reader, like say their thermostats that are embedded into his house (which he says don’t count because ???)
  also:
  YouTube, Google Search, Gmail, Chrome
  when your Google-free life includes all of their major products plus shit you can absolutely do without like Keep and Nest
  also also, because I keep fucking looking at it and getting mad:
  I suppose this might be a lot more difficult for Android users
  imagine being this fucking shitty about having bought an iPhone and being above the age of 13
  
  I have a couple of Android devices and even with Android added to my list of Google products, I'm pretty sure I use fewer than Gruber.
  
  when you’re such a Daring Fireball that you continue to use all of google’s products even when good alternatives are available, but insist you’re making a point by boycotting google
- While I love a good Gruber-sneer, he does qualify each existing choice extensively. I don't find the post as hypocritical as the edited extract would imply.
  His gratuitous dumping on Android users is sneer-worthy though.
  
  I have got to be honest, the justifications in the full post are half the reason why I’m sneering so hard. it’s possible I’ve got some anger left over from how much it fucking sucks to degoogle
- lol. the only google services i use are search , youtube, gmail (in the isolated browser containers), and the android phone. seems the apple licker is not degoogled at all.
- That's the markdown guy, right? Goddamn what's with these nerdbros who got popular of one thing and then becoming insufferable, if not actively reactionary shits?
  
  previously
- the only google service i use is institutional gmail. i got myself a pixel, but it's degoogled. he's not even trying
Kara Jorgensen on bsky:
I feel like 90% of these weird-ass tech start-ups are just cults for cis het dudes who think emotions are logic.
So, a lesswrong suggests gathering "The Best Tacit Knowledge Videos on Every Subject," where "tacit knowledge" is defined as "knowledge that can't properly be transmitted via verbal or written instruction". The low-hanging fruit is that the recommendations under "Finance" are Keith "Roaring Kitty" Gill of GameStop fame... and Martin Shkreli.
The higher-hanging fruit is the seeming conviction that just because a lesswrong saw somebody drone on about a thing in a YouTube video, it can't be explained in written words.
- tictac knowledge
- Shkreli is probably good for teaching you how to use Excel at 90wpm?
http://lesswrongxxx.com/
oh god what is this
- Surely an April Fools' thing?
  Still, if it's just a parody someone seems to have gone above and beyond in generating content for it.
  
  well, it is april, and they are fools
  so there's that I guess
  
  a parody in the we mean it sense
  /ratanon/ escapes containment
  
  you may be right:
  Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.squarespace.domains
  
  Registrar URL: http://squarespace.domains Updated Date: 2024-04-01T06:39:18Z Creation Date: 2024-01-14T00:27:20Z Registry Expiry Date: 2025-01-14T00:27:20Z Registrar: Squarespace Domains LLC
  but even then, the choices of content are .. telling
- "HaremCom 2024"
  sweet baby basilisk
  
  with good coverage in all the major categories: sub, masochist, and victim
  ......
  ...................
  these people truly are the worst
  (e: I want to be very clear here: this isn't meant to be kinkshaming, but as a particular highlight of their specific focuses being of a really particular slant)
afab boyfriend on Bluesky:
ME READING WARHAMMER 40K BOOKS IN 2018: this setting is so fucking dumb. No way a society would let their entire technological infrastructure be controlled by a handful of fanatics that have convinced themselves that computer code is literally God
ME NOW: Ah,
- At least in 40k they actually have godlike beings and observable magic. This is the bad place!
we’re looking for a sneerious name for a collaborative design/programming community for non-dickheads, like hacker news but not shit. thread your suggestions here!
- The Margaret Hamilton Society
  
  Just to confuse things design a logo that references both Margaret Hamilton from NASA and Margaret Hamilton the Wicked Witch actress. Maybe a woman flying on a NASA rocket-propelled bicycle, but maybe not because the slow and judgey might think that's calling NASA Hamilton a witch.
  Actually referencing a non-technical woman might even help repel HN types.
  
  the more I think about it, the more I like this one too
- The MIT alum in me wants to devise some variation on "Building 20" that conveys a "but without the worse aspects of MIT subculture" kind of message.
  
  “MIT-style culture but not run by the worst people you know” is exactly the kind of thing I’d like to convey
  e: also, implicitly, without the shit bigotry hiding under the surface that those worst people imbued the culture with
  
  "Demolishing 20"
- I'm feeling uncreative but it's a shame giggle academy is taken
  "painter news" could be a nice jab at PG's "Hackers & Painters"
  
  we don't want to mislead the actual painters
  
  "bikeshed painters club" comes to mind, but probably also too long
  
  "Cathedral Central"
- ("runk" and "GNU/Scrotum" are right out)
  
  GNU/Scrotum is a great name for a lemmy fork, but Richard’s copyright lawyers would probably sue me and the settlement terms would involve him eating his foot skin on my couch and leeching off of my wifi from his 2004 laptop for 12-24 months
  
  runk sounds it would be the name of a rust variant of troff
- hibste.rs
Esperanto-pushing F-droid forum poster goes ballistic when maintainer explains the language can't be added:
https://forum.f-droid.org/t/skandala-sinteno-de-projekt-estro-hans-christoph-steiner-skandaliczne-zachowanie-administratora-projektu-hans-christoph-steiner-scandal-behave-of-admin-hans-christoph-steiner/3771/3?ref=404media.co
Why you simple don’t start learning Esperanto? Why should the whole world learn your stupid and illogical* language? Is F-Droid project international or only for english people?
https://forum.f-droid.org/t/scandal-behavior-of-hans-christoph-steiner-again/4723?ref=404media.co
(via this 404 media post)
I honestly did not know there were axe-crazy Esperanto fans online.
- I honestly did not know there were axe-crazy Esperanto fans online.
  Oh, there are always those.
  These kind of speakers can be found also offline. It's funny they are the result on one hand of the fondness to our little language and the reactions towards it by speakers of other languages. Esperanto gets a shitload of bad reputation and the resistance to it then creates such personalities.
  In some sense they rightfully act like they act.
  Funny that this thread re-appeared during the xz "scandal". I had a little bit of fun regarding it, when it initially appeared in the f-droid forum.
  
  Yeah I mean I shouldn't be surprised really. I'm more surprised it took me so long to realize they were around. If nothing else Esperanto seems to have been losing mindshare to other conlangs like Toki Pona.
- that 404 media link is gonna be so handy to keep in my back pocket for when the worst people I know in open source inevitably start pushing back against the idea that the toxic ecosystems they created are a gigantic source of problems
this ape is a message
we considered ourselves to be a powerful yacht club
this ape is not an ape of honor
no highly esteemed juice is slurped here
-- more falafel please, SA
- @dgerard this ape is a message, and part of a blockchain of messages
  
  a blocked chain
I finally launched that collaborative software community. welcome to FreeAssembly
(PDF) The Role of Blockchain in 6G: Challenges, Opportunities, and Research Directions.
So this buzzword laden document was published by the IEEE. As far as I can tell it doesn't actually say much besides a breathless stream-of-consciousness about how blockchain and AI will make everything amazing and is terribly relevant to wireless communication protocols because reasons.
But... just read it. If you can make it to the end without your brain oozing out of your ears then you win the grand prize!
“Extreme edge”: 6G networks need to facilitate the spatial translation of many core services from the cloud to the edge networks for achieving extremely low latency communications and instant networks. The trustworthy coordination and transparent resource bookkeeping can be attained with blockchains in these systems [20].
In 4G, AI was not yet applied, while in 5G there is already a limited partial use. We expect a much deeper integration of AI on all levels of the 6G network communications with the ultimate goal to make our society super smart, super efficient and more green.
- boy oh boy the IEEE has fallen pretty fucking far hasn’t it
  Internet of Everything (IoE)
  The IoE is more general than IoT and has the purpose to seamlessly connect in an intelligent way people, processes, data and things [27]. It is expected that the IoE will re- invent business processes and business models. First, processes are optimized and automatized thanks to digital technology. Second, due to the usage of digital technology, new business models in different industries become possible. For instance, Nike is now also entering the market of healthcare via the introduction of its smart cloths and shoes.
  the IoE is defined as the internet of things but more so. fucking brilliant. I can’t wait to use digital technology in my industry. also I can’t wait for Nike to deny my insurance claim because my shoes decided I was too active to be sick.
  The role of the blockchain in this domain will mainly be to make the decision process of the machine learning methods more understandable and coherent as all the underlying elements on which the decisions are made can be traced back.
  something tells me the only reason this piece of shit was published was to reputation wash uncited claims like this one. this one specifically is a horseshit claim we’ve seen before, earlier in the generative AI hype cycle — it’s the nonsensical idea that a blockchain could somehow be used to add a verification and attribution layer to an LLM’s training data set
  Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV): UAVs or drones will also present an important part in 6G as high-data-rate wireless connectivity will be required. Here, blockchain can play a major role to contribute to the protection of the security and privacy of the drones and the thereby collected information [32]. Li et al. [33] also illustrate the significance of 5G in UAV context. IBM has even filed a blockchain patent to address drone fleet security.
  There are several blockchain based application for drones. First of all, the blockchain technology can help to arrange identity management. Next, also air traffic management can be arranged in a secure, accurate and efficient way. Finally, insurance companies can use the stored records in case of events or disputes.
  there’s a bunch of points in this document where the writing goes from the style of a confused undergrad assistant to what’s almost definitely an LLM fabricating shit. fucking behold: the blockchain will somehow secure the communication link with your UAV and authenticate it with air traffic control (what? also, these are things that existing cryptosystems are good at that blockchains specifically are fucking worthless for) and it’ll also help with your… drone insurance…?
  all of this is almost certainly an LLM generating bullshit that sounds drone-related
  finally, they didn’t even finish the conclusion paragraph:
  An exponential growth of demand anticipated for the 6G telecommunication in the information era, by 2030. The role of blockchain to eliminate limitations foreseen with the future massive demands and the the contribution to escalate the service values in telecommunication identified in the paper. The future research directions also presented in the paper.
  what do these words mean? is this what research is now?
  
  just ran into this gem too: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9205201
  it's maddening how much marketing and outright scifantasy are being washed through reputable outlets under the veneer of research and/or technical writing
- I smell bullshit written by spicy autocomplete, or at the very least it has LLM drivel pasted into it in various places.
  In Europe, GDPR directives are important drivers which will become more stringent in the coming years. Better decentralization will enable higher security especially in terms of availability for this critical domain.
  Lol what? The EPRS has quite unambiguously stated that there are multiple points of tension between blockchain tech and the GDPR, and that "decentralization == security" is a false assumption for various reasons. There's also the elephant in the room that every person maintains the right to all copies of their data at all times (mainly articles 16 and 17 GDPR), which is a problem if it exists in an uneditable distributed ledger.
  The conclusion of that study was, and I quote, "that it is not possible to assess the compatibility between 'the blockchain' and EU data protection law", and the only reason why it even might be compatible is mainly because of "the uncertain definition of 'erasure' in Article 17 GDPR". But even then they only admit that there could by hypothetical beneficial use cases but fail to find any with current blockchain tech.
  Source: Blockchain and the General Data Protection
  
  those bits of the GDPR were not written with blockchain in mind at all. However, I am reliably informed that the authors were quite delighted to find they'd preemptively made it actionably pretty much illegal to put PD on a blockchain
- I hate 'edge' in its new form as pseudotechnical marketing guff. Frex, "AI-driven MCU market surge sparks innovation in global and Chinese firms for edge AI"
with advent of HapsburgGPT inevitable, what's the next overhyped dumb thing cryptobros turned promptfondlers will turn to?
- they've been trying quantum but as awesome as quantum computing will be when it arrives, it'll be a bit obvious that in 2024, these expensive lab toys can't quite factor numbers so high as 35
  
  nanomaterials got worn out already? i mean these are real but quite underwhelming, it's always some sensor or shiny powder, not nanomachines
https://marshallbrain.com/youve-had-your-turn-the-case-for-euthanizing-everyone-at-age-65
The "How Stuff Works" guy ~~decides to be normal~~ argues that retirement should be eliminated and the elderly executed "because they're not productive". In a further fit of normalness, he endorses EO Wilson without qualification.
- Jesus Christ, this guy read A Modest Proposal and took it as fucking inspiration.
  Why is it always eugenics and euthanasia with these chucklefucks? The idea of exterminating large amounts of humans seems to tickle something in some people’s brains.
- Never heard of the dude, but despite writing a 6 part series entitled "Imagining Elon Musk’s Million-Person Mars Colony – The greatest thought experiment of all time" has has not gotten the new party line from Dear Leader that the most pressing issue is the catastrophic lack of (white) babies rather than too many people.
  OTOH porque no los dos? Force women in the "first world" to have kids, euthanize all the brown people.
  edit people killed at or around 60 is a minor plot point in the pretty terrible Asimov novel Pebble in the Sky, where it is not seen as a Good Thing.
  
  It's bizarre to me that the articles starts out arguing that this is necessary for environmental reasons, then shifts to egalitarianism (spread wealth from the global north to the south), before landing on productivity. A complete scattershot argument whose only constant is a desire to euthanize the old, with only the EO Wilson connection for any clue as to why he came to this conclusion.
  As for fiction, I think you could name probably quite a few stories that feature this kind of mandatory maximum lifespan, almost always as an obvious signpost that the government is cruel. (I am trying to remember one in particular, I think it was a short story called "Hop for Jubilee"? Ring any bells for anyone?)
from HN:
I got frustrated with ChatGPT for hallucinating sometimes, and my friend said "could be worse, could hallucinate all the time." And I thought it'd be fun to make that, and then we came up with a few more, and now we have this: https://cap-gpt.onrender.com/
- could hallucinate all the time.
  oh sweet summer child...
- I'm honestly okay with this one. This is a good AI project.
- YapGPT is just an API into yud's inner monologue isn't it
- No actually a system which hallucinates some of the time is actually worse than all of the time. People will simply not use the latter.
apparently commander chatgpt bombs gaza https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/
- I've just been staring off into space for the last half-hour trying to process this. This is legitimately a nightmare scenario. The ML and automation systems here are being used in conjunction with human policy decisions to turn a military intelligence function into an accountability sink. This is how you square the circle and turn a self-defense force into an agent of ethnic cleansing without needing to change the low-level organization to effect that goal. Everybody gets to maintain plausible deniability just enough that they can answer any uncomfortable questions and justify their actions to themselves, and by the time anyone starts to really question or investigate those justifications the job is largely done. I don't know that I could construct a clearer example of how this technology can be used to the worst possible effect.
  
  bet you won't read about it on lesswrong
- note: this is not sneer-worthy because it's hague-worthy
I mean, full points for realising it's them
- I don't understand the logic behind the playlists in nightclubs.
  (my emphasis)
  that's your problem right there bud
  
  As somebody who amateur DJ'ed (badly, very badly I must add, I'm not suddenly cool, more the reverse):
  I don't understand the logic behind the playlists in nightclubs. IMO, the choice of music is often quite bad, it leans heavily towards repetitive EDM, the playlists could consist of far more interesting music
  This is such a revealing thing. And the theorizing after it on why bars do this is even more revealing (he could have just asked). But yeah people don't go to bars for interesting new music, they come for the socializing, which is a lot easier if everybody can dance along with the music, or just nod along with it if it is more a socializing place. Sometimes there also isn't a plan but just 'we should get a DJ'.
  The whole list is a collection of 'I have no empathy and I also never thought about asking people about these things' btw. I really hope this is a teenager.
  
  @gerikson @dgerard Drugs. It's drugs.
- I took psychic damage reading some of those replies (that's 3 of them)
  hopefully the OP there can find more places to find experience and feedback from than r/ssc, though
  
  What's wrong with the weed advice? Seems reasonable enough to me.
  The 2 page treatise on inequality which is primarily impotent faffing about from "first principles" definitely hurt me though
This is praxis:
https://twitter.com/lilbubbychild/status/1772784097762402615#m

133 comments