this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2025
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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.

This is not debate club. Unless it’s amusing debate.

For actually-good tech, you want our NotAwfulTech community

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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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[–] BlueMonday1984@awful.systems 3 points 1 hour ago

Presented without comment. (Don't have source, but I did find another link mocking Grok glazing Musk)

[–] JFranek@awful.systems 1 points 2 hours ago

Sometimes, I get to peer into the AI pilled brain, and it is... uh... not good.

But now if I suffer from Imposter syndrome I can remind myself that some other people take advice from clankers.

https://bsky.app/profile/carnage4life.bsky.social/post/3m634z3r7kk2l

Transcript:

The fact I can login every morning and ask an AI to review all my emails and chats from yesterday then given what it knows about my goals and my role it should suggest what I could have done better is amazing.

Bubble or not, AI is huge for personal productivity and overall improvement.

[–] nfultz@awful.systems 4 points 4 hours ago

The generic abyss of artificial intelligence | John R. Gallagher

All this business talk from CEOs about AI automating work comes down to them not valuing the input of workers. You can hear the jubilant ejaculative rhetoric about robots because robots represent firing all the workers. CEOs see their workers as interchangeable laborers who fit inside of templates. They want workers who pull the levers of templates. They’ve always wanted this since the individual revolution. But now the templates are no longer physical commodities but instead our stories, our genres.

Call it template capitalism. Social media companies are already operating under this logic through the templates they force on users. As the car companies have done by forcing drivers into templates. Or shoe companies have accomplished with standard sizes. There’s nothing stopping the knowledge sectors of the economy from extending that logic to workers. Knowledge workers are being deskilled by making them obey the generic templates of LLMs.

Template capitalism hollows out the judgment of individual knowledge workers by replacing slowly accreted genre experiences with the summed average of all genres. Under this system, knowledge workers merely ensure the machines don’t make errors (or what the AI companies have just relabeled “hallucinations”). The nuance of situated knowledge evaporates, leaving behind procedural obedience. The erosion of individual judgment is the point. Workers who diverge from the ordained path of LLMs are expendable. If you challenge the templates, you get fired.

They've always wanted this, indeed. There's some comfort to me in the reminder that this year's layoffs are no different than the last cycle, except maybe the excuses are thinner.

[–] veganes_hack@feddit.org 5 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

found this sneer-y blog post prompted by some linkedin lunatic posting his "agentic cockpit"

[–] o7___o7@awful.systems 4 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

I feel like "we'll just build a world model" is on the same level as saying " we'll just solve the P vs NP problem."

img textHow to draw an owl:

  1. draw a circle. (drawing of a circle)
  2. draw the rest of the fucking owl. (very skillful and detailed drawing of an owl)

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 4 points 6 hours ago

210 IQ is not enough

Being really "smart" (along some axis) doesn't make you succesful or even happy.

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 3 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

NAS: Found out just now that Simone Veil’s pictures for sad children is back online, and has been for a while now. Her art meant a lot to me when I was reading it. Just letting you all know in case it meant something to you too.

[–] flamingos@feddit.uk 8 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

Armin Ronacher, creator of the vastly popular Python Flask and Jinja framworks, comes out in defence of DHH, saying his racist diatribe about the ethnic make up of London was in fact not racist, and the state of Israel, that it's apparently fine that it remains an oppressive ethnostate in order to 'preserve its particular cultural identity'.

https://lobste.rs/s/necwp9/praise_dhh#c_r1jvrx (archive)

https://mastodon.social/@alatiera/115531823601853748

[–] nfultz@awful.systems 2 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

time for me to learn something else, then; what do people use these days for microservices instead of flask? fastapi?

EDIT:

oh come the fuck on google AIO

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 4 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Yep, he’s been saying bad shit for a while (18~24mo I’m aware of), glad more people are seeing it through

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 5 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

also a massive massive promptfondler

[–] BlueMonday1984@awful.systems 3 points 10 hours ago

Not content with forcing AI on anyone and everyone, Apple has forced the lying machines on AI-rejecting writing software Scrivener.

[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 12 points 18 hours ago (5 children)

Yud:

one of Earth's top scientists on sex and gender has published her latest work

It's Aella.

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 8 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

second take from me. Here's the full tweet:

one of Earth's top scientists on sex and gender has published her latest work, open for all to read in a widely read venue on that science topic, where it will receive far more peer scrutiny than any lesser forum provides

I'm going to read this as a joke because he didn't end it with a period, and he is secretly beefing with aella

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 5 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

Ah more anti-intellectualism from the proto cult leader.

This does mean, as the standards are so low, that we all have a phd on Rationalism.

[–] sailor_sega_saturn@awful.systems 8 points 16 hours ago (2 children)

I expect her methodology was great but I don't actually know what it was.

Science!

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 3 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

cursed thought

…is that yud for “she’s refused to fuck me”?

[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 1 points 2 hours ago

cursed corollary to Poe's LawYud being secretly contemptuous of Aella is indistinguishable from Yud being horny for Aella

[–] sailor_sega_saturn@awful.systems 8 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (1 children)

As background: the Kaufmann report that prompted all this is a load of absolute garbage. As discussed fairly extensively on social media (example).

As for Aella's addition: oh god why did I read this?

The methodology was apparently running a "Big Kink Survey" which was "trending on TikTok" and had "very good SEO". I suppose this is the right data needed to draw conclusions about what rate 14 year olds are transgender.

The whole this is also full of weird gender essentialism (I never want to read the word "biofemales" again).

I think this is evidence for an increasing split between afabs and amabs

But don't worry she's very pro trans (JK Rowling sense):

Despite having been cancelled by the more radical subgroups of trans people, I’m nevertheless very pro trans.

Which is why she wants to make a massive reach and be concerned that maybe trans people are getting too much healthcare:

I think it’s unlikely that 11.5% of afabs are actually trans men in a way that would last through adulthood. If my data is measuring any real trend in the world, and if that trend meaningfully increases permanent changes to bodies, then this high percentage might actually be quite bad.

... Nevermind that her data doesn't even touch on stuff like rate of HRT, or regret rate; these "concerns" are all pulled out of thin air.

[–] sailor_sega_saturn@awful.systems 8 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

(I also lament that this makes things really rough for the trans men for whom this is not a fad, and for whom earlier transitioning would be a huge quality of life improvement.)

Like dear cis people are you OK? Is society not transphobic enough for you? :'(

Are you worried that if a teenager is allowed to explore their gender a little that it will cause a bunch of precocious little cis girls to accidentally glance at a vial of testosterone the wrong way and grow a fantastic beard overnight?

When I started estrogen (later than I should have and fuck you Idaho) I was absolutely 100% sure that it was the right thing to try, and that I'd stop if I didn't like it. Never looked back (estrogen is tasty and I encourage everyone to try it at least once), and I had years before there was much you could call permanent.

But of course it's not the "permanent changes to bodies" that made me a 6ft tall amazonian beauty that people like Aella are concerned about. "What if we accidentally trans one of the cis??" fundamentally assumes it is OK to accidentally withhold critical medicine from countless trans people just to be "safe".

[–] nightsky@awful.systems 4 points 7 hours ago

“What if we accidentally trans one of the cis??”

They always like to dress up these statements as medical concern. But it shines through that, despite whatever the person may express otherwise, deep down they think being trans is not really acceptable. Maybe partially acceptable at best, but should be avoided if possible. Very similar thought model to classics like "oh I'm fine with gay people, but what if my child sees two men holding hands and then wants to try it too??"

[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 9 points 17 hours ago (2 children)
[–] BlueMonday1984@awful.systems 4 points 11 hours ago

Why am I getting James Somerton flashbacks

[–] CinnasVerses@awful.systems 6 points 17 hours ago

I think she would be willing to learn how to cite things, not sure whether she wants to learn why just surveying people is not the best way to find the truth. Pretty sure that her interest in trans people is not purely scientific.

[–] CinnasVerses@awful.systems 8 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

I'm not sure her work is any worse than the average psychology paper that ends up in a magazine rack, but I am not signing up for her Substack to see. And "no worse than the average psychology paper" is not high praise.

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 8 points 18 hours ago

yeah and I’m a brain surgeon because sometimes when I pick my nose I go a little too deep

[–] irelephant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

at://did:plc:x2obbaxjktznf67mnhznpplp/app.bsky.feed.post/3m5z5da4mvk24

https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:x2obbaxjktznf67mnhznpplp/post/3m5z5da4mvk24

Windscribe's twitter account being transphobic.

[–] o7___o7@awful.systems 3 points 19 hours ago

Free speech can he expensive for dipshits.

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

I saw this, so now you all get to: Alex Karp performs a stationary Gatotsu with a sabre, don’t ask me why.

E: reference explainer and visual descriptionThe Gatotsu is a fictional swordfighting style from the manga/anime series Rurouni Kenshin wielded by Saitou Hajime, one of the main characters. It also refers to the frequent stance and movement Hajime makes when fighting.

In the video, Alex Karp stands next to a young woman. One may surmise that he is trying to impress her with a display of sword mastery. In his right hand he is holding a broad, curved sword, maybe a sabre. His left arm is outstretched at shoulder height in front of him, pointing at an imaginary target, and the sword is pointing at the same target, held at the same height with the flat side parallel to the ground. He performs an awkward looking thrust, as if mimicking the Gatotsu as mentioned above. In the rest of the video he is playing around with the sword, sometimes performing the same thrust and otherwise tossing it limply around in his hand.

There is text at the top of video reading:

Your CEO: Powerpoint

Palantir CEO:

[–] mirrorwitch@awful.systems 4 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (1 children)

you just activated my trap card and became a person to whom I will forward this video evaluating the usefulness of gatotsu in a real life context, because I have no one else to show it to

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EITUJ1HqSCQ

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 4 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (1 children)

The dub on that video is truly something, lmao. I counter with this:

毎日牙突、どれの式、ラララ〜

(to the tune of the mameshiba jingle)

[–] mirrorwitch@awful.systems 3 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

oh is that the "autodub" feature? I can only imagine lol, even the auto-subtitles without translation are all sorts of wrong for Japanese. I'm using the "tubular" app for youtubo and it mercifully blocks the dubbings

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 3 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

noted! The dub was so bad i didn’t even think about whether or not it was autodubbed. Fortunately, through the combination of my rapidly fading japanese language skills, experience in code switching between english and other languages, and the spirit of aku-soku-zan, I managed to understand a lot of it beyond the premise itself.

[–] ShakingMyHead@awful.systems 4 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

Out of all of the things he did, that is one of those things.

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 9 points 1 day ago

While you partied

I studied THE BLADE

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Databricks CEO: “we’ve already achieved AGI fam, the haters just keep moving the goalposts”

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

WTF are databricks? LLM feces?

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 8 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

I looked it up.

boring answer

the company is a data analytics platform. According to wikipedia they promote the model of a “data lakehouse”, a hydrid of a “data lake” and a “data warehouse”. I don’t know what any of this means

Sneer answer: 100% LLM feces. Databricks puts the anal in analytics

[–] JFranek@awful.systems 4 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

AFAIK data warehouse = regular database data lake = place to keep various files that don't fit into DB

Data lakehouse aims to integrate these two, I don't think it's a totally stupid idea.

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 4 points 14 hours ago

Yeah, fair. Wasn't so much sneering at the idea of data storage, but the "data lakehouse" jumped out at me as a possible fun term to bring up.

[–] YourNetworkIsHaunted@awful.systems 5 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

So data lake and data warehouse are different words for the giant databases of business data that you can perform analytics on to understand your deep business lore or whatever. I assume that a data lake house is similar to the other two but poorly maintained and inconvenient to access, but with a very nice UI and a boat dock.

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 6 points 16 hours ago

I’m pretty sure a data lakehouse is a database where if you insert data in it, it only appears two years later/earlier, and if you try to read from it, all the entries come from two years in the future/past. It’s very prone to predestination issues but can help with finding love

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 4 points 1 day ago

Little late but just found out that Google has partnered with Movember to push Gemini.

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