Want to wade into the rainbow-ridden 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 youāll 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 cutānāpaste it into its own post ā thereās no quota for posting and the bar really isnāt that high.
The post Xitter web has spawned so many āesotericā right wing freaks, but thereās no appropriate sneer-space for them. Iām talking redscare-ish, reality challenged āculture criticsā who write about everything but understand nothing. Iām talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. Theyāre inescapable at this point, yet I donāt see them mocked (as much as they should be)
Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldnāt be surgeons because they didnāt believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I canāt escape them, I would love to sneer at them.
(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this. Also, happy Pride Month, peeps)
Shang Tsung contracting anemia after devouring too many
souls.mdlesswrong continues to mix sinophobia in with its AI crithype: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/nmpzH6sLLtKsQhSPM/china-won-t-win-the-ai-race-but-would-it-be-much-worse-if-it
Previously, on awful.system: https://awful.systems/post/4103825
This article has the highlight of identifying the horrible cynical dystopian move of Chinaās government in response to AI and LLMs ofā¦ checks notesā¦ protecting worker rights and workers from mass firings
āAn arbitration panel ruled in favor of a map data collector whose entire department was laid off and replaced with artificial intelligence. The panel found that the companyās adoption of A.I. was a voluntary move to remain competitive and did not warrant the employeeās firing. Companies that benefit from technology must, at the same time, adopt āsocial responsibilitiesā and protect worker rights, the panel ruled.ā
The author feels the need to emphasize how bad China is.
There are quite a few examples of the Chinese state punishing people for speaking out about true problems.
There is Li Wenliang, a doctor who posted to a group chat about COVID before it was officially acknowledged and was forced to sign a police document admitting he had broken a law by spreading false rumours. His reprimand was later withdrawn.
The advantage of the US system appears to be a greater ability to be transparent, in particular for a concerned person in the know to blow the whistle publicly.
Hahaha, noā¦ For example, in Florida, DeSantis has the home of a fired state worker raided for her accessing her old work email (trying to collect accurate COVID numbers, iirc).
This lesswronger is so close to getting it but doesnāt quite make the leap to āare we the baddiesā. They list out some bad ways the US has used AI and they do acknowledge
But Iām very aware that Iāve been inculcated in a media and cultural environment that says, in its most kind form, be suspicious of non-Western states.
But somehow hold out on actually changing there mind or overcoming their biases.
CW: USA Politics
That suppressed Democratic National Committe 2024 āpostmortemā report turns out to have been pure slop, with essentially no references and entirely made-up charts and plots while also missing entire sections. The author can produce exactly zero interview transcripts or source data. It also neglects interrogating failures in addressing trans rights, the genocide in Gaza, or the affordability crisis.
The podcast āIt Could Happen Hereā does a good job of analysis (disgusted), but long-time sneerers will feel the futility of getting into the weeds with an extruded textual artifact:
Tl:dl the deeply institutionalist DNC chairman appointed his best buddy to the job with zero oversight, and this was the result.
Speaking of Aella (I really shouldnāt), many have probably already seen this Liberal Currents article that leans heavily on her web-survey sex research dataset:
https://www.liberalcurrents.com/the-interracial-cuck-porn-theory-of-everything/
The publication seems to have plenty of traction on Bluesky, for what thatās worth, but I think this particular example needs to be retained as an exhibit of the hazards of rehabilitating American liberalism. A low-level affinity for the existing tech industry is always there, as its growth underlaid the benefits that make liberalism appealing. And that means the doorway for entryism by the tech-fascist freaks is always open, and then youāre never more than a couple fundraising cycles (whether electoral or investment) away from being right back in this exact same mess.
Edit / the author of the article āis an economics student at George Mason University with interests in tax policy, immigration, and housing. He normally posts about politics on X and Bluesky and occasionally writes long-form articles and essays on his Substack.ā So he has probably taken a class with Robin Hanson.
As a palette cleanser to the messed up people on social media and in web magazines, I recommend reading Bob Altemeyerās book on the sex lives of students at a minor Canadian university. https://www.lulu.com/shop/bob-altemeyer/sex-and-youth/paperback/product-4414777.html People who search tube sites or fill out sexuality quizzes from an influencer are not typical people any more than Wikipedia editors are.
āI personally worry that the EA community has over-learned the lessons of FTXā
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/95NgkvZKJx8tJbtn5/lighthaven-east-a-feasibility-study
Thatās OK, the next set of bankruptcy lawyers will again conduct clawbacks
āEA and Rationalist policy organizations are scaling in DCā
Just a reminder that the rationalists already own two event spaces in the Bay Area and the Effective Altruists briefly owned one in England and one in the Czech Republic as well as an institute at Oxford University. Both of their existing spaces are losing money and had to beg for it last winter.
āThis project needs a champion, but itās a thing someone can simply choose to doā sounds very different when it means āyou can actually try slacklining with the cool strangers in the parkā and when it means āsomeone could lend us another $20 million for 20 years on easy terms.ā And seeing the lesson of FTX as ādonāt look weirdā not āeffective altruists are fraudsters and hypocritesā is a take.
A second vibecoded Aella website has hit the building
thereās a lot of ladies i know without guys, but who want kids. and i go āwould you accept some rich guy paying u a ton of money to just have his kid as a single parentā and theyāre like āidk man prob notā and im like āwaht if it was 5mā and theyāre all magically like āoh yeah i would do itā
so i made a directory for this, but i am trying to find ladies who would actually like to list themselves with their moonshot baby-funding goal. if u know anybody who wouldnāt mind making a profile pls let me know, i wanna publicize the directory but need enough seeded ladies first
Jeffrey Epstein fantasized about something very similar. Gwern has a blog post about a sperm bank which promised to accept only the highest-quality donations.
Well thatās one way to do seed funding.
A man who wants to knock up as many women as possible is definitely trustworthy ladies and you should definitely make him the father of your kids š
No way the facilitator will ever accrue any liability or get subpoenaed when the civil lawsuits (or worse) start flying!
Claude, write me an ironclad legal disclaimer, maybe something about this being for entertainment purposes only
was that written specifically for elon musk
Of course, Elon musks superbabies are what going to save us from the acausalrobotgod.
Sometimes I think itāll eventually come out that the inner circle rationalists already had a breeding program going by this time, deliberately mix and matching possibly oblivious parents according to desired characteristics like increased ability to mentally rotate shapes or an above average polymarket win/loss ratio, and there will be at least a few kids that will grow up having to deal with that shit.
considering how much their philosophy aligns with the plot of dune, iām afraid you may be right
their philosophy aligns with the plot of dune
Only in the Torment Nexus sense. Like, in the original books it takes 4000 years of tragedy and sacrifice at an immense scale to somewhat unfuck the direct implications of said breeding program and ensure humanityās continued existence.
edit: also the genetic engineering enthusiast faction/race are absolutely never presented in a good light.
the 4000 years of necessary tragedy and sacrifice, aka the golden path, is also remarkably similar to the rationalistsā teleology! specifically the longtermist stuff! i.e. itās okay to sacrifice lives today to ensure humanityās survival.
i think herbertās feelings about breeding programs are ā¦ complicated. he never presents it as ethical but he does seem fascinated by the concept and heās very very into the idea of forging supermen from extreme environmental pressure. like ācomes up several times per bookā levels of fascinated.
the 4000 years of necessary tragedy and sacrifice, aka the golden path, is also remarkably similar to the rationalistsā teleology! specifically the longtermist stuff! i.e. itās okay to sacrifice lives today to ensure humanityās survival.
Only in the broadest sense where humanity survives into the far future by spreading so far and wide that no matter the scale of a catastrophe a significant part will always continue to thrive.
However, where longtermism is about papercliping the entire universe into compute to fulfil some vague utilitarian notion of virtual happiness quota, the GP seems to be more about crippling the substructure that ostensibly causes humanity again and again be reduced to the whims of some supreme authority, be it the automated thinking machines from their past or their current much harder to escape succession of psychic tyrants let loose by selectively breeding for something humanity had absolutely no natural defence against.
The GP isnāt even a utopia, itās a response to an immediate incredibly out of the box problem, the inevitability of an eventual dynasty of space wizard genghis khans.
i think herbertās feelings about breeding programs are ā¦ complicated. he never presents it as ethical but he does seem fascinated by the concept and heās very very into the idea of forging supermen from extreme environmental pressure. like ācomes up several times per bookā levels of fascinated.
I think they come second to his concerns about ecology and humanityās relation to the environment. Post-desert fremen are basically water-fat cosplayers, and in general, other than the deliberately paradigm shattering kwisatz haderach, the end product of genetic adjustment are never presented as an apex for humanity, more like a good fit for their niche, like how post-emperor fish-speakers either peter-out or get subsumed by other factions.
No, the golden path isnāt a utopia! Itās the necessary breaking of eggs to make the survival of humanity omelet. Itās sort of a more twisted version of Asimovās Foundation carried entirely in the mind of a being with perfect knowledge of causality. The details of the plot donāt necessarily map neatly, but the aesthetics, the fantasy, the torture-versus-dust-specksness of it is what the rationalists are all about. (Another wrinkle is that in Dune I believe [havenāt read beyond godemperor] ultimately the solution is to create a being that escapes prophecy, a neat little transcendent conjuration. Solving alignment doesnāt quite have the same oomph but it is also essentially a magic trick you can do if your freethinking and selfreliance stats are high enough. Also remember Rat!Harryās patronus is a Human! Benevolent AI should be seen as the liberated, transcendent form of the human mind.)
Have you read the Dosadi Experiment? Itās a very strange book and a good way to get a high dose of Herbertās obsessions from a new perspective.
To be clear I love Dune, and I find Herbert fascinating because his ideas always find themselves in tension and are often baffling and muddled enough to provoke entertaining discussion. But the more you scratch the more unambiguously evil he is.
āseeded ladiesā I see what you did there
This is what you get when you take Dr. Strangelove (the character in the movie of the same name), Mr. Beast, and a bunch of K and mix it into a slurry and mainline it.
She made it and doesnt even have enough women who want to be listed yet? You would expect āthe best sex researcherā in the world to have more reach.
Wonder how many women you can message āI offer two fiftyā before you get banned. But im not going to give her an email of mine.
This also must be so bad for the kid.
George Santos got reported(!) for insider trading on Kalshi:
Iām waiting for someone to try this then they get black bagged and dragged to whatever event by someone who bet they would attend.
This seems like it is probably a good thing.
It does feel a bit āart of warā thoughā¦ someone patiently explaining to a bunch of people who really should know better that they shouldnāt do obviously bad and wrong things.
someone patiently explaining to a bunch of people who really should know better that they shouldnāt do obviously bad and wrong things.
In March 2025, someone skeeted that āMaster Sun says: do not lead your troops into land where there is nothing for them to eatā seems obvious but Pete Hegseth would not remember that his troops needed food. One year later his aircraft carriers were feeding sailors spoiled meat and had a shortage of working toilets.
I see a bunch of people riffing on how The Art of War is obvious etc etc, but it seems few people keep in mind that this is advice for very powerful people of the time, the kind of guys who would be kicked in the head by a horse every day.
People who understand how power and lack of resources fucks with a person donāt usually get to tell armies to go fight a war, so those who do need to be told by a guy theyād let execute their favorite wife. (Also, probably the whole Seinfeld Is Unfunny tropeā¦)
The take I usually see on The Art of War nowadays is that itās full of dunderheadedly obvious advice because itās written for men who have inherited an army, or in modern parlance, nepo baby failsons.
So apparently Trumpās National Design Bureau has been busy. I think the substack here may be slightly too conspiratorial. A lot of the staging environment stuff indicates (imo) a desire to replace or create something that may or may not actually include the capability to do so, especially when it requires working with other federal agencies or otherwise establishing human and organizational infrastructure in addition to the digital. That being said thereās something very bad about the US government taking the same attitude to privacy, accountability, and information security that silicon valley normally does, especially when doing so is actively violating several laws.
Major investment analysis firm Morningstar is looking for words on the SpaceX IPO and picked āWe think the company has been significantly overvalued and investors will have opportunities to buy the stock at more attractive levels after the IPOā (Independent UK).
Even something as simple as picking a Total US Stock Market index fund instead of a S&P500 fund or NASDAQ-100 fund would reduce your exposure. If you control your investments, disinvesting is not that hard.
Dunno if itās been posted yet but apparently microsoft is starting to get sick of losing money and changed billing for copilot. The subreddit is melting down https://old.reddit.com/r/GithubCopilot/
Very funny to watch
Everyone knew it was going to be a total shitshow once the free money ran out. Copilot is just the first shoe dropping. Getting out the popcorn.
This one requires some minor backstory
Previously, I shared this wildly racist AI generated meme posted by an AI doomer channel
In the replies, someone pointed out how some of this channelās other thumbnails appear to be AI generated citing a specific video about the ā12 endings of AIā
Today I got curious about it after not thinking about it for a while. What are the 12 endings of AI? Instead of watching a 36 minute video, I did my own research (aka one online search) and it appears that it refers to Max Tegmark (known EA) and a concept he spoke about in his book. Hereās the article I got this info for peer review: https://medium.com/@butsch_79/the-12-futures-of-ai-a42d67bd9a20
If anyoneās got 36 minutes to spare feel free to follow up
ā12 Endings of AIā definitely seems like another heaping helping of bland criti-hype, but it did remind me of the delightfully bizarre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_13_Ghosts_of_Scooby-Doo featuring Vincent Price
So here in Nashville, Elon and our state government have conspired to attempt a Tesla tunnel that starts at the state capitol, goes under the Cumberland River, and exits at our airport (BNA). Theyāre doing it whether the city wants it or not. (Itās ānotā).
Setting aside the race to determine whether a void in the local limestone fills with water or radon first, I wanted to help come up with a catchy title for the as yet unnamed car hole:
BNA Underground Transit Tunnel
Tourist Protip: Donāt try the hot chicken before visiting the BUTT hole.
If they are following the Vegas model, so many people are going to die in the BUTT.
Martin Scorseseās jumped on the AI train, seemingly believing the plagiarism machine can help with storyboarding.
Obligatory meme (yoinked off Discordās GIF search, AI extruded itself, ironically enough):
Im goin to assume that storyboarder is a seperate job a person has and Martin always looked down upon those people.
Itās been a while since weāve heard anything related to
books3. Copyright attorney Leonard French has a news update (video) on Nazemian et al v. nVidia. nVidia requested that any mention of Bittorrent be removed; really, they just asked for one sentence to be removed, but the judge thought that it was like āasking to strike paintbrush allegations from a case about dolphin paintingsā (sic; I donāt have the transcript) and refused. The theory is that nVidia could have argued that they were not contributory infringers and then appealed to Cox v. Sony, where Cox said that itās not their fault that some of their customers are pirates. However, it seems like any sort of Cox appeal is not possible here because the judge recognizes that Bittorrent isnāt a dumb network.If youāre anti-copyright like me: Oh look, Cox wasnāt a big sweeping get-out-of-trouble card for non-ISPs. I still donāt think judges actually understand networks, but this is definitely better than a lack of understanding. If youāre one of the pro-copyright-because-anti-AI sickos: nVidia took a big loss here. This was their only shot at keeping their usage of
books3, Annaās Archive, and other shadow libraries out of court. Like Anthropic before them in Bartz v. Anthropic, they may have to come to the judge with an offering of a settlement paying a few hundred USD/author to each member of the class. This sucks for the popular authors but might be more cash in hand than the long tail would otherwise receive in royalties.
