this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2026
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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 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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[–] nfultz@awful.systems 7 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Scott Alexander replies to comments Re: Scott Adams

Scott Alexander, former tribune of nerds now says that the sneerclub was right about everything all along? I didn’t expect that, let me tell you.

Several people interpreted me as attacking nerds. I disagree - I think I was attacking self-hating nerds, because nerdiness is fine and you shouldn’t have to hate yourself for it.

ha.

Other than that, further testimonials of the Dilbert -> NRx pipeline.

[–] scruiser@awful.systems 2 points 19 hours ago

Scott Adams rant was racist enough that Scott Alexander actually calls it racist! Of course, Scott is quick to reassure the readers that he wouldn't use the r-word lightly and that he completely disagrees with "cancellation".

I also saw a lot of more irony moments where Scott Alexander fails to acknowledge or under-acknowledges his parallels with the other Scott.

But Adams is wearing a metaphorical “I AM GOING TO USE YOUR CHARITABLE INSTINCTS TO MANIPULATE YOU” t-shirt. So I’m happy to suspend charity in this case and judge him on some kind of average of his conflicting statements, or even to default to the less-advantageous one to make sure he can’t get away with it.

Yes, it is much more clever to bury your manipulations in ten thousand words of beigeness.

Overal, even with Scott going so far as to actually call Scott's rant racist and call Scott a manipulator, he is still way way too charitable to Scott.

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 3 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (2 children)

Apparently if you're a self-hating nerd, you're here in Sneerclub's spiritual successor.

Also, here's a quote from a ~~comment~~Xhit non-dead Scott A feels compelled to reprint:

[Coffee With Scott Adams] made it acceptable to be an American, someone who was proud of the country, unashamed of their race; proud of the culture, and proud of the heritage which built the country.

unsurprisingly the Xhitter in question is a rabid anti vaxxer

[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 1 points 7 hours ago

"Proud of the culture"?

He drew Dilbert, you fucking buffoon.

[–] istewart@awful.systems 3 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

made it acceptable to be an American... unashamed of their race

Ah, the usual implicit assumptions, I see

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 4 points 22 hours ago

what race, motherfucker??

[–] mirrorwitch@awful.systems 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

If someone deals with this using denial (one of Freud’s maladaptive defenses), you get the nerd who says "no, I really am the next Einstein," ie a crackpot, aka the sort of person who gets featured on Sneerclub. If they deal with it using reaction formation (another of Freud’s maladaptive defenses), you get the self-hating nerd, aka the sort of person who joins Sneerclub⁴.

Fuck how is Scott's prose always so boring.

But hey, the news to me is: Is Freud a thing in the Alexandrian county of the ratworld now? I thought Freud was supposed to be illogical pseudoscience mystification or something

[–] istewart@awful.systems 3 points 22 hours ago (3 children)

Self... hating...? No, pal, we are here because we specifically and explicitly hate YOU, and want to set firm social boundaries against you and your fellow travelers. I don't know how to express this more straightforwardly. I don't think it's possible. Please refer back to this specific comment if you become confused about this point again in the future.

[–] Architeuthis@awful.systems 1 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

Self-hating nerd may sound like a quip, but he is pretty specifically painting us as tribe traitors.

Remember, for them, the male nerd is a vulnerable minority, and that they haven't been granted protected status yet is possibly the greatest injustice of our time.

We're basically supposed to be fucking up their chances for finally instituting a society-wide word-count based sex redistribution scheme by cozying up to ~~the Man~~ normies who think cults are bad and don't appreciate race science.

[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 3 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

"Self-hating nerd"... Is this the time to mention that I was Prom King in high school?

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

Somehow I doubt sneerclub turning out to be gigachad central is going to do wonders for curing their persecution complex, but I'm here for it, I even have a couple of combat sports tournament medals to show for from back in the day.

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 3 points 22 hours ago

"We don't hate ourselves. We hate Scott".

"Which Scott?"

"All the Scotts"

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

If they deal with it using reaction formation (another of Freud’s maladaptive defenses), you get the self-hating nerd, aka the sort of person who joins Sneerclub.

evidently Scott's theory of mind is so malformed he can only conceptualize other men as different (imperfect) clones of himself

i specify men here because we know he considers women closer to viruses or perhaps large parasites

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 10 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

For example, SaintParamaribo writes:

You should have steelmanned S.Adams more, and be more generous to the guy. He JUST died. He actually recommended your blog. He was a mentor to many of us. (emph mine)

That is just crazy. Small detail, I used to read his blog as 'look at this crazy guy' entertainment (I actually read the orgasm hypnosis when it came out), but I had to stop cause his bullshit stupid stuff was making me angry. (That a lot of themotte guys looked up to him was one of the many reasons I thought very low of that place)

The compromise I worked out with myself was to let myself publish, as long as it ended on an overall positive note and emphasized his good qualities.

And this is why the whole SSC style project is so doomed, everything is fine if you also say nice words.

Anyway, if I had heard that Scott Adams recommended my posts as insightful I would have walked into the sea. Even more so if I considered myself a Rationalist, the guys big project was to break down peoples trust in consensus reality by his bullshit, he literally was against what people claim Rationalism should be, he believed in the secret ffs.

His interest in persuasion was teaching people when others were doing it to them, not teaching them to do it to others. His interest in Trump was Trump doing it BACK at the media, not on his poor voters.

[Scott Alexanders reaction is basically: no he was trying to teach people persuasion]

Lol no, his reasons for doing all that was self promotion. Positioning himself as the wise expert. Gullible fools, arguing about what the real intentions of the wallet inspector.

[–] istewart@awful.systems 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Lol no, his reasons for doing all that was self promotion. Positioning himself as the wise expert. Gullible fools, arguing about what the real intentions of the wallet inspector.

Yeah, the "master persuader" schtick was funny to start with, but it wore real thin real fast once it became apparent it was just his half-hearted way of pitching himself to the MAGA crowd, hedging his reputation in case Trump lost.

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 4 points 22 hours ago

In part the self promotion is also what Scott is doing here, look at him going 'see how diverse and thoughtful our community is', this sort of reactions to comments is also quite easy content. And jesus fuck is it long (while not actually saying anything new it seems, I have not read it all but oof).