this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2026
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TechTakes

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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 8 points 1 week ago (15 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.

[–] mirrorwitch@awful.systems 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (6 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

[–] ebu@awful.systems 6 points 1 week 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

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