this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2026
13 points (93.3% liked)

TechTakes

2602 readers
47 users here now

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

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 

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 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.)

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] gerikson@awful.systems 12 points 1 day ago (5 children)

techbros gonna techbro:

The Mullvad founder gave millions to extremist far right party

btw I live in Sweden and until today I have never heard of these nutjobs

[–] jaschop@awful.systems 5 points 11 hours ago

There's a take in there somewhere, about "dark web"-like online communities and how they form too thin a social fabric to keep people accountable and aligned with a common good, so personal grievances and economic incentives take over.

Someone probably already wrote it up better than I could bother.

[–] anise@awful.systems 3 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

anyone got any recommendations for an alternative vpn?

[–] jaschop@awful.systems 2 points 11 hours ago

I looked at AirVPN and didn't find anything too weird yet.

[–] mjj@mstdn.dk 1 points 10 hours ago

@gerikson @BlueMonday1984 I had heard *a lot* of good about them, used and recommended them. But no more @mullvadnet for me.

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

apparently being a VPN provider is either brainrot inducing or induced by brainrot, there is no 3rd option

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

The third option is to exit the market. The underlying issue is that, regardless of how much effort one puts into cultivating non-criminal customers, VPN services will appear to attract criminals, and the optics alone is sufficient to dramatically limit and shape the pool of customers. Source: I operated some least-authority encrypted storage (I provably can't read private customer data) from like 2016-2019 and my peer group thought I was facilitating criminals. Ironically, I left that peer group because they wouldn't stop platforming Bitcoiners.

[–] o7___o7@awful.systems 4 points 19 hours ago

Ironically, I left that peer group because they wouldn’t stop platforming Bitcoiners.

That must have been a trip