this post was submitted on 23 Aug 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.

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Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 30th August 2026 - awful.systems (awful.systems)
submitted 2 days ago by BlueMonday1984@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems
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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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[–] CinnasVerses@awful.systems 3 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Buddhist Rationalist cult MAPLE wants the Internet to know that contrary to "a recent social media post" their guru Soryu Forall is authorized to teach by "by well-known teachers of the Vipassana and Zen traditions." They mention a few whoopsies.

At another time, while Soryu was away traveling, the leadership team tried to convert the entire organization away from Buddhism. When Soryu returned, he saw this and told the leaders that if they wanted to go in this direction, they could, and that he would go do something else. They were unwilling to take on the financial responsibility of the organization and refused the offer.

They could be responding to The High Control Dynamics at MAPLE (2026) or perhaps Emerging: Making Sense of Soryu Forall (2026) or even My experience inside Soryu Forall's AI-Centered Monastic Academy (2025)

Aella does her boundary-setting thing (those Zizians/MAPLE/Leverage/Brent Dill are bad and not us) https://xcancel.com/Aella_Girl/status/2091015022042595743#m I don't think Ozy covered MAPLE although IIRC they had a Bay Area offshoot with offices nextdoor to Leverage. I would like to know who is funding Soryu.

[–] ivyastrix@awful.systems 3 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

there was a public post/callout posted about aella some time ago that said she had some part in hurting MAPLE's credibility / position in the community, it still is perplexing the most rational and enlightened humans in the world don't see their argument is basically it's cool when we do it

[–] CinnasVerses@awful.systems 2 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Yes, it sounds like Aella has called out some abusers but not acknowledged that abuse and manipulation are central to the LessWrong / EA project. Soryu sounds like a more disciplined, less horny version of Yudkowsky (he got a degree and spent years at a Buddhist temple, but still meditates and reads pop science books to understand Scary AI).

[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 3 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

a more disciplined, less horny version of Yudkowsky

error, error, does not compute

[–] CinnasVerses@awful.systems 4 points 5 hours ago

Correction: a woman who said she was raped by a MAPLE / OAK executive says that:

since this letter was published it has been reported that, Soryu Forall, the Monastic Academy’s main teacher and “guru” has begun to openly engage in sexual and romantic relationships with his students and former students.

That sounds a lot like Yud in the 2010s.

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

Imagine a Victorian curate beating the village schoolboys, driving his charwoman mad, and pottering about the local antiquarian society with essays about faeries or the customs of India which he has never visited.

Forall is not, by any means, a coder who understands AI at the zeros-and-ones level; he does not have a detailed familiarity with large language models or algorithmic design. I asked him whether he had used some of the popular new AI gadgets, such as ChatGPT and Midjourney. He had tried one chatbot. ... When I asked whom he looks to or reads in order to understand AI, he at first, deadpan, answered, “the Buddha.” He then clarified that he also likes the work of the best-selling historian Yuval Noah Harari and a number of prominent ethical-tech folks, among them Zak Stein and Tristan Harris. And he is spending his life ruminating on AI’s risks, which he sees as far from banal.

[–] Architeuthis@awful.systems 5 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

Forall ...

Never seen a gullibility filter in the form of eyebrows before:

[–] o7___o7@awful.systems 2 points 5 hours ago

You may be on to something with the eyebrow heuristic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_A._Aquino

Michael Aquino, natsec goon, unfun satanism guy, and eyebrow enthusiast.

[–] CinnasVerses@awful.systems 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Has anyone researched exactly how MAPLE split off from Bay Area rationalism? Most of the writeups focus on what happened after they built a giant compound in Vermont, not why so many rats travel there.

They seem to have launched in one small Vermont township in 2014 ("3 Years of Training Awakened Leaders " as of 2017). They moved from Johnson, VT to Lowell, VT at some point.

Edit / Some history here but nothing on the LessWrong connection except something called the 1440 Foundation in California https://www.centerformindfullearning.org/history/

Edit / Local journalism delivers

The people making these machines are listening. According to a 2023 profile of Forall in The Atlantic, he provides spiritual advice to A.I. thinkers, hosting talks and retreats for researchers and developers at leading artificial intelligence engineering hubs like OpenAI, Google DeepMind and Apple.

MAPLE has also grown, with expansion efforts under similar acronyms formed under the umbrella of Community for the Experience and Development of Awakening and Responsibility, or CEDAR, like its OAK offshoot in Berkeley, Calif., and Willow intensive in Canada.

The Center for Mindful Learning, the parent corporation of MAPLE and its affiliates, controls $3.65 million in assets, according to 2023 tax filings, and brought in nearly a million in revenue each year between 2020 and 2023 thanks to donations from individuals in the West Coast tech industry.

Their Form 990 is here but does not have details of the donors. So it sounds like they have a single guru with wealthy patrons.

[–] BioMan@awful.systems 6 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I think the only cult type that Yud hasn't spun off yet is fundamentalist Christian.

[–] istewart@awful.systems 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

That slot will probably be filled by whatever moneyed post-Trump US Southern snake-fondlers Thiel manages to bilk with his Antichrist bullshit. And therefore not likely large or long-lasting

[–] cstross@wandering.shop 11 points 1 day ago (2 children)

@BioMan @techtakes But singularitarians *are* fundamentalist Christians, just a heretical variety who ditched the god/jesus/bible bits but kept the rest of the eschatalogical structures intact.

[–] CinnasVerses@awful.systems 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

And they think that Computer Jesus will return soon and punish the wicked and reward the faithful. I wonder what Yud's parents' rabbi thinks of all this.

[–] cstross@wandering.shop 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

@CinnasVerses @techtakes And don't get me started on Roko's Basilisk (the singularitarian remix of Calvinist Satan, complete with theological predeterminism and eternal damnation for the non-elect).

[–] lurker@awful.systems 7 points 1 day ago

somewhere Blaise Pascal is shaking his fist in his grave

[–] BioMan@awful.systems 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I mean, true, but that's true of most secular cults in America and Europe.

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

There were some breadcrumbs in that Wes streeting article about https://www.eaforchristians.org/ but I couldn't get a sense of how fundie they may be.

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

tim taylor voice Oh no...