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Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 13th September 2026 (awful.systems)

submitted 1 day ago by blakestacey@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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[–] Architeuthis@awful.systems 2 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

lol pilgramage what. is he converting?

The parts I skimmed mostly read like a travelogue so tax write-off vacations with the family in Europe, plus he has an audience of marks that will eat up fucking anything as long as it's framed as independent research into the parts mainstream academia doesn't want YOU to know about.

Still the cross-section between simulationists/transhumanists and mysticism enthusiasts was already huge before Yud mixed in adult Harry Potter fandom and an implicitly supernatural set of adages about human-to-computer soul transfer and living in the end of days waiting for the Artificial Godhead Intelligence to incarnate and judge humanity.

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

the kindergarten/elementary school / New Atheism view of religion is "believe in big sky father, ask him personally for good stuff, get good stuff". Religions that manage to progress out of the cult stage do have something more going on, generally a system of ethics designed to help people cope with the vagaries of life (and maybe also control their thoughts so they don't revolt).

I think this is why Buddhism (at least the Western kind) is so popular, as it relatively focussed on "how to live" rather than "what to believe".

"Rationality" strives to be a secular Buddhism, you have rules and precepts for how to approach life and personal interactions. It's interesting and maybe a comment on how human brains work that they seem to have invented a great sky father from first principles too.

[–] fullsquare@awful.systems 1 points 1 hour ago

there are some religions that put more emphasis on orthodoxy and there are religions that put more emphasis on orthopraxy. christianity would be more in the former category and buddhism, especially buddhism-as-mind-hacking-tool would be the latter. rationalists are just religious in a way that is less common in the west

tangent

the kindergarten/elementary school / New Atheism view of religion is “believe in big sky father, ask him personally for good stuff, get good stuff”.

there is some evidence that a couple of ancient polytheist religions worked this way, sort of https://acoup.blog/2019/10/25/collections-practical-polytheism-part-i-knowledge/

you might wonder if there's some space for new atheist racism to happen, as religions that do more of orthopraxy are not western or ancient (therefore primitive)