this post was submitted on 18 Oct 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 25th October 2026 (awful.systems)
submitted 5 days ago by BlueMonday1984@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems
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Just two weeks til' Halloween now.

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 soo 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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[–] TinyTimmyTokyo@awful.systems 15 points 5 days ago (9 children)

Lobste.rs dropped the vibecoding tag because a prominent LLM enthusiast had a sad and huffed off in a fit.

[–] superpositionalhuman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 1 day ago

These people have the worst victim complexes. I'm tired of hearing them complain as if anyone with any real power isn't fully on board with what they want.

[–] macroplastic@sh.itjust.works 4 points 3 days ago

Per the recent moderation log, identifying whether posts had substantial LLM involvement seems to no longer be allowed. I am exceedingly disappointed in this. I have been lurking for over a decade and was considering asking for an invite within the past year or two as hackernews and every other source of programming news and project updates have become completely unbearable, but now if lobsters is committed to "neutral" slop platforming I don't see the point.

I just don't see this as sustainable, the moderation level required to keep a link aggregator free of low effort slopped nonsense when the rules are this fuzzy is impractical and all incentives are against it.

[–] lagrangeinterpolator@awful.systems 12 points 5 days ago (2 children)

I really dislike how he believes that LLMs and fascism are "separate axes". Where does he think the LLMs come from? Does the stork deliver them? Is ChatGPT powered by magic fairy dust? Does he think that Sam Altman is a great defender of liberalism and democracy who definitely hasn't donated tons of money to Donald Trump?

[–] istewart@awful.systems 8 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I can't help but think it's another instance of the unquestioning Californian Ideology assumption that all new technology is inherently liberatory.

[–] Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 5 days ago (2 children)

We try to confine that shit to SF

[–] istewart@awful.systems 6 points 5 days ago

It's not working, I spotted a probable hackernews all the way out in Modesto last week, they're like the goddamn nutria now

[–] BlueMonday1984@awful.systems 3 points 4 days ago

This can either be read as San Francisco or Science Fiction, and both readings work perfectly

[–] TinyTimmyTokyo@awful.systems 5 points 5 days ago

He works for google, so he probably still thinks they're not evil.

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 4 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

It's unfortunately common that authors see their work posted, join the site, but then only use us for traffic. Hopefully this time helps them understand the difference between a symbiotic and parasitic relationship.

This feels like a very weird thing to say. (I'm reminded of some weird things Elon Musks mom said about how twitter users should be more grateful for all the traffic or something).

I mean the bit above it makes sense (making a hard only '25% of post can be self promotion' seems like a recipe for disaster however) but this added line made me raise a few eyebrows.

E: Wait, I should have compared it to facebooks new 'you need to pay if you post links' policy.

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

This is a weird side-effect of Lobste.rs culture, it really dislikes being just a collection of links on the front page that increase traffic. And there have been multiple attempts to place links there via deception. Plus the community will give you hell (and flag your submissions as spam) unless you do the needful and comment a bit.

That said it's really easy to work around by just making good content, having an RSS feed, and letting the community discover your stuff and post it. Or ask a buddy with an account to do it for you. But that in its turn requires actually learning how the community works.

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 3 points 3 days ago

Thanks for explaining, im not a lobsterite so I dont know how the community there works.

[–] rhamph@awful.systems 9 points 5 days ago

I am saying that the anti-fascist communities ended up […] uninterested in using LLMs

:O

[–] istewart@awful.systems 9 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Lobste.rs is analogous to methadone treatment for Hacker News, prove me wrong

[–] TrashGoblin@awful.systems 6 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Now it's not even good for that anymore.

[–] istewart@awful.systems 9 points 5 days ago

I considered trying to get an account there, but the last ~18 months or so have made me feel the same way about Lobste.rs as I do about Bluesky. If you're just running a lower-traffic version of the thing you're trying to "improve" upon with slightly different moderation policies, you're not going to build a lasting platform or community.

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 8 points 5 days ago (1 children)

came here to post that. Genuinely having to reconsider being an active user there now

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

It's been a day, and the mods are not sitting still:

https://lobste.rs/moderations

[–] TinyTimmyTokyo@awful.systems 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I see you were one of the people whose comment got censored. I presume the censored comments were about the parody of the "pelican on a bike" animation on the OpenBSD 8.0 release page.

So now people can't even discuss criticism of LLMs on lobsters? Insane.

[–] bitofhope@awful.systems 3 points 4 days ago

Oh, so that's what it's referencing. I can't really tell if the release artwork and song are poking fun at AI slop itself or people who criticize Fish Linucks for accepting slopped code contributions in the base system while NetBSD is lauded for not doing so.

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 5 points 5 days ago

Oh, buddy, big feelings

[–] robjwells@awful.systems 2 points 5 days ago

Very disappointing, even if I was only ever a non-registered lurker. Gave in and DNS-blocked it and HN this morning (I had a HN-filtering userscript which in hindsight was just cope).