this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2025

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Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 17th August 2025 (awful.systems)

submitted 1 week ago by dgerard@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems

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Need to let loose a primal scream without collecting footnotes first? 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 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.

Previous week

(page 5) 29 comments

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[–] scruiser@awful.systems 6 points 6 days ago (3 children)

This was discussed last week but I looked at the comments and noticed someone in the comments getting slammed for... checks notes... noting that Eliezer wasn't clear on what research paper he was actually responding to (multiple other comments are kind of confused, because they assume he means one paper then other comments correct them that he obviously meant another). The commenter of course edits to back-peddle.

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 4 points 5 days ago

If you do not understand what the Psychopomp is talking about, that is on you not him dear commenter.

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 3 points 5 days ago

If you do not understand what the Psychopomp is talking about, that is on you not him dear commenter.

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[–] fullsquare@awful.systems 8 points 6 days ago (1 children)

continuing from the last weeks thread https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/07/the-high-costs-and-thin-margins-threatening-ai-coding-startups/

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[+] mountainriver@awful.systems -7 points 5 days ago (6 children)

Not a sneer, but I recently saw Ari K's AI generated video of Trump in his golden ballroom. It's quite good, here is the channel: https://m.youtube.com/@AriKuschnir

Looking at his other videos, he is a talented story teller. Most videos are about two minutes, has numerous short shots of a few seconds and a voice over or music connecting the shots. So presumably he generates the shots, splice them together and puts the soundtrack over the it. Most of the short stories are dreamlike. To the extent it has characters it's famous people (getting their comeuppance), so even though they look a bit different in each shot, it's easy to keep track.

I think it's interesting because by doing what can be done with the tools, it illustrates the limitations. In the hands of a good story teller you essentially get an illustration for a short radio play (and the radio play needs to be recorded separately, and you can't show actors talking). Because of the bubble and investor bux, it can right now be done on a shoe string budget.

But that's all! Are illustrated radio plays replacing feature films? No, so this remains a niche use case. And once the investor bux dries up, potentially an expensive one. Not something to build a billion dollar industry on.

[–] TinyTimmyTokyo@awful.systems 2 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

How much energy was used to produce that video?

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

Forwarding this discussion to here:

News from r/philosophy: OOP, Richard Y Chappell, posted an article containing image slop, landing them a 3-day ban. OOP writes a new article that DESTROYS the r/philosophy moderation policy on AI generated content with FACTS and LOGIC. For added flavour, OOP is an EA. OP is an SSCer. Both are participants in the thread.

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Guess either term hasn't started, or his gig as phil prof is some sort of right-wing sinecure. Dude has a lot of time on his hands.

FWIW I'd say banning a poster for including slop image in a 3rd party article is a bit harsh, but what would Reddit be without arbitrary draconian rules? A normal person would note this, accept the 3 day ban, and maybe avoid the sub in future or avoid including slop. The fact he flew off his handle this much is very very funny though.

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 11 points 1 week ago (8 children)

Forget being exposed to the elements to build character. People should be randomly temp banned and use that to build/judge character. (Also a good judge of the power balance in a community, if the mod team can temp ban a power poster that predates the mod team, say lesswrong giving Yud a timeout).

[–] YourNetworkIsHaunted@awful.systems 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'm reminded of the comedy/gaming stream that I watch that opens every episode with banning a random member of chat based on a spin of the wheel. It certainly lends the community a certain flavor, even if it is more "jingly keys" rather than "strong community."

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 8 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Now im wondering, where the people of the stream itself also included, because that is what I mean. The people with the power shouldn't be excluded from the moderation or get special privileges. (See what Twitter did to protect Trumps account, and where we are now).

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

The on-camera duo are exempt for obvious reasons, but they've definitely hit at least one of their mods. Before The Wheel was implemented I seem to remember they even specifically targeted them sometimes for the joke.

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 3 points 6 days ago

Having one of the duo just step out would also be amusing. Esp if they full chaos and roll twice.

[–] BlueMonday1984@awful.systems 6 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Not sure myself, but the mods are probably either excluded from being banned by The Wheel™, or unbanned immediately afterwards, just to keep things running smoothly.

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

Weak mods create bad times! Bust a deal, face the wheel!

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