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.
(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this.)
New piece from Brian Merchant: ‘AI is in its empire era’
Recently finished it, here’s a personal sidenote:
This AI bubble’s done a pretty good job of destroying the “apolitical” image that tech’s done so much to build up (Silicon Valley jumping into bed with Trump definitely helped, too) - as a matter of fact, it’s provided plenty of material to build an image of tech as a Nazi bar writ large (once again, SV’s relationship with Trump did wonders here).
By the time this decade ends, I anticipate tech’s public image will be firmly in the toilet, viewed as an unmitigated blight on all our daily lives at best and as an unofficial arm of the Fourth Reich at worst.
As for AI itself, I expect it’s image will go into the shitter as well - assuming the bubble burst doesn’t destroy AI as a concept like I anticipate, it’ll probably be viewed as a tech with no ethical use, as a tech built first and foremost to enable/perpetrate atrocities to its wielder’s content.