this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2024
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TechTakes

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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.

This is not debate club. Unless it’s amusing debate.

For actually-good tech, you want our NotAwfulTech community

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Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending Sunday 6 October 2025 (awful.systems)
submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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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.

Last week's thread

(Semi-obligatory thanks to @dgerard for starting this)

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (12 children)

nasb, fedi is for losers

been feeling this for a while too and wondering how to put it into words. especially in light of all the techfash, pressing climate and general market problems, etc

one of the things I've been holding onto (hoping in?) is my estimation/belief that I don't think the current state of all the deeply-fucked systems is inherently stable, or viable. as I've said here before, that very instability is part of why so many of them are engaged in trying to set things up to protect those self-same systems, as they know the swingback is coming and they want to make it as hard as possible to claw things back from them

but how long until it breaks, and with how much splash damage, are things I haven't really been able to estimate

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I got this AMAZING OPPORTUNITY in my inbox, because once your email appears on a single published paper you're forever doomed to garbage like this (transcript at the end):

Highlights:

  • Addresses me as Dr. I'm not a doctor. I checked, and apparently Dr. Muhhamad Imran Qureshi indeed has a PhD and is a lecturer at Teesside University International Business School (link to profile). His recent papers include a bunch of blockchain bullshit. Tesside University appears to be a legit UK university, although I'm not sure how legit the Business School is (or how legit any Business School can be, really).
  • Tells us their research is so shit that using wisdom woodchippers actually increases their accuracy.
  • One of the features is "publication support", so this might be one of those scams where you pay an exorbitant fee to get "published" in some sketchy non-peer-reviewed journal.
  • One of the covered AI tools is Microsoft Excel. If you were wondering if "AI" had any meaning.
  • Also, by god, are there so many different ChatGPT clones now? I haven't heard most of those names. I kinda hope they're as AI as Excel is.

I'm not sure which would be worse, this being a scam, or them legit thinking this brings value to the world and believing they're helping anyone.

transcriptEmail titled Revolutionize Your Research: AI-Powered Systematic Literature Review Master Class

Online course on writing AI-Powered Systematic Literature Review

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we're reaching out because we believe our AI-Powered Systematic Review Masterclass could be a game-changer for your research. As someone who's passionate about research writing, we know the challenges of conducting thorough and efficient systematic reviews.

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  • Save time by automating repetitive tasks
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Key Course Details: Course Title: AI-Powered Systematic Literature Reviews Master Class Live interaction + recording = Learning that fits your life Dates: October 13, 2024, to November 3, 2024 Live Session Schedule: Every Sunday at 2 PM UK time (session recordings will be accessible). Duration: Four Weeks Platform: Zoom Course Fee: GBP 100 Certification: Yes Trainer: Dr. Muhammad Imran Qureshi

Key features

  • Asynchronous learning
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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

A redditor has a pinned post on /r/technology. They claim to be at a conference with Very Important Promptfondlers in Berlin. The OP feels like low-effort guerilla marketing, tbh; the US will dominate the EU due to an overwhelming superiority in AI, long live the new flesh, Emmanuel Macron is on board so this is SUPER SERIOUS, etc.

PS: the original poster, /u/WillSen, self-identifies as CEO of a bootcamp/school called "codesmith," and has lots of ideas about how to retrain people to survive in the longed-for post-AI hellscape. So yeah, it's an ad.

https://old.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1fufbfm/im_a_tech_ceo_at_the_berlin_global_dialogue_w/

The central problem of 21st century democracy will be finding a way to inoculate humanity against confident bullshitters. That and nature trying to kill us. Oh, and capitalism in general, but I repeat myself.

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