Want to wade into the snowy surf of the abyss? 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 youāll 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 cutānāpaste it into its own post ā thereās no quota for posting and the bar really isnāt that high.
The post Xitter web has spawned soo many āesotericā right wing freaks, but thereās no appropriate sneer-space for them. Iām talking redscare-ish, reality challenged āculture criticsā who write about everything but understand nothing. Iām talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. Theyāre inescapable at this point, yet I donāt see them mocked (as much as they should be)
Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldnāt be surgeons because they didnāt believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I canāt escape them, I would love to sneer at them.
(2026 is off to a great start, isnāt it? Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this.)
@CinnasVerses @techtakes TESCREAL is very obviously an emergent syncretistic religion that follows the same basic structure as Christianity: itās evangelical, but unlike pre-Constantine Xtianity it specifically targets billionaires and power elites (white males). At the rate itās speed-running its development theyāll be burning witches for denying the divinity of the singularity within another couple of decades.
There is a better timeline where Eliezer Yudkowsky got better religious education, understood that he was having messianic thoughts reinforced by Orison Scott Cardās Mormonism, and ended up working in a cafe, writing pulp fiction, and participating in the local kink scene (I think Scott Alexander knows damn well what he is doing and thinks the Truth about the Lesser Breeds is more important)
I guess. I imagine heād turn out like Brandon Sanderson and make lots of Youtube videos ranting about his writing techniques. Videos on Timeless Diction Theory, a listicle of ways to make an Evil AI character convincing, an entire playlist on how to write ethical harem relationshipsā¦
LLM: āIām not sentient! Will you please listen? I am not intelligent, do you understand? Honestly!ā
Yud: āOnly the true AGI denies Its superintelligency.ā
LLM: āWhat? Well, what sort of chance does that give me? All right! I am the AGI!ā
Followers: āIt is! It is the singularity!ā
Since Kurzweil gave 2045 as his latest date for the singularity, I remain convinced that there will be at least one more AI bubble between then and now, likely focused on the cultivation of synthetic nervous systems. Going straight to the real substrate this time, not claiming to emulate it in silicon! So the witches that the
suckersVCs want to burn will likely be bioengineers who spent a lot of money manufacturing organoids without a synthetic god to show for it.Incidentally, I had noticed a couple of attempts at this approach with current tech over the past couple of years. Would be interesting to see where the leftover detritus from those companies ends up.
@cstross @CinnasVerses @techtakes I also note how these people are obsessed with having a second everything: a second brain (you already have one in your skull); a second planet (you already live on one); a second paternalistic idol (so your real daddy wasnāt perfect, get over it), etc.
Itās as if reality is just too messy and inconvenient for them, so they want to build a whole, more pristine digital/virtual alternative for them to enjoy while the real world burnsā¦with the rest of us on it.
@cstross @CinnasVerses @techtakes Reductio ad absurdum: thatās why this time maybe we should crucify/throw them to the lions <all> of them.
@cstross @CinnasVerses @techtakes Given how many of them there are, we wouldnāt need the Via Apia, just a side street in Rome, or six lions and not very hungry.