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 so 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.
(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this.)
āHorror Novel āShy Girlā Canceled Over Suspected A.I. Useā
an apparent excerpt
AI seems good at purple prose and metaphors that donāt exactly make sense. No, I do not give a fuck about the ātriangle of calmā when it comes to, of all things, the narrator taking off her shoes. No, I am not interested in how long the narrator sets the timer on the microwave when she makes literally the blandest meal of all time.
Now Iām sure the techbros truly think this is good āliteraryā writing. After all, they only care that the writing sounds flowery, because they seem to be very good at missing the actual meaning of everything. I remember Saltman saying that the movie Oppenheimer needed to be more optimistic to inspire more kids to become physicists (while also saying that The Social Network did that for startup founders).
All I could think about is who has a microwave that beeps while itās still cooking?
maybe itās carbon monoxide detector going off, it would make more sense
Mine does if I use the defrost setting. I assume it wants me to rearrange the contents, but when it beeps the contents are still one solid chunk of ice. It doesnāt make sense, especially for a device that claims to have a āsmartā sensor.
Itās a bit like the excerpt. It feels like someone is trying to rewrite the American Psycho routine, but it hammers the obsessive compulsive tropes with all the subtlety of a brick to the face while simultaneously lacking an overall purpose. Itās just noise.
I had the thought, that maybe the author could be intentionally trying to be mind-numbingly boring, but that just killed it. Into the slop jail!
I mean maybe itās poorly worded and thereās only one set of beeps at the end. But then why would the protagonist be reminded multiple times?
Unless sheās remembering all the times in the past that microwaving bland chicken reminded her of the world being orderly?
But now I think Iām thinking too deeply about microwaves.
In other news, Cade Metzā latest piece is actually pretty critical, especially by NYT standards, but you wouldnāt know it from the headline.
āA.I. Agents: Theyāre Fun. Theyāre Useful. But Donāt Give Them the Credit Card.ā