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 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.
(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this. Also, happy April Foolās in advance.)
My University Keeps Sending Me Stupid Emails About AI, a continuing series:
From the email:
Artificial Intelligence is the future of climate resilient design in the same way that asian pseudo-medicinal ED treatments are the future of the white rhinoceros.
Notwithstanding the subject matter, I feel like Iāve always gotten limited value from these Oxford-style university debates. KQED used to run a series called Intelligence Squared US that crammed it into an hour, and I shudder to think what thatās become in the era of Trump and AI. It seems like a format that was developed to be the intellectual equivalent of intramural sports, complete with a form of scoring. But that contrivance renders it devoid of nuance, and also means it can be used to platform and launder ugly bullshit, since each side has to be strictly pro- or anti-whatever.
Really, it strikes me as a forerunner of the false certainty and point-scoring inherent in Twitter-style short-form discourse. In some ways, the format was unconsciously pared down and plopped online, without any sort of inquiry into its weaknesses. Iād be interested to know if anyone feels any different.
I have no knowledge or insight on the topic, but I used to get recommendations for āintelligence squaredā videos on YouTube and I always thought it was a terrible, self-aggrandizing title for a series or event. Smart People Taking About Smart Things.
Intelligence Time Cubed now, thatās the real deal.
Intelligence2 didnāt seem half bad when Robert Anton Wilson was the one talking about it way back when, in retrospect all the libertarianism was a real time bomb.