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dgerard@awful.systems

Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending Sunday 05 May 2024 (awful.systems)

submitted 6 months ago by dgerard@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems

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Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid!

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.

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[–] gerikson@awful.systems 8 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

The history of the reaction in the 19th century is fascinating. I can recommend this book:

Phantom Terror: Political Paranoia and the Creation of the Modern State, 1789-1848 by Adam Zamoyski

Metternich was so scared of radical students he basically ensured that the universities in Austria-Hungary were hamstrung by political meddling and censorship. This was a great foundation for the war with Prussia later on! /s

[–] sinedpick@awful.systems 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

God damn history is cool. I have nothing interesting to say but thanks for this. I might actually go pick up that book, do you think it's suitable for someone who has basically read zero real history books?

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 5 points 6 months ago

I'd say it's a bit on the advanced side but if you can find it "off the back of a truck" then it's worth giving it a try.

[–] mountainriver@awful.systems 4 points 6 months ago

If I remember correctly, Josef Ressel, one of the inventors of the propeller (there was severa, but he was in Austrial), was arrested as an anarchist after a steam engine powering a propeller exploded.

I am not in favour of exploding engines, but it always struck me as a bit on the paranoid side. Not that better ships for the Austrian navy would have helped against Prussia.

But then again, another propeller inventor, John Ericsson, came up with both the Monitor, a torpedo boat, and a mobile artillery that he tried to sell to Napoleon III, so you never know what propeller inventors can come up with if you don't arrest them as anarchists.