this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2025
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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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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.

(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this.)

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[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 15 points 6 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (38 children)

Word of warning, if you are squeemish, Charlie Kirk got shot, and closeup videos of him getting shot are over social media and people have not put warnings up. Managed to avoid it myself, but careful with autoplaying gifs, and use this link https://bsky.app/profile/nycsouthpaw.bsky.social/post/3lyiw3vi3yc2c for instructions how to turn that off.

E: and it was a groyper, stop your bets ladies and gentlebots. The winner of the bet is, acausalrobotgod! Again! What a predictive streak. (E2: im just making a joke here on betting markets and how ACRG would win them all because acausal magic, don't bet on peoples lives and don't use betting markets).

E: while im editing this post with corrections, turns out that Kirk was a lot worse than I thought and he wasn't just a garden variety propagandist like a Shapiro/Crowder etc. (yeah I know they both also try to branch out into more media). He was doing a lot of shit work on the ground, and one of those guys who was really influential with younger people. Read that this might also explain the extreme rightwing reaction, as he was seen by some as a next big political player. To me, very online leftwinger from europe, he just was the worst joke from a line of other propagandists, but I was wrong on that.

[–] bitofhope@awful.systems 12 points 6 days ago (15 children)

Irrationally annoyed at yanks incorrecting each other how this kind of shot could only be pulled off by a trained expert sniper. The Behind the Bastards guy agrees, but the replies are still stuffed with examples.

I know from experience that even mediocre conscripts shooting a gun for the first time in their life usually manage to land hits in a one foot diameter circle from 150 metres with iron sights on an intermediate catridge rifle. It doesn't take an elite marksman to hit a sitting man from 200 yards away, especially with a scope. Even if nervous and high on adrenaline, an average hunter, target shooter or (ex) military type would be more likely than not to hit a target of that size at that distance, assuming otherwise decent conditions.

Hell, the factory sights on an M16 are supposed to be set for zero elevation at 250 metres and the effective range for most assault rifles and their semi auto civilian variants is around 300 metres. To say you need to be a trained sniper to make this shot is like saying you need to be a professional racing driver to do 80 mph on a highway.

If there's one thing you'd assume seppos know well, it's shooting firearms, but some people still can't help but spout dumb bullshit.

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 9 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (13 children)

Yeah, I think the whole 'quickly getting away without leaving a trace' is more sign of some training. But, this is reduced in being likely by the whole FBI just being filled with incompetent goons, podcasters, racists, who are now playing 'find the person of color' and not doing the actual FBI things.

I mean I have no high opinion of groypers, so I don't think they are well trained soldiers or something so take that into account. Exmil just has a higher willingness to kill people.

But yes, very good to point out thanks. Esp as Evans has experience in these things, and can generally be relied upon. (Apart from his views on 40k being too rosy).

We can prob rule out a Luigi style killer as there was no shellcasing with words on it found as far as I can tell.

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 4 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Reports are shell cases with messages have been found. My money is still on it being a false flag.

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 10 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Yeah, to me the whole finding of casings makes no sense. Like if you put a message on them, leave them there. (also bolt your gun if you might want to shoot it again). Just odd. Also odd they don't mention the messages on them directly. Which normally get plastered all over social media. (Which is bad btw, don't spread extremist messaging without context, I really hope they finally learned this, and this isn't a case of them hiding the message to make it sound more extreme than it was).

But yes, I spoke too soon. Anyway, as I'm the negative Cassandra, let me say this. We can rule out it being a Rationalist, we have not found a copy of HPMOR on the scene as far as I can tell.

E: update on the writing, might be wrong

[–] YourNetworkIsHaunted@awful.systems 6 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Even if we had the shooter may have just been looking for something heavy enough to brace against for the shot. You can't exactly carry a set of encyclopedias up to the top of the book depository or wherever without attracting attention.

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 3 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

You can’t exactly carry a set of encyclopedias up to the top of the book depository or wherever without attracting attention.

Not sure about that, I don't want to talk about specifics as I rather not have people know exactly where I live but you could do a lot on the roofs of our uni without people noticing. Doors were not even locked.

But it makes sense for a shooter to bring something they know the hight off, like their personally signed copy of HPMOR.

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

LOL ofc I spoke too soon, the "messages" were apparently random arrows

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 5 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

I’m hearing that the “messages” are mundane manufacturer markings misinterpreted

E: skeet discourse

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 4 points 5 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Fyi that manufacturer does not make 30 06 ammo. So it isnt true. Story goes that the source for the whole messages story is Crowder, that he dropped it before the mainstream news. Not a reliable source, wtf media.

E: turns out I was wrong sorry about that. But due to the casings we now know he was likely enough to be a groyper for me to call him one. I'll update the first post with a link to my skeet about it. But the song he used was in a 'groyper war' playlist. The song didn't make sense to me anyway.

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

crowder just mad that the title on the tent was "prove me wrong" and not "change my mind"

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 4 points 5 days ago

I know it is not accurate, but some liberty has been taken with the statements.

image descriptionAn text image in the style of a Dark Souls death message. The red text on a black background says "mind changed" in all caps

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