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 youā€™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 cutā€™nā€™paste it into its own post ā€” thereā€™s no quota for posting and the bar really isnā€™t that high.

The post Xitter web has spawned soo many ā€œesotericā€ right wing freaks, but thereā€™s no appropriate sneer-space for them. Iā€™m talking redscare-ish, reality challenged ā€œculture criticsā€ who write about everything but understand nothing. Iā€™m talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. Theyā€™re inescapable at this point, yet I donā€™t see them mocked (as much as they should be)

Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldnā€™t be surgeons because they didnā€™t believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I canā€™t escape them, I would love to sneer at them.

Last weekā€™s thread

(Semi-obligatory thanks to @dgerard for starting this)

  • blakestacey@awful.systemsOP
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    1 month ago

    From an article about a boutique brand that sells books to rich people:

    Assouline has made its name publishing tomes that sell for $1,000 or more.

    Oh, so they publish textbooks.

    ā€œThey represent stealth wealth, intended to tell you what your hosts are about and to provide visual evidence: that the owners are people of wealth, education and taste.ā€

    šŸŽ¶ Please allow me to introduce myself šŸŽ¶

      • mountainriver@awful.systems
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        1 month ago

        ā€œā€¦37%ā€¦ That means nearly one in fourā€¦ā€

        Eh, no it doesnā€™t, it means nearly two in five. Which is worse.

    • BlueMonday1984@awful.systems
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      1 month ago

      So youā€™re saying that theyā€™ve got books worth at least a grand which their owners are literally using to flaunt their wealth?

      Iā€™m legally obligated to say stealing is legally and morally wrong buuuuuuuut

      • Charlie Stross@wandering.shop
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        1 month ago

        @BlueMonday1984 Betcha the authors arenā€™t getting paid industry-normal royalties (10-15% of net receipts) on those Veblen goods ā€¦

        (A few of my novels have been sold as limited-run signed first editions. Typically for 50%-100% more than the normal hardcover price, so maybe 3-5% as much as this nonsense. Cost of goods for a leatherbound, gilt-trimmed luxury edition is maybe $5-10, plus 10% of the cover price for the author. So someone in the middle is making serious bank.)

      • Charlie Stross@wandering.shop
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        1 month ago

        @froztbyte Your term of art in economics to describe this shitbaggery is ā€œVeblen goodsā€: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good

        ā€œa type of luxury goodā€¦ for which the demand increases as the price increases, in apparent contradiction of the law of demand, resulting in an upward-sloping demand curve. The higher prices of Veblen goods may make them desirable as a status symbol in the practices of conspicuous consumption and conspicuous leisure.ā€

          • Soyweiser@awful.systems
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            1 month ago

            If there is an elevator in the apartment, the driver has to take the stairs, contractually. Of course people who order that donā€™t live in high rise apartments where the driver can reach the door, so everybody wins.