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.)
In lesser corruption news, California Governor Gavin Newsom has been caught distributing burner phones to California-based CEOs. These are people that likely already have Newsom's personal and business numbers, so it's not hard to imagine that these phones are likely to facilitate extralegal conversations beyond the existing ~~bribery~~ legitimate business lobbying before the Legislature. With this play, Newsom's putting a lot of faith into his sexting game.
Gavin Newsom has also allegedly been worked behind the scenes to kill pro-transgender legislation; and on his podcast he's been talking to people like Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon and teasing anti-trans talking points.
I guess this all makes sense if he's going to go for a presidential bid: try to appeal to the fascists (it won't work and also to heck with him) while also laying groundwork for the sort of funding a presidential bid needs.
If I was a Californian CEO and received a burner phone I'd text back "Thanks for the e-waste :<" but maybe that's why I'm not a CEO.
When this all was revealed his popularity also tanked apparently. Center/left now dislikes him, the right doesn't trust him. So another point for the 'don't move right on human rights you dummies' brigade.
Tbh, weird. If I were a hyper-capitalist, CA-based CEO, I would take the burner phone as an insult. I’d see it as a lack of faith in the capture of the US. Who needs plausible deniability when you just own the fucking country?
the phones seem to serve no practical purpose. they already have his number and I don't think you can conclude much from call logs. so suppose they are symbolic. what he would be communicating is that he's so fully pliant that he is willing to do things there is no possible excuse for, and not even for real benefit, just to suck up to them. the opposite of plausible deniability
it's weird and lowkey insulting imo. let's assume that for some bizarre reason tech ceo needs a burner phone to call governor newsom: do you think i can't get that myself, old man? i'd assume it's bugged or worse
Man, I'm getting tired of these remakes.
Even worse, he got caught handing them out. And even with all that, I'd expect a tech CEO to just go 'why not use signal?' or 'what threat profile do you think we have?' (sorry I keep coming back to this, it is just so fucking weird, like 'everything I know I learned from television shows' kind of stuff)
Brings to mind the sopranos scene of the two dudes trying to shake down a starbucks or starbucks analogue for protection money
Governor Saul Goodsom.