Want to wade into the snowy surf of the abyss? 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.
(Last substack for 2025 - may 2026 bring better tidings. Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this.)
@Soyweiser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albigensian/_Crusade
Try finding some Cathar writings.
While I think itās entirely fair to say that the medieval period gets a bad rap in terms of equating feudalism to the later god-king aristocracies, itās not in any way unfair to say the medieval church reacted to heresy with violence. (Generally effective and overwhelming violence; if youāre claiming sole moral authority you canāt really tolerate anyone questioning your position.)
Thanks, yeah, as I also said to Stross, I dont know that much about the period. Most of it comes from Crusader Kings ;) (Doesnāt help that these games are sanitized in a large degree so genocides etc will not show up (which is the good decision btw, if they were not sanitized it would be worse, imagine hearts of iron for example), so it isnāt a great way to learn about what you could learn more about the dark parts of our history), and the religion mechanics there are not that historically accurate, so I dont put not much stock in that apart form āsome people believed in a religion named like this onceā.
Anyway thanks both for correcting me and giving me homework (ill read up on it, any more specifics about the Cathar stuff would be appreciated, as I wouldnāt know where to start).
And I would say the latter stance on heresy only applies when your position is weak. When you are strong some random fools not believing correctly are not of a great importance, which is why I thought the church went more internally after heresies vs externally via crusades (in intend, not in practice I know what the first crusade did in the German region etc) later in history. Clamping down internally hard is more a sign of weakness in my mind, you need the hard power cause you lack the soft power (an example now and then not withstanding).
@Soyweiser The Cathars are the heretics being extirpated during the Albigensian Crusade.
Ah thanks, I didnt know. Edited a bit more in btw. Sorry about that. Scattered mind with a lot of Lāesprit de lāescalier energy.
E: A quick Wikipedia check: To provide more of that energy, 1200 in France, yeah I totally stand corrected. My bad people, thanks.