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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   1513 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for February 20, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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https://harpers.org/archive/2026/03/childs-play-sam-kriss-ai-startup-roy-lee/

Sam Kriss is a good writer. I didn't expect the article to pivot from a Chinese-American Psycho to a dinner with Scott Alexander, but it did.

UPD: just got to the Donald Boat part and I'm in tears. Now I'll have to explain to my wife why I was giggling idiotically and endure her condescending look.

I find this kind of irritating. Feels like "check out these freaks who think they're better than you (they aren't)" genre bad faith writing.

I do like the Roy telling him to go to Turkey to get his hair fixed part though.

I liked his Burning Man article a lot more.

"They're my slaves" had me rolling ahaha. Thanks for sharing my man this is great.

I think Kriss writes very well. I also think he's bitter as hell, considers himself an underachieving failure, and is often jealous of people who made better choices in life (doing something other than journalism).

He has a terminal case of better-than-thou syndrome, he finds it much easier to tear down than build up. That's fine, I still think he's always entertaining and mostly insightful, which is a high bar indeed.

I'm on the side of the Rats in their small but spirited beef with him for Making Shit Up (it's a bad habit), but he's more generous in this essay, he almost comes out and says nice things about Scott, and the fact he doesn't insult him outright means he does like the guy. I can hardly complain about anyone trashing Cluely.

Sam Kriss is a good writer (a great one, even), but a bad thinker. Once you’ve read enough of what he writes, you can not only predict the broad outline of a Kriss Essay, you can also write your own in your head by stringing together obscure references, the occasional semi-ironic blasé fabrication, and a contemptuous leftist sneer for both the masses in general and anyone who works a regular job specifically.

contemptuous leftist sneer for both the masses in general and anyone who works a regular job specifically.

And people who start companies, too. The only way out is unemployment or writing a Substack.

Sam Kriss is an amazing writer, a true jester

Sam Kriss

Will check it out but prior note that I had fun reading his Clavicular looksmaxxing post a couple weeks ago.

I'm reading his Burning Man semi-mock travelogue and it's a hoot. A mix between Scott's Bay Area house party series and Fear and Loathing.

This was funny, but:

The highly agentic are people who just do things.

(neat)

They don’t timidly wait for permission or consensus; they drive like bulldozers through whatever’s in their way.

(yep, sounds good)

When they see something that could be changed in the world, they don’t write a lengthy critique—they change it.

(hell yeah)

AIs are not capable of accessing whatever unpleasant childhood experience it is that gives you this hunger.

Wait, what?

(In fairness, I think he shows a little more self-awareness later on:

Absolutely anyone could have done the same things he did. In 2020, when Eric was subcontracting coding gigs out to the Third World, I was utterly broke, living in a room the size of a shoebox in London. I would scour my local supermarket for reduced-price items nearing their sell-by date, which meant that an alarmingly high percentage of my diet consisted of liverwurst. There was nothing stopping me from making thousands of dollars a week by doing exactly what Eric was doing. It didn’t require any skills at all—just a tiny amount of initiative. But he did it and I didn’t. Why?

But it still seemed like an odd sentiment.).

AIs are not capable of accessing whatever unpleasant childhood experience it is that gives you this hunger.

Wait, what?

What don't you get about it? He's making the point that most of the 'highly agentic tech bros' in these circles are basically narcissists driven by an intense psychological need for approval and even worship from others. I think he paints the picture quite well, and that it's rather accurate.

I guess it's a coherent worldview as far as it goes, but, like, how absolutely cloudcuckooland insane to hear "you can just do things" and think "this is bad" with a side of "they should be going to therapy instead". I mean, would it be better to not just do things, to sweat and whine about our condition, lie awake in the dark and weep for our sins? This is particularly baffling when a lot of "you can just do things"-ists are doing things that are in fact fake and gay, and pointing this out seems like a much more penetrating critique of the implicit ideology! "Narcissists driven by an intense psychological need for approval" also seems like a TLP/Internet use of "narcissism" to mean "stuff I don't like", though this is arguably orthogonal to the point.

I think what he's getting at is that the things that these people are doing are quite immoral, and have horrible externalities on the rest of us.

It's accurate about people who use their agentic nature to farm social media likes. Naturally, as a social media consumer without visibility into the field, those are the only ones Sam Kriss notices. The people using their agentic nature to do great work and advance their goals without making social media fame a top tier priority go unnoticed.

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