Libertarian=hard pass.

Libertarian Police Department Copypasta

I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.

“Bad news, detective. We got a situation.”

“What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?”

“Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.”

The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?”

“Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.”

“Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.”

He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.”

I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside.

“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. “Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t.

“Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up.

“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?”

It didn’t seem like they did.

“Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.”

Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing.

I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it.

“Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled.

Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him.

“Stop right there!” I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen.

I was losing him. “Listen, I’ll pay you to stop!” I yelled. “What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I’ll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn ‘Bob Barr ‘08’ extra-large long-sleeved men’s T-shirt!”

He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.

“All right, all right!” the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. “I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.”

VIDEO FROM THE NEW YORKER Throwing Shade Through Crosswords

“Why’d you do it?” I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy.

“Because I was afraid.”

“Afraid?”

“Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,” he said. “I’m a central banker.”

I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head.

“Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,” I said. “No matter how many bitcoins you steal, you’ll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.”

He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me for arresting him

That one of the US presidents died from eating too many cherries.

https://www.grunge.com/630116/how-cherries-are-tied-to-president-zachary-taylors-death/

There are bots here that do that, usually on the weekends for some reason. I couldn’t tell if it was one of the people that run super popular instances trying to get people to engage or a place like Emerdata Limited (formerly Cambridge Analytica) or something like that.

Edit: that video you shared is amazing. That’s why when you respond to trolls or people who seem too angry, stop at one response (2 at the most), to clarify, and then move on.

Assassin’s Creed, I want to, and quickly form a strategy to, climb every building after playing.

Mojeek gives good results, I’ll keep trying it. I’m not sure about yep though, how do the people get paid? I didn’t see any sign up. It sounds like it’s a platform for their SEO subscribers.

anything it recommends suffers from being sourced in a void, devoid of true meaning.

You just described most of reddit, anything Meta, and what most reviews are like.

So is Mojeek a standalone since it’s yellow? It looks like a lot of other people use them and not the other way around. Yep is cool, but I think they get their money from the sites that pay them? I looked at it yesterday, it’s sort of a strange set up that I’m not sure I understand.

• Swiss Cows
• Mojeek
• StartPage

I’ve collected these 3 so far, but Swiss Cows if you go deep enough uses Bing. I’m not sure about Mojeek or Start Page.

Yes, why isn’t that one of the “good ones”?

I was wondering, but it should be more mainstream, yeah? Wasn’t Hitler thought to be living in South America or something in the old school conspiracy theories?

I might be wrong about this, but I think you’re supposed to wait until the last minute to zipper merge. That way, everyone gets the benefit of it.

It doesn’t flow well, it’s more of a stop and start.

Since programmers invented AI, did they make it so it wouldn’t take their jobs? I hope that was on their list, there has to be a job for someone not in the service industry in the future.

Cool, I hope it goes well for you.

That’s super cool that you think that’s positive.

Which one did you choose?

Yikes

Meta’s lead for Threads, Adam Mosseri, was head of Facebook’s News Feed and Interfaces departments during that long, warning-heavy lead-up to the genocide of the Rohingya in Myanmar. After the worst of the violence was over, Mosseri noted on a podcast that he’d lost some sleep over it.

I agree that some of what Evan characterised as Small Fedi isn’t about small for small’s sake, it’s more about the view you describe – what L. Rhodes calls “networked communities”. Of course, the consequences of this result in slower growth than the Big Fedi view, so a smaller network in the short-to-medium term, so from his perspective I can see why I chose this framing.

I can see why he chose it, but I still don’t agree with it. It’s not a forgone conclusion that it will end up small if someone doesn’t federate with threads. It’s still growing slower, but it could hit huge now that all of the kinks are getting worked out. One more x fuck up and tweak to mastodon that makes it more user friendly, it could take off. I think people are okay with it taking off, just on fediverse terms, not evil company terms.

I’m having trust issues with them. I had an issue with them in their support community where they most likely deleted comments and then wouldn’t own up, and now I’m at another instance. I would have left when they said they wouldn’t defederate threads anyway. Leaving isn’t that hard. If .19 gets figured out, you’re supposed to be able to leave easily as well.

In one of the comments in the original Big Fedi, Small Fedi

by Badri December 27, 2023 at 1:06 am

@evanprodromou this is interesting! I think I agree with many of the points on both the “Big Fedi” and “Small Fedi” sides. It would be interesting to list them as a sort of multiple-select quiz (maybe without the big/small fedi headings) and see which combinations of points people end up selecting.

What I really hope is that there’s some way for people from both clusters (and those stuck in between) to coexist. Can the Big Fedi people connect with everyone they want to, while the Small Fedi folk keep their comfortable distance and protect their safe spaces?

I think most of what Evan listed as Small Fedi aren’t really about the small, they’re about the sense of trust and the trust that we can defederate successfully if things go terribly wrong. I really don’t have any opinion about any of the others trying to join except the known shitty, evil companies.

I also agree with the bolded part. Do we have a way to take polls and mix up all that everyone wants? It would be interesting to see what is most important to most fediverse users.