Open Bar: Subpoenaed by Congress, but still refusing to testify

[Cramulus]

thank you for that!

and  , nothing says law and order like an economy-destabilizing cryptocurrency

[Juana]

They don't want law and order. They want corprate feudalism.

[The Johnny]

They don't want law and order. They want corprate feudalism.

Well THAT doesn't have latin roots and lacks certain ring to it.

[altered]

Fiefcoin.

Hmm.

No, you're right, there's the wrong sort of odor to it.

Vassalcoin? Better, better.

Serfcoin?

That's the stuff. Yes. Starting a pention immediately.

[The Johnny]

Fiefcoin.

Hmm.

No, you're right, there's the wrong sort of odor to it.

Vassalcoin? Better, better.

Serfcoin?

That's the stuff. Yes. Starting a pention immediately.

Alright alright, Serfcoin sounds very on with the times.

[chaotic neutral observer]

Speaking of cryptocurrencies, I'm being "blackmailed", with payment due via bitcoin.  I was toying with the idea of doing something obnoxious, like sending the spammer $1, broken into tens of thousands of payments, each a fraction of a penny, but alas!  My brief research into the subject shows that bitcoin doesn't work that way.  You essentially need to offer a bribe ("indeterminate transaction fee") to get the system to handle your payment, and even then it can take hours (or days) for it to be processed.

As awkward and arbitrary as it appears, I'm surprised the bitcoin bubble has grown as big as it has.

[altered]

True Believers and technobabble.

It's a classic snake oil con, except financial instead of medical. You have people who went full sunk cost fallacy, people who recognized they could fleece the masses for fun and profit, and a few people who actually made some actual, legitimate bucks off of the booms and busts.

They all tell everyone else how it works and how awesome it is. They use specialized terminology because there's nothing else to distinguish it from watermarked Monopoly money. No one understands what it means, but these people seem to know what they're talking about and they're rich now! Or they would have been except they missed a price spike, but I won't do that! I'm smarter! Right?

Creating more aspiring con artists who see through the veil (or independently reconstruct how to grift people with it), more people who get some marginal gains off of sheer luck, and more people who put all their everything into it and can now NEVER go back.

And these people all tell everyone else how it... etc.

[The Johnny]

True Believers and technobabble.

It's a classic snake oil con, except financial instead of medical. You have people who went full sunk cost fallacy, people who recognized they could fleece the masses for fun and profit, and a few people who actually made some actual, legitimate bucks off of the booms and busts.

They all tell everyone else how it works and how awesome it is. They use specialized terminology because there's nothing else to distinguish it from watermarked Monopoly money. No one understands what it means, but these people seem to know what they're talking about and they're rich now! Or they would have been except they missed a price spike, but I won't do that! I'm smarter! Right?

Creating more aspiring con artists who see through the veil (or independently reconstruct how to grift people with it), more people who get some marginal gains off of sheer luck, and more people who put all their everything into it and can now NEVER go back.

And these people all tell everyone else how it... etc.

Read my book on how to accomplish your media-imposed goals!!!:

"How to be a model": work out the equivalent of a full-time job OR the magical answer, have good genetics.

"How to make good profit": have a couple millions of disposable capital, invest it randomly and the right place and right time and pray to the gods of RNG OR the magical answer, deliberately create and manipulate stock bubbles so when they implode you benefit from it.

[chaotic neutral observer]

I have a notion of how the bitcoin bubble formed, I just find it absurd that it's kept going to this point.  If it takes more than a few seconds for your system to process a basic transaction, you've gone past the point where it has practical value, and something is very, very wrong.

I wonder how much hotter the water will get before the frog jumps out of the pot.

[chaotic neutral observer]

"How to make good profit": have a couple millions of disposable capital, invest it randomly and the right place and right time and pray to the gods of RNG OR the magical answer, deliberately create and manipulate stock bubbles so when they implode you benefit from it.

"It is vastly easier to turn one million dollars into two million dollars than it is to turn one dollar into two dollars."
  (Not original with me, but I can't remember the source.)

[The Johnny]

"How to make good profit": have a couple millions of disposable capital, invest it randomly and the right place and right time and pray to the gods of RNG OR the magical answer, deliberately create and manipulate stock bubbles so when they implode you benefit from it.

"It is vastly easier to turn one million dollars into two million dollars than it is to turn one dollar into two dollars."
  (Not original with me, but I can't remember the source.)

It might as well been Karl Marx, theory of capital and investment and all that 

[Juana]

I paid a company a month ago to mail my best friend a potato and it arrived yesterday. His confusion is worth every penny.

[Junkenstein]

Fiefcoin.

Hmm.

No, you're right, there's the wrong sort of odor to it.

Vassalcoin? Better, better.

Serfcoin?

That's the stuff. Yes. Starting a pention immediately.

Plebcoin.

[altered]

I have a notion of how the bitcoin bubble formed, I just find it absurd that it's kept going to this point.  If it takes more than a few seconds for your system to process a basic transaction, you've gone past the point where it has practical value, and something is very, very wrong.

I wonder how much hotter the water will get before the frog jumps out of the pot.

It won't. Crypto is the new MLM.

In fact, many of the high profile crypto people are turning out to come from the shadier, more fucked up side of MLM. Read a news article about Quadriga the other day, it was hilarious and alarming.

"You have a man convicted of running a Ponzi scheme in charge of banking your bitcoin. He's the only accredited bitcoin banker in Canada. Then he literally fakes his death and runs off with all your money."

This is real life. This really happened.

Crypto is here to stay as a miserable fringe thing till the end of fucking time. Mark my words.

[altered]

I paid a company a month ago to mail my best friend a potato and it arrived yesterday. His confusion is worth every penny.

On a brighter note:

Did you know you can just send a box of flies to someone? Like live flies in a box. You can literally just fill a box with flies. And mail it to someone.

This is legal. It's also surprisingly cheap, and while flies don't live long, you're looking at 12 to 14 dollars to priority mail this sucker to your "pal" across the country, plenty of time for them to burst out of the box like a cloud of anxiety and carpet the room in buzzing hairy insects.

Other completely legal things to send: Pizza, half eaten. Urine. 10000 pieces of cardboard carefully snipped out in the shape of microSD cards, painted appropriately, and with foil taped to them as "contacts". Preserved goat parts. Human remains (seriously). Letters addressed to nonexistent individuals (make sure there is a good reason for your target to not return to sender). Centipedes, the normal sized kind. Centipedes, the scary sized kind.

There is a very short list of what you cannot send in the mail, and it is not vague at /all/. I have had plans to make use of this information for awhile but can find neither the time nor the effort.