Thanks for joining me today! I'm here at the Reddit corporate parking lot, spot 269 (nice!), and ~~being assisted today by Victoria~~ all by myself because friends only tie down your ambitions.

Founded in 1978 as a men's discount shoe store on the west side of Philadelphia (born and raised), Reddit has, despite our best efforts, experienced an unprecedented explosion in popularity in the past decade. As of this morning, we are now home to over 16.5 million subscribers, of which a good 11% are associated with human beings, creating over 13 original posts each and every week!

As a business, our primary goal has been maintaining this platform at the expense of our users. As a result, we recently made the decision to acquire one of our upcoming competitors, Lemmy. This sale finalized as of Sunday, July 2nd, for a price that will not be disclosed because our VCs might be reading this.

Effectively immediately, we have enacted a few new featifits (a benefit and a feature combined) that will ~~hopefully pay for the new sous chef~~ will benefeat the Lemmy community. These include:

• A newly revamped federation system that will allow Reddit posts to be viewed on Lemmy. This will be limited to one randomly selected subreddits every month, as chosen by myself, and I've been pretty much into cat girls this year, so they'll probably be cat girl-related
• A unique new post sorting algorithm that compliments the above, boosting all posts that do, possibly may, or will feature cat girls after I have edited them
• 500 Spezbux that can be redeemed for Speztokens at any point
• An unshakable sense of dread about the future course of technology
• Full length ads for Carl Jr's that will be sent directly to your inbox each hour and can be viewed for additional Spezgild
• New scents

And much much more! Also, as is tradition for this AMA, we will not be answering any questions at this time, but please, feel free to waste your time and ask anyway!

I hate Mondays

Made in Blender 3D! Let the beans flow!!

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.”

“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.

Any resemblance to real social media, living or "dying", is purely coincidental.

Artist - @MrLovenstein@mastodon.social