"You could lose access to your 20 years of Gmail history" I'm sure that was intended as a nudge to get me to give my phone number but it came across more like "You've had the same email address for two decades, cool cool cool, except it's on SOMEONE ELSE'S DOMAIN NAME! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING! And you've let them read and control your email for TWENTY YEARS?! How did you let this happen! No, don't look away, you have to fix this or it'll stagnate for another decade, this is an EMERGENCY you absolute MUPPET,"
A trillion dollars disappeared in a day because someone made a garbage generator that uses fewer irreplaceable natural resources than the current garbage generators, and that makes me think about cobblestones.
Remember cobblestones? You could hook your computer up to a big distributed science project, there were tons to choose from, you could fold human proteomes, you could search for extraterrestrial intelligence, you could map cancer markers, develop better solar cell materials, all sorts of stuff. It took the form of a screensaver - whenever you weren't using your computer your CPU fans would spin up and you'd be folding. Move your mouse and it pauses. Great stuff. Something useful for your computer to do when you step away for a minute.
Anyway, you'd get credit for the work your computer had done. Cobblestones, they were called. They were never used as currency, they were just to show off. A cobblestone was a kind of receipt to show that your computer had done something useful.
We never used cobblestones as currency, but we could've. Instead we got bitcoin, which is a receipt that shows that your computer made a bitcoin. What's the bitcoin for? Being a receipt that your computer made a bitcoin.
It served as proof that you'd wasted some electricity.
Proof of waste.
There's other cryptocurrencies as well, some of which work differently to the proof of waste system, and those are worthless, because they're not proof of waste.
The waste is the point.
Now we get this market crash today, money disappeared, because the new AI thing is roughly as pointless as the old one but nowhere near as wasteful.
The waste, is the point. We saw it with cryptocurrencies and we saw it with NFTs and we see it with AI.
The waste has to be the point, because to some people, waste equals scarcity equals wealth equals power. The waste has to be the point because the machines that process the pointlessness have to be expensive, have to be owned by someone, have to be inaccessible to the average person, have to be manufactured and sold and rented out, the means of production of the pointlessness has to be in the right hands. The waste has to be the point, because otherwise we would've decided years ago that a cobblestone was worth a twentieth of a nice sandwich.
🦝 Now pay attention, you at the back. *whips pointing stick against blackboard* THIS SHAPE. Knowing this shape will save you all your dicks.
🐴 That's not a shape
🦝 I can't draw.
🦌 I can't read your writing
🦝 Yeah my handwriting's bad too. Anyway look at the previous three mousetraps
🐍 You need to start putting these on the board
🦝 I'm trying to save your dick here. Anyway, first mousetrap, cryptocurrency, used VAST AMOUNTS OF ELECTRICITY, to do, anyone?
🐼 Crime
🦝 Excellent, perfect, next one, VAST AMOUNTS OF ELECTRICITY to do,
🐃 Ugly monkeys
🦝 Brilliant, now you're getting it, then what happened?
🐼🐍 Vast amounts of electricity
🦝 To do?
🐷 Wrong answers!
🦝 YES! Good god you lot are clever
🦇 So the next mousetrap's also gonna use enormous amounts of electricity to do something ridiculous that nobody wants.
🦝 That's it! That's what I've been -
🦇 We know.
🦝 ...sorry?
🐐 Dude everybody knows. You're preaching to the choir.
🦝 ...oh.
🐴 Yeah if you wanna save some dicks go talk to CEOs.
🦝 No, I don't care about their dicks, honestly I think it's funny when they take turns trying to fuck the mousetrap
🐀 You should write a book.
🦝 ...I should!
🐀 You should!
🦝 I will! I'll call it "The Shape Of The Mousetrap: How To Avoid Falling For The Next Big Tech Scam" and I'll sell it as an epub for ten grand a copy, and all the ceos will buy it! I'LL BE THE DICK MOUSETRAP! ME!
🐀 Great idea! You should end this lesson and write that book!
🐛 I don't understand it. I don't understand anything that's happening.
🐩 There there.
🐩 You're normal.
🐩 It's not understandable.
🐛 I thought our mission was to snap everyone's dicks, and now everyone can get their dick snapped, surely we should be rejoicing
🐩 Oh honey
🐩 It was never about snapping dicks.
🐩 I mean, who wants their dick snapped? Do YOU want your dick snapped?
🐛 I mean... I kinda went along with it, but I didn't really no
🐩 Honey, it was about the waste. Here, have a tissue. Remember the monkey pictures? And the proof-of-waste coins that weren't real?
🐛 Kinda?
🐩 The waste was the point, dear. The inefficiency was what made it so that only the very rich had the money to burn to run the machines. If you take away the waste, if the dick mousetrap machine becomes more efficient, then you just have a bunch of mangled dicks and nobody making any money.
🐛 So now that sticking your dick in a mousetrap doesn't burn irreplaceable resources, the dick mousetrap factory owners are finally wondering whether anyone wants to stick their dick in the mousetrap?
🐩 That's right, dear. That's where all the money's gone. Now take a breath. Wipe those eyes. Shoulders back and chin up high.
🐩 The people with the deep pockets will be moving on to the next scam, and this time you're going to get a piece of it.
🐕 *looking down at a barely-recognizable swollen purple mass wrapped thrice around the business end of a bloodied mousetrap* You see what the problem is here, don't you.
🦊 *dick snuffling and leaping around inside boxers* What is it, boy? What do you smell?
🍆 *pointing at a mousetrap surrounded by mangled bits of 🍆 and people clutching their crotches and groaning like at the end of that Robocop fan remake scene, you know the one* WUFF BORK WROFF
Subway Tooter is honestly the best Fedi app for a whole list of reasons, but high up on that list is the ability to have threads open in tabs that you can pin so they don't close accidentally. You can even set colours for those tabs so you can find them more quickly, for when you want to add to them.
🐰 Dan why is this relevant to the mousetrap thread
🦝 I'LL STOP POSTING ABOUT IT WHEN THEY STOP DOING IT
Mark, owner of Smashwords: 🦌 Okay Draft2Digital, I'll sell you my company whose userbase is full of the kinkiest people you can possibly imagine, but you've gotta promise to let them continue being kinky
Draft2Digital: 🐴 oh we promise
🦌 And don't do anything *too* fucked up, alright?
🐴 we promise
🦌 OK
*five minutes later*
New email, from: 🐴 subject: AUTHOR POLL on attractiveness of mousetrap; is this mousetrap hot enough to fuck? Have your say here
🐰 *lowering dick slowly towards gaping mousetrap* I know you think I shouldn't do this, but have you considered that NOT doing this would actually be problematic?
🦊🐺🦝🐫 *cries of anguish and DON'T DO IT etc*
🐰 Bigots. You're all bigots. *K-SNAP* OW WHAT THE FUCK
I can't believe the poor Proton social media hamster is still putting out fires all over Fedi after I spent eighteen posts very persuasively and eloquently laying out my concerns and suggesting a future roadmap for the company
And then you're in the hardware store five minutes before closing time marching angry down the aisles with the wood slapping your thighs, where even is it, where's the I-dun-goofed-and-gotta-fix-in-a-hurry aisle, toilet repair, nope, quickset drywall repair nah, you end up having to ask where the dick-releasing crowbars are and the lady just can't keep the snicker off her lips can she, so much for my fucking Saturday night
You don't wanna drive all the way home like this so you just find a quiet corner of the car park and stick the jaws in and crank the handle and it slowly slowly starts to let go and just as you're starting to see the funny side of things then the cheap piece of shit shears clear in half and bam, now you got the whole kit and kaboodle stuck in there, can't even take it back 'cause half of it's stuck in the mousetrap so you just drive home and write the manufacturer a shitty email and write the night off and deal with it in the morning
Am I right fellas
Anyway these tech bro CEOs go and harass the mousetrap on PURPOSE
You know, you hear on the news about the latest dick-caught-in-mousetrap epidemic, you think "Pfft, those dingdongs, that'll never happen to me," five minutes later SNAP aw hell, welp that's what I get for being smug I guess
🦊🚬 Right lads, I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but the bubble has popped, the arse has fallen out of the dick-in-a-mousetrap game, and unless we think of something to turn it around right quick I'm gonna have to sack the bloody lot of you. Ideas?
🐩 Sir, research indicates that every time a CEO puts his dick in a mousetrap, stock prices rise sharply at first but then tumble astronomically once the pain sets in and markets return to temporary rationality
🦊 So it's the pain that people object to
🐩 And the dick-stuck-in-a-mousetrap part honestly
🐩 The point where the dick goes in the mousetrap, that's when things go wrong
🐩 Everything up to that point seems to work fine
🦊 So now that we've thoroughly incorporated dicks-in-mousetraps into our business, we need to figure out some kind of way to put your dick in a mousetrap, without ending up with your dick stuck in a mousetrap
🦊 Johnson, get working on a new dickless mousetrap prototype
See, this is why CEOs need hobbies. A CEO's job is to do ✨something✨ and watch the money pour in, problem is that businesses can get into the unfortunate situation where they make enough money to pay everyone well and then just kinda tick over in that horrible boring state for years and years. If the boss doesn't have a good hobby, if he just comes to the office every day and twiddle his thumbs, he'll find himself in need of a good mousetrap to stick his dick in
Fedi: ✨🦊🏳️⚧️ good morning everyone, what shall we post today, hmm let's do some positive USPOL memes (properly CW'd of course), some good composting information, good good, oh Dan's awake, I wonder if we'll get some interesting arcade technologyposting
🦝 *rubbing hands together* Right, dick in a mousetrap, here we go
🦆 I read the popular science fiction novel "Don't put your dick in the mousetrap" as a young boy and since then I've wanted to build a better mousetrap to put my dick in
🐴 You know, I heard about this new technology that could change the world,
🐰 Oh yes, I know what you mean, stay away my friend, that's this year's Better Mousetrap
🐴 Ah, from the popular saying "Don't put your dick in the mousetrap," well I'll stay away then, thank goodness that scruffy fedi pinball raccoon popularized that phrase back in 2024
🐰 Yes indeed, if it weren't for him we'd all be walking around with mousetraps dangling from our dicks
🐴 That's why his PFP's on the 20 centimousetrap coin
*movie trailer voice* IN A WORLD, BEFORE THE DICK MOUSETRAP,
A man at a desk pushes his hair up his forehead and sighs, from the doorway "Are you coming to bed honey?" "Yeah, just give me a few," mutters to himself "An idea. Just one idea, that's all I need," he looks at the mousetrap in the corner, he looks down at his dick, his face lights up "EUREKA!"
"A Better Mousetrap," the unauthorized biopic of the billionaire dick-in-mousetrap man, this summer and only in cinemas
Watching You've Been Framed, it's an AI special, dudes in suits queuing up to stick their dicks in the mousetrap, I'm giggling at them from my TV armchair, a guy in jeans and a polo shirt says "For goodness' sake not like that, here let me show you how it's OW," I'm losing it, spilling my tea on my belly, they just keep on going, "No, see, try putting it in at an angle AH FUCK" I can't breathe, laughing so hard I pee a lil bit, tears running down my face, I see the CEO of a company I actually use and rely on and I stand up tea spilled on the floor shouting at the telly "Wait NO-"
On the one hand, it would be unnecessarily vulgar and sexist to make "Sticking your dick in the mousetrap" a shorthand for throwing a lot of money at whatever the Better Mousetrap is this year, be it bitcoin or blockchain or NFT or AI or whatever
🦝 No though, it's fine, it's alright, see, I was CLEVER. For the past few years I've been slowly changing my accounts so I don't have everything tied to one ridiculous company that keeps doing daft stuff.
🦝 I'm moving to ProtonMail!
Protonmail CEO: 🦆 *sucks the end of his bleeding finger, giving a dirty look to a mousetrap labelled "A.I."* Yup, we're always innovating