#tuttle twins

[xtruss]

Scholars Now Believe Mary And Joseph Were Denied Room In The Inn Due To Being Unvaxxed

— Scripture | November 12th, 2021 - BabylonBee.com

BETHLEHEM — Biblical scholars have uncovered a dusty old scroll that turned out to be a record of Jesus's birth. According to the ancient writing, Mary and Joseph were actually denied room in the inn because they were unvaxxed.

“The record reveals the reason why they were denied a room in the inn, clear as a shining star in the East,” said scriptural historian Bart Madson. “The Holy Family’s vaccination status banned them from going indoors, according to the mandate at the time.”

The ancient writ describes Joseph and Mary approaching the inn’s entrance, exhausted from their long journey to Bethlehem, and Mary being great with child. The warm comfort of the inn’s door was quickly blocked by Karenekiah, a mask-wearing pharisee who smelled like hand sanitizer, demanding proof of vaccination.

When Joseph explained the family’s natural immunity due to the virus already passing through their family, he was mocked and ridiculed by the pharisee as being “anti-science” and a “Samaritan.”

The Pharisee then sent them away, according to the record. As they turned to leave, the innkeeper came out and apologized for the inconvenience, but that “Karen” was there to enforce the vaccine mandate, and that he had no choice.

“You always have a choice,” said Mary.

The innkeeper gave a long, tired sigh, according to the dusty scrolls, then motioned for the young family to follow him to the nearby stable, where they were made as comfortable as possible.

The rest of the story can be found in another book, available to everyone.

Oscar The Grouch Refuses The Vaccine, Stocks Up On Ivermectin

— Entertainment | November 8th, 2021 - BabylonBee.com

SESAME STREET, NY — With the COVID-19 vaccine now approved for 5 to 11-year-olds, many of the residents of Sesame Street are flocking to get the vaccination, even though it has not been specifically approved for large birds, monsters, or vampires.

“Yay! Inject Elmo!” Elmo was heard shouting as he got in line for the shot.

There is a lone holdout, though: trashcan resident Oscar the Grouch. “Go ahead and get the experimental vaccine,” said Oscar to everyone in line. “I hope you don’t die, though. Actually, I hope you do die — because I’m a grouch!”

Oscar the Grouch, who often listens to Joe Rogan without earbuds—inflicting the podcast on whoever is near his trashcan—has instead stocked up on Ivermectin—the preferable way for a grouch to treat COVID-19. “Yeah, you sheeple line the pockets of Pfizer while the vaccine does who-knows-what to you,” said Oscar. “Me, I’ll be here with my alternative treatments, being perfectly healthy and perfectly grouchy.”

“Oh no. Elmo now scared of the shot!” said Elmo.

“Don’t listen to him,” cautioned Big Bird. “I heard he voted for Trump.”

“Twice!” exclaimed Oscar. “And I’ll do it again in ‘24!”

Oscar also got into a spat with CNN, which claimed Oscar had been using a common parasite treatment approved for humans, when in fact Oscar had very specifically only been consuming horse dewormer. Because he’s a grouch.

Now That He's Sold The Pfizer Vaccine, Here Are 10 More Upcoming Product Endorsements From Big Bird

— Sponsored | November 9th, 2021 - BabylonBee.com

The beloved Sesame Street character Big Bird is finally doing what he was born to do: sell pharmaceutical products to small children! After his resounding success in selling a Pfizer vaccine, here are 10 more exciting Big Bird product endorsements PBS is planning:

1) The brand new cereal Pfizer-O's: Every bowl is the equivalent of one additional COVID booster. The FDA says it's a balanced part of your complete breakfast! Cool!

2) Pfizer's watermelon flavored puberty blocker chewables: change your gender without sacrificing taste.

3) Lead finger-paint set: This is a great way to boost your child's immunity to lead poisoning. Made in China.

4) Communist Manifesto: Illustrated Children's Edition: It's never too early to introduce your kids to the greatest political ideology on earth. A great alternative to Tuttle Twins books.

5) Fisher Price's My First Pregnancy Test: They even come in pink and blue, depending on whether your pregnant child is a man or a woman!

6) Waterboarding kit: A great way for kids to learn how we treat enemies of the state.

7) COVID Heroes Trading Cards: Fauci, Whitmer, Newsom... collect 'em all!

8) Injectable sugar: a great way to boost your energy on the go!

9) Afghanistan withdrawal Lego set: Reenact Biden's heroic withdrawal from Afghanistan, and decide who gets left behind!

10) A government-issued satellite phone for reporting your parents to the state: Don't let them get away with mask violations on your watch!

NOT SATIRE: Don't let Joe Biden or Big Bird raise America's kids! And certainly don't let them provide medical treatment or teach them socialism. Instead, let's teach America's youth with the Tuttle Twins!

The Tuttle Twins children’s book series is teaching the rising generation about the ideas of freedom, free markets, individual responsibility, and American history.

My goal is to distribute an additional 10,000 copies of the Tuttle Twins before the end of the year. It costs roughly $10 to distribute one copy of the Tuttle Twins to a family.

Honoring Brian Williams: Top 10 Moments Of His Remarkable Career In Journalism

— Sponsored | November 10th, 2021 - BabylonBee.com

Journalist Brian Williams is retiring after serving the human race as one of the greatest journalists to walk the earth. In honor of this brave hero, let us take a look back at the top 10 moments of his career.

1) When he wrote The Star Spangled Banner under cannon fire: In addition to being a brave journalist, Brian Williams is also a brilliant lyricist. According to his own account, he wrote all night as cannonballs exploded overhead. Amazing!

2) That time he destroyed the Death Star without even using his targeting computer: Only Brian Williams could do something so amazing.

3) The day he marched arm in arm with MLK at Selma: Proof that Brian Williams is not racist.

4) Inspiring Paul McCartney to write "Hey Jude": But not even McCartney performed it as well as Brian Williams would have, if he had been given the chance.

5) Editing the Declaration of Independence for Thomas Jefferson: Unfortunately, in the editing process, he removed Jefferson's anti-slavery clause. Not one of his finest moments.

6) When he discovered climate change: Future generations will owe their lives to Brian Williams.

7) The moment he cast the One Ring into the fires of Mount Doom all by himself without any help: And he did so under small arms and RPG fire.

8) When he defeated Thanos with only 3 infinity stones: Also under small arms and RPG fire.

9) The time he calmly took charge of Apollo 13 to guide the ship back to earth: Luckily, he had experience with scary situations after his helicopter went down in Iraq.

10) Reporting on Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden: Yes, he was there when it all began. And if Adam and Eve had listened, we could have avoided all this mess. But then we wouldn't have all these incredible moments with Brian Williams.

NOT SATIRE: The Media Research Center is the ONLY conservative non-profit dedicated to exposing the Fake News media and liars like Brian Williams to the American people.

Thanks to MRC, 90% of Americans do NOT trust the Fake News media. We can't let the media determine our elections, pass their agenda, and censor conservatives.

[animationfanboy2k4]

"That's what friends are for, right? "

[morlock-holmes]

Damn it talking Bitcoin, your overall deflationary nature and wild day to day swings in value make you unsuitable for use as a day to day currency! The Tuttle Twins would be fools to spend you on junk food today, when if they wait until tomorrow they will be able to spend you on twice as much junk food, which tends to depress overall demand. You clearly only function via a symbiotic (or parasitic) relationship to a currency with a relatively stable but long term inflationary nature, and lord knows what would happen if we were forced to rely on you as our only currency. Also, although the government cannot easily seize you, the total visibility of blockchain transactions makes you easy to track and the irreversability of the blockchain makes it easy for you to be stolen by criminals and North Korean spy agencies. You require a somewhat sophisticated opsec that most tweens may not be able to maintain, and your extremely repetitive but maddeningly catchy song can't change that!

Someone tell that little commie girl to start watching Folding Ideas. Man this is a strange cartoon. I heard about this from the Fundie Fridays youtube channel. The animation is pretty good for what this is? It's a little cheap but there's some talent there. The writing is pure propaganda.

What makes it stranger is that the characters were created by Connor Boyack, who is a Mormon and founder of the Libertas Institute, a libertarian think tank.

I have to admit, I find libertarians who are religious pretty baffling. Pretty much all the religions I know about mandate a certain amount of charity and a conception of freedom that goes beyond the market freedoms that libertarians prize. Maybe Mormonism is different? But they still take the Bible as a holy book so I don't see how that could be.

Also the Libertas Institute isn't a quack operation? They've had success in Utah passing laws to extend fourth amendment protections to cloud data, working to introduce legal medical cannabis in Utah, automatic expungement of criminal records for misdemeanors and all sorts of other stuff.

I don't agree with them on every policy but I agree with them on a heck of a lot and Boyack and Libertas seem to have genuine experience with selling ideas like police reform to Utah Republicans, which can't be easy.

So I now understand what this is even less than when I started watching it. Also that girl might not be a commie she might be a prep school Republican? I'm unclear.

[saturdaynightspecialpresentation]

Let's Watch Libertarian Propaganda for Children for Some Reason

Hey everybody, look, it’s the Tuttle Twins!

Yeah, there they are. Zooping around on their time machine.

The Tuttle Twins is a streaming show from Angel Studios, the independent studio behind Sound of Freedom and various Christian and Christian-Adjacent movies. They’ve got some movie about Jesus out right now.

No, you can’t- The Buddy Christ thing isn’t- You don’t- 

Anyway, although I first heard about this cartoon from a youtube channel called “Fundie Fridays” The Tuttle Twins isn’t a Christian propaganda cartoon, it’s a Libertarian propaganda cartoon.

One that teaches kids how to buy Bitcoin!

After watching just the episode about Bitcoin, I wanted to watch and talk about some more episodes. And I sketched out a bit of an intro explaining what Libertarianism is in the minds of the people who created this show, but then I had a second thought.

“Am I just describing a straw-man libertarianism? Am I just paraphrasing these ideas in a way that I find easy to refute? Have I become the very Tuttle Twins I was trying to defeat?"

And then I watched the very first episode and their description of what they believe is pretty much word for word how I was going to explain it.

And hey, they put that episode up on youtube, we can watch it together!

(You can also watch season 1 and 2 and most of 3 for free on their slightly wonky app or web site, but there are a few full episodes on youtube as well)

Or you could skip it and read my amazing summary below!

Anyway, after a brief cold open that sees the twins hurtling through dimensions, and a pretty cute gag we cut to our entrepreneurial twins selling lemonade. The science-minded Emily is using it fund a trip to science camp, and Ethan is using it to fund his purchase of an enormous gummy bear. 

Until, that is, they are confronted by Karinne.

Likes: Fiat Currency, Communism, sweater vests. Dislikes: Freedom

I gotta be honest, I don’t totally get Karinne, she’s kind of a foil or frenemy for the main characters, and she comes off kind of preppy coded, sort of the snobbish rich kid used to getting what she wants, but y’all are libertarians, you shouldn’t be shaming her for the fact that her parents are Randian producers. 

Honestly I am eternally fascinated by kids show characters whose job is to be constantly wrong, but after watching a few episodes I don’t really have a clear read on her. Sometimes she tags along on an adventure and acts as an ideological foil for the kids, but so far I've seen her argue for fiat currency, religious intolerance, the NSA, and using the power of the president for self-enrichment. So... Uh... Not the raging communist I was lead to expect, put it that way.

Also there is a running joke for the first season where people keep pronouncing her name “Karen” and I don’t know if the joke is she’s supposed to be kind of a Karen in the slang sense? But honestly when I picture the kind of mother who would show this show to her kids… People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, that’s all I’m saying.

Anyway, it turns out Karinne is the president of the “Cul-de-sac Kids Club” and last night she held a meeting to amend the laws of the kids club to allow the president to have as much lemonade as she wants, so she has some lackeys just cart away all of the lemonade, leaving our heroes without a way to earn money in the glorious American free market economy, what with the means of production having been confiscated and all.

The good news, though, is that Grandma is moving in! Along with her pet, and very specifically not tame raccoon Derek, who was banned from her previous dwelling by the HOA because, quote, “HOAs are full of communists”. Someone should put that on a shirt and sell plush toys of that raccoon.

I do enjoy the fact that her first impulse on hearing that Karinne is going to confiscate the lemonade is to slingshot a bar of soap at her head:

Don’t worry, she doesn’t actually assault a child.

Anyway, that night as the twins are lamenting the loss of they hear the noise of an acetylene welding torch coming from their grandmother’s room.

It turns out she made her mobility scooter into a gadget-laden time machine, so our show has a premise now. Huzzah!

After a series of actually pretty good gags, the kids end up in France, 1848 to meet with Frédéric Bastiat, who I was not previously aware of but who appears to be one of the founding figures of modern libertarian ideology.

Apparently American politics these days are all your fault you french son of a gun. Also wow they drew your hand wrong in this frame.

And he describes what I was going to describe about the libertarian moral foundations of this show.

“My book is about the idea that laws should protect our God-given rights or ‘Natural rights’. Having rights means there are some things you can do, and nobody is allowed to stop you!”

Specifically, rights to life, to liberty (Meaning the right to do what we want so long as it doesn’t take away another person’s rights) and to own property.

And to be clear, and this is explained later in the episode, these are very negative rights. The role of the government is not to ensure that you have any specific amount of property, liberty or life. Rather, you have to gather as much as you are able by your own lights, and the government’s sole role is to prevent other people from taking whatever property you have or abrogating your liberties or killing you.

Does that mean that taxation for the public good is the same as theft?

You betcha, which is what we learn in the next part of the show. A part which is largely so boring that I can't be bothered to screencap it.

The time machine runs out of “Knowledge Juice” and strands them in an Old West Town. Knowledge Juice is the fuel for the time machine, it’s a green goo that goes down when they travel through time, and up when they explain that they’ve learned something. And it’s a plot device that I think they eventually get rid of just because it gets kind of redundant.

Actually I’ll just sort of go over the formula of the show. 

The kids have some more or less relatable real world problem;

Grandma takes them back in time to meet a historical figure who tells them about some libertarian principle;

On the way back the time machine runs out of knowledge juice in some fantastical situation;

The kids solve the situation using their new libertarian knowledge;

They refill the knowledge juice reserves by explaining what they learned;

They then go back home and use what they learned to solve their ordinary kid problem.

Just from a story structure perspective the part where they refill the knowledge juice is extremely redundant; It would be more elegant to just have them explain the lesson to the other kids when they solve their problem at the end of the episode. I think eventually they figured that out.

Arguably, if you really wanted to condense things you’d have the kids go on a historical adventure with the historical figure, then come back to the present and explain what they learned and apply it to their current situation, but the reason they have sections 3 and 4 is because those are usually where the crazy cartoon stuff comes in, they end up in some alternate fantasy dimension or shrunk down and fighting a worm war, or something fun like that.

Except for this pilot episode, where parts 3-5 just take place in a generic old west town. Not really starting with a bang honestly.

Basically, the Sheriff fights off two cattle rustling bandits, who then return in the guise of tax men, taking cows away from an innocent rancher to use for business subsidies and charity, which isn’t fair because the law is supposed to protect her property, and anyway the rancher gives cows to charity sometimes already.

Since taxation is theft, the kids lobby to get the laws changed, and after an amusing title card that says,

The whole town has voted to repeal the taxes and they capture the rustlers, huzzah!

Anyway, the Tuttle Twins go back home, and call an emergency meeting of the Cul-de-sac kids club to hold a vote to repeal the law that allows the President to have as much lemonade as she wants. Of course, the vote goes their way…

Which is when Karinne reveals her trump card, which is that the club by-laws allow the President a unilateral veto over any proposed amendments to the club rules.

Furthermore, she points out that the Kids Club is not a government organization, but a private one which is simply a contractual relationship that the twins entered freely. And since the government’s job is to enforce contracts and protect private property, the twins will be arrested if they try to violate the contract by taking any of Karinne’s honestly earned lemonade.

Yeah kids, that’s right. Have grandma teleport you back to talk to Murray Rothbard, he’ll explain it to you.

Okay okay I made all that up. I'll stop arguing politics with a children's cartoon.

They successfully overturn the rule but give everybody in the club a glass of lemonade on the house anyway to show there’s no hard feelings.

So, this episode is not that out there. Something I can’t get across in summary is that there are a lot of classic cartoon gags, and a lot of them land. I’ve watched a few episodes of this show now and smiled at a lot of gags and laughed out loud once or twice. As much as I don’t agree with a lot of the ideology behind it it’s not something that was tossed out there.

The animation quality of any given shot varies quite a lot, but there is some attention to the animation, visual gags and comedy timing as well as some funny writing. This isn’t a half-assed scam or complete amateur nonsense, this is clearly made by people who are trying to make something genuinely good outside of its propaganda purpose.

That said, I obviously have some issues with the show.

Honestly going in I thought my biggest problem with this show would be ideological disagreement. And don’t get me wrong, there’s some stuff in this show that I strongly disagree with, but there are quite a few episodes with perfectly fine messages. There’s an episode where they get into a prank war at science camp and eventually it starts wrecking the science projects so Ghandi teaches them about de-escalation. Rosa Parks talks about civil disobedience and how sometimes you should disobey unjust laws, but you should always be aware of the consequences beforehand and think carefully about how and when you should do it. There’s an episode where they talk about respecting different religious traditions and how the government shouldn’t mandate or prevent any religion.

I agree with all of that, even if some of that is something that kids won’t really get to put into practice much.

My big problem is that even though there are gags in the historical parts, this show suffers a problem that a lot of educational shows do, which is that it feels like it stops dead to lecture you about something and you have to just sit through that until the fun bits start up again. The historical figures tend to be heavily simplified in a way that some people might object to, but I think the bigger issue is that this simplification makes their stories less compelling.

You’re not so much living through a recreation of the exciting things the historical figures did so much as listening to them talk about what they did. It’s a real “tell, don’t show” approach that makes about a third of every episode really kind of dull unless it’s one of the episodes where what they’re telling you is batshit crazy.

So if you’re going to watch it for camp value, I really don’t recommend starting with the first episode or trying to watch it in order, I’d just scan the episode summaries and watch one that sounds crazy to you. There are at least two that try to sell Bitcoin to children. There’s a few genuinely bananas episodes and ideas to gawk at if you’re into that kind of thing like I am, but there’s a lot of fairly bland episodes.

And talking about how viewers will view the show…

I have had to accept in my heart that I have no idea who this show is made for.

It has a lot of parallels to American Christian pop culture programs, but like, okay, so right-wing American Christians have built this entire parallel media ecosystem because they’re paranoid that Hollywood secularists are going to corrupt their kids with secularism and paganism. I knew a guy once who said when he was a kid his parents made him stop watching Tiny Tunes because they saw one of the characters meditating, but that’s okay, he could still watch McGee and Me.

Now, I don’t agree with that kind of strict parental thought control, it is at least internally consistent. A lot of parts of the Bible are about devout Godly people being corrupted by worldly concerns or religious apostasy, going at least back to the worship of the Golden Calf in Exodus. And the right wing Christians who are worried about media corruption think any deviation from their theology is a threat to a person’s immortal soul.

So the impulse to shield your child from any media that even slightly questions or contradicts your own views isn’t good, but at least it’s theologically consistent and in keeping with the Bible.

Meanwhile, if you find yourself saying, “As a staunch libertarian and tireless advocate for personal freedom, I believe in strictly controlling what my children are allowed to watch or think.” Like…

You know come on and think for a second about what you’ve just said.

The kind of paranoia about controlling your children’s worldview that would make someone want to watch this really doesn’t seem to me to be in keeping with, well, uh, the actual values espoused in the show.

So I kind of don’t know how to feel about it. Personally, I would never expose a child to this on purpose unless they were old enough to ask some very critical questions about what they were hearing.

On the other hand, when I imagine the kind of person who is going to show this to their kids… I kind of almost wonder if most of the other stuff those kids are seeing is a lot worse. I can kind of imagine a very earnest child taking this stuff seriously enough to start questioning some controlling parent or religious authority.

So I really just don’t know. If anybody has any insight into the culture of the people who watch this kind of thing, I’d be really curious.

[friendrat]

WINGFEATHER REFERENCE! WINGFEATHER REFERENCE! TOOTHY COW!

My kids and I all yelled, "TOOTHY COW! TOOTHY COW!" It was great. 😂

[yumcha-af]

Day 7 of posting about this show until I have someone to talk about it with

(Tuttle Twins via Angel Studios)

[unterwaesche]

I keep getting these Tuttle Twins shorts and I gotta say, I'm deeply uncomfortable with this being aimed at kids. They get most of the surface level information right, but this whole idea that if you just organize and force the government to tweak itself a little then things will get better, or that the underlying issue is that we're all picking sides and then sticking with them for life come hell or high water (which is a fair cop but doesn't get to the bottom of it) and not the fact that we're not able to revoke our consent to be governed, and therefore are not consenting to be governed, it's just statist propaganda disguised as libertarianism. Who thought this was a good idea?

[yoshimickster]

Why did YouTube recommend me the Tuttle Twins? Does YouTube think I'm a Libertarian asshat?

Or WORSE think I want to brainwash CHILDREN into libertarian asshats?

Well jokes on them, I ain't GOTS no children!

[elcorreografico]

Paka Paka bajo Javier Milei: Liberalismo, adoctrinamiento y producción nacional La reorientación de Paka Paka bajo Javier Milei genera controversia por su enfoque liberal y la inclusión de contenidos extranjeros.

[ttimekeepsrollingby]

Dibujitos y espionaje de un gobierno tiránico y ridículo

El gobierno pervertido convierte a Paka Paka en un panfleto de la degeneración mística que profesan. Adoctrinan niños con obscenidades. Usan la SIDE para defender al imperio yanqui y sionista. La SIDE contra los patriotas Enferman a los niños Imagen: Todo Salta.

[morlock-holmes]

While looking for more information on what the hell even are the Tuttle Twins I came across this CNN article.

Likewise, a book like Truax, a pro-logging response to the Lorax sponsored by the Environmental Committee of the National Wood Flooring Manufacturers’ Association, is so densely written and terrifyingly illustrated that it likely never became any child’s most beloved book.

Wut

Wuuuuuut

[saturdaynightspecialpresentation]

Let's Watch a Truly Bananas Libertarian Informercial

@freebroccoli asked, “Other ideologies create children's media to propagate their views, so why shouldn't we?”

And after thinking about it a bit the answer I came up with is, “Because those are badly made so you shouldn’t copy them.”

My longer thoughts pertain to this Tuttle Twins minisode/infomercial which has shown me an entire world that I had no idea existed. I know I said you can kind of skip the first episode but I need you all to watch this one because somebody needs to explain it to me.

Hey, so, uh, what the heck?

Okay, well, so, for context there’s at least one episode (The civil disobedience one) where the twins shoot a movie starring their Grandma’s pet Raccoon, as “Dark Dumpster Derek” which is his superhero name.

Honestly I kind of don’t get it as a superhero name. 

You can get him as a plushie or a poster based on that episode.

And also I think if you watched this (And if you have YES I KNOW I will get there eventually)  you’ve seen, like, half of the Dark Dumpster Derek stuff. Like even the actual episode about this that isn’t an infomercial still really doesn’t have a lot of him in the costume. If I put on my writer’s hat and look at that poster, I imagine a subplot where, through some shenanigans, maybe he gets mistaken for a real superhero or maybe he just is a real superhero when the twins aren’t around and he and Karinne get in some wacky adventure white the Tuttles are out talking to Friedrich Hayek or who the hell ever.

But there’s no time for stuff like that because we need to spend half of every episode for historical lectures!

This show spends so much time on dry educational (or “educational”) lectures that it noticeably takes time away from the fun parts of the cartoon. When it comes to kids shows, you’re always selling partly to the kids, and partly to the parents, but the ratio of who you are selling to more changes from show to show. And this show is selling hard to the parents.

And here’s the thing: I have no idea why parents would care what their kids think about the gold standard.

And yes, this particular bit is an ad but believe me, there are multiple episodes of the show that deal with sound money (You Mormon homeschoolers should probably not let your kids google “The Inflation Monster”).

And I truly don’t know why. It’s not so much “Why would people advocate for a return to the gold standard?” as “Why would people want a cartoon show to teach their kids about the wisdom of the gold standard?”

I mean, I’m pretty worried about Trump’s tariffs but it has not occurred to me to discuss the dangers they pose to free trade with my six year old niece.

I especially don’t understand why you’d sell this bonkers product through a children’s cartoon.

I’ll just say it: sort of seems like you’re just not very good at buying presents. Maybe next time bring the kids some ninja turtles and see how those compare.

Okay, I am amazed by this bizarre product. 

One thing that drives me just as crazy about this as with bitcoin is that if you have a currency whose overall direction is deflationary but whose specific value swings wildly from day to day, and that’s paired with a currency that is overall subject to inflation but maintains a fairly steady value day to day (i.e. the dollar), then the incentives are going to be to treat the deflationary currency more like an asset, and when you need to buy things you won’t buy them directly with the deflationary currency, you’ll sell a bit of the deflationary currency for dollars. A goldback is going to be worth more in six months; a dollar a little less, so you never spend a goldback if you can spend a dollar instead. And since everybody is paid in dollars, you can always spend a dollar.

On the merchant side, it’s really hard to price things in a currency that fluctuates wildly in value. A single Goldback today is worth 34 cents more than it was worth a week ago. A goldback a week ago was worth 14 cents less than it was a week before that.

All of this is why your local 7/11 doesn’t take payment in Tesla stock, it is so weird to me how people just never seem to even bring this up in alternative currency circles.

Also, I don’t really understand how the gold standard works, it seems like for most people gold is only valuable because of the social agreement that it is valuable, but also, like… Maybe I’m just dumb but isn’t part of the point of a gold coin is that if you wanted you could just, like, melt it down and make it into jewelry? If these only have a tiny amount of gold can you, like, even get it back, and if you can’t is that in practice any different than fiat currency?

People on some subreddits have also pointed out that there is a manufacture cost to make these on top of the price of buying the gold to put in them, and that how this is priced in is not very transparent. Also the redditors keep mentioning “Stacking” a lot which is making my “Tulip Mania Alarm” go off at full volume.

But I think what I am most taken with here is that, like, all the bills for like, Utah and most of the states have these very old-fashioned 19th century looking designs with all kinds of symbolism and little animals and fillagrees like so:

But then the ones for Florida, and only the ones for Florida Are just, like

Sexy AI Pirate

Sexy AI Fighter Pilot

Sexy AI Statue of Liberty pulling a cruise ship (???)

I don’t know if they were just like, “Eh, clearly nobody in Florida has any taste just do whatever” or if this is the sign of a company that is rapidly running out of money to pay new artists.

Anyway. What is any of this? Seriously, please explain this to me.

[dietwatergrape]

you’ve got to be kidding me. the fucking irony

[do-you-know-these-multiples]