My Valentine’s Day lecture was nothing about romance » « It’s Valentine’s Day!

Oh hi spammers

I’ve been getting a lot of email like the below lately. I thought I’d share it with you.

Hi PZ Myers,

Be still my heart. They spelled it correctly! Now I’m much more willing to listen to their pitch.

Following up one last time in case you missed my last email about partnering with our upcoming campaign for 🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡, a bitcoin rewards platform!

Oy. Bitcoin. Well, they squandered that one shred of goodwill already. Fuck off and die.

🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡 gives you free bitcoin/money when you shop online like groceries, sneakers, tech, and more. 🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡 is partnered with over 1,000 top brands like Nike, eBay, & StockX for up to 30% bitcoin back on your purchases! Some of 🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡’s most recent backers include Mr. Beast, Cody Ko & Philip DeFranco.

That was useful information at least. I’ll be sure to never watch Mr Beast, Cody Ko, or Philip DeFranco, whoever they are — all I know at this point is that they must be assholes. Not into Nike or eBay, either, and never heard of StockX.

We’re looking for an integrated video on Youtube and/or Instagram Stories that will highlight the use and benefits of using 🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡. We want to encourage viewers to download 🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡 (extension & iOS mobile app) and sign-up for an account to earn free bitcoin on their everyday purchases!

If you’re interested, please send us your rates & media kit for YouTube / Instagram if you have them and we can send you more details about the collaboration. Looking forward to hearing from you!

OK.

Bwahahahahaha! Readers, if you suddenly see yourself inundated with 🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡 ads (obscuring emojis will be removed once my demands are met), just console yourself with the fact that I’ll be in Mexico or Australia or the Brazilian upcountry (places rich in spiders) enjoying my retirement in wealth and ease. Maybe I’ll travel between all three! And New Guinea! And Nigeria! Oh the places I’ll go!

My Valentine’s Day lecture was nothing about romance » « It’s Valentine’s Day!

Comments

  1. blf says

    Dear Profresser P Zeyers
      We’ve been following your work with increasing enthusiasm for several months now, and feel it should be bought to the attentions of many others, vastly increasing your spiderteering profits potentional! We offer our many viewrs the bestest in quality infostunment, and feel you’d fit right in yet stand out. Please find attached instructions from our trusted Nigerian colleagues on an initial low payment to begin receiving your spiderrofits within hours!! Wellcome too the team!!!
       – Spiderforce™ (patent pending)

  4. Walter Solomon says

    Mr. Beast, Cody Ko and Philip DeFranco are from the Beastly Boys not to be confused with the more well-known Beasty Boys.

  5. JoeBuddha says

    @birgerjohansson:

    Or Lobster Thermidor aux crevettes with a Mornay sauce
    Served in a Provençale manner with shallots and aubergines
    Garnished with truffle pâté, brandy and a fried egg on top and Spam

  6. ffakr says

    I mined bitcoin at some volume a while back.
    I unfortunately sold it as I got it (to pay for my GPUs), or I’d be loaded today.
    I’m not endorsing bitcoin, I always thought it was a long con. I’m just pointing out that I greatly underestimated how gullible so many people could be.
    I’m still mining it.. but only on two cards that run as self-funding space heaters in my and my wife’s home offices (in my drafty 130YO farmhouse. If I’ve got to run space heaters.. might as well have them pay for themselves. I only mine in the winter now though.

  7. PaulBC says

    ffakr@6

    I’m still mining it.. but only on two cards that run as self-funding space heaters in my and my wife’s home offices (in my drafty 130YO farmhouse. If I’ve got to run space heaters.. might as well have them pay for themselves.

    Yeah, I have thought about this before. All irreversible computation generates heat as a matter of thermodynamics. It’s bad enough to be generating heat where you don’t need it by “mining” bitcoins, but it’s also terrible that we generate so much heat with electric stoves, hair dryers, and space heaters and don’t compute anything in the process.

  8. birgerjohansson says

    (Remembering William Gibson’s Neuromancer)
    You should send some Black Ice back at those spammers.
    Or a grumpy AI with attitude.

  10. says

    The funny thing about Bitcoin is it doesn’t make sense to use it as money anymore because its value is too volatile so it really only works as an investment now and that investment is… nothing. If you invest in fine art or baseball cards you can at least look at them. If you invest in the stock market it’s (usually) in companies that do or make things. But Bitcoin? You’re investing in a bit of computer code hoping you can sell it to later to someone else who wants that bit of code only exists to be invested in.

  11. lumipuna says

    The following is something that occurred to me recently, after reading lots of people debunking crypto in general and NFTs in particular.

    There should exist (for humor value, if nothing else) an NFT “art” collection that literally and openly alludes to the 17th century Tulip Mania. Maybe name it “New Fancy Tulips”, since (AFAIK) the original Tulip Mania was driven by speculation on the fashion hit potential of newly bred tulip varieties. I suppose with a little botanical knowledge, you could design a semi-realistic looking cartoon tulip flower with a number of tweakable features, and then have a computer crank out thousands of unique “varieties”.

  12. Snarki, child of Loki says

    When oh when will the word go out to:

    “RECYCLE JUNK EMAIL FOR PROFIT$$$” ?

    sigh

  13. richardh says

    @11 the fashion hit potential of newly bred tulip varieties
    It was worse than that – the infinitely varied colours of the tulips were due to a mosaic virus, not Mendelian genetics, so they didn’t breed true after you bought them.

    I don’t know if there’s a parallel in NFTs.

  14. Kevin Karplus says

    PZ, you should know by now that $1M is not really enough to retire on—unless you plan to die young.

  15. John Morales says

    Kevin, you do know one can invest it, rather than keeping it under the mattress, right?

    Assuming one owns one’s dwelling and owes no money, and assuming no more than 4%pa return on the investment (it’s usually higher), I’m pretty sure one can make it to old age without exhausting the capital.

    So yeah, for people with no children and no debts, not that hard.

  16. PaulBC says

    You can also move somewhere cheaper, including abroad (as one of my older brothers did) though I can’t imagine the cost of living is that high in PZ’s part of Minnesota. I bet his heating bills are higher than mine.

    I think retiring on $1 million is entirely possible barring serious medical problems, provided you’re willing to give yourself a pay cut. Many Americans have never saved anything even close to $1 million, and nobody is pushing them off on ice floes.

  17. beholder says

    @14 Kevin

    PZ, you should know by now that $1M is not really enough to retire on—unless you plan to die young.

    Alternatively, if he’s looking for a house in Australia filled with spiders, it’s practically guaranteed there is at least one arachnophobe who would give him money to take the property off their hands.

  18. lumipuna says

    richardh:

    It was worse than that – the infinitely varied colours of the tulips were due to a mosaic virus, not Mendelian genetics, so they didn’t breed true after you bought them.

    I don’t know if there’s a parallel in NFTs.

    Ah, I guess that’d be like tokenized images going offline due to copyright takedowns or link rot or whatever. You still own the token/genotype, but the impression of high value becomes difficult to cultivate on it.