I opt for bitcoin because it has more utility value for me.

My bank makes it an enormous pain in my ass to buy things from overseas vendors; they won’t process any payments that are going outside of the US border. The rationale is ‘fraud’, even when you’re dealing with well-known and trusted vendors. Even when I try calling my banks and telling them to pre-authorize the charges, they won’t go through. The only way I can get around that within the established financial system is by using a 3rd party payment service; those 3rd party services make their money by lopping off a percentage of that purchase. E.g., if I’m buying something for $1000 from China (and we’re going to ignore tariffs, duties, taxes, and shipping costs for the moment), then I may have to pay $1040 for it, because of the fees that are taken out. On the other hand, if I’m buying from a trusted vendor, and I use bitcoin, I can just send it to them. Bitcoin doesn’t care where it’s going, and–assuming you don’t care about speed of confirmations–transaction fees can be quite a bit lower than using any other payment system. (And, BTW, transaction fees are built into all payment processing systems; it’s just not apparent to individuals on the purchasing end. That means that if something costs .001btc, then I have to send, say, .0010001btc to the vendor, but then the)

Speculation doesn’t play a role in it for me.

I have no direct use for gold; I can’t plate connectors.

Yes.

But many people–and I’m not saying you do this–but many people get gold, silver, and diamonds confused, and think that their intrinsic value is linked to their perceived value. does that make sense?

…Except that gold, like the dollar, and like bitcoin, has the value it does because people believe it does. Sure, gold’s a great semiconductor. But if that was all we used it for, the price of gold would be a tine fraction of what it is. Diamonds are great as abrasives and in certain cutting applications, but that’s all synthetic now. Natural diamonds only have high value because of artificial scarcity and advertising.

Finland first, New Zealand second. Both have gun rights. Finland has a lot of empty space in the north, and Finns are, in general, not super interested in being highly social, despite historically having pretty solid social safety nets (although I hear the right is rising there, and that may not last). The largest barrier is that Suomi is a very difficult language to learn.

By that ‘logic’ everyone needs a taste of white supremacy, Christian nationalism, Nazis, and so on.

Certain opinions aren’t worth giving any consideration to because they’re so stupidly, pig-headedly wrong. The street corner preacher frothing at the mouth over LGBTQ people is one, .ml and the former hexbear (world’s smallest violin plays a sad song for their passing) instances being prime examples.

Arrive to raids […] out of uniform.

…This is already happening.

Perhaps what the potion really does is changes you when you make it so that you become the person that your object of desire will love.

Cruelty and sociopathy.

I named a black cat Svartur. I also had a cat named Potet. (“Black” and “Potato” respectively.)

I had a cat that my partner nicknamed pants. He answered to it.

Single digits, 100%.

Single digits range from -9F to 9F. Triple digits start at 100F, and can go way the fuck up from there. (And with climate change, they will!) Once you start approaching triple digits, you have to worry about humidity, because you can easily hit a combination that’s literally too hot to live.

Is -9F unpleasant? Sure. But you can layer clothing, and that will keep you comfortable. Death Valley has hit >130F, and when that happens people die, even if they drink gallons of water and stay in the shade.

Yeah, no. Some text services and websites can/do remove content, so you might not be able to return to something at a later date without saving it locally. Once an email has been received on your end, that’s it: you have the email locally (or at least in your email provider); it can no longer be removed by the person that sent it.

If I screenshot an exchange on Bluesky where someone is saying wildly racist shit, they can later block me, delete the top-level comment and all the sub-comments, but I’ll still have that digital proof. If someone gets doxxed on Reddit and you screenshot it, you’ve got that forever, even when Reddit deletes the doxxing five minutes later. (They did that with someone that found out who Administrative Results was, and posted all the links backing up their claims. Also, Admin Results in a shitty person, and that’s why he and Garand Thumb/Mike Jones get along so well.)