Gaze not into the abyss lest you accidentally write a book

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Elizabeth Sandifer

Elizabeth Sandifer created Eruditorum Press. She’s not really sure why she did that, and she apologizes for the inconvenience. She currently writes Last War in Albion, a history of the magical war between Alan Moore and Grant Morrison. She used to write TARDIS Eruditorum, a history of Britain told through the lens of a ropey sci-fi series. She also wrote Neoreaction a Basilisk, writes comics these days, and has ADHD so will probably just randomly write some other shit sooner or later. Support Elizabeth on Patreon.

8 Comments

  1. Jarl
    July 24, 2017 @ 10:35 am

    MyNameIsKaz, a LetsPlayer, if such a title exists, has an amusing economic theory he describes as “vampire dollars”, one which I expect Jack Graham would state simply describes all monetary systems. His in-detail post describing the origin and minutia of the economic theory is only available in the pay-only archives of some awful website, but I can lay out the sketches here, and I think it perfectly describes Bitcoin.

    The basic origin of “Vampire Dollars” is the Castlevania series. When you kill enemies (employees both paid and enslaved by Dracula) they drop money, money which you can then give to shopkeepers who occupy real estate inside Dracula’s Transylvanian Castle (his “castlevania” if you will). The relationship these shopkeepers have with Dracula is never made clear, but as they live on his property, maintain a supply of goods, and take money that he seemingly issues himself, it is a fair assumption that they deal either indirectly or directly with Dracula.

    Therefore, Vampire Dollars is a system of currency where one or more actors within it is openly malevolent and the majority of other actors are of unclear allegiance or morality. As the only people who deal exclusively in bitcoin are drug dealers, arms dealers, child pornographers, human traffickers, and currency prospectors, I figure it’s a safe comparison.

    Reply

  2. Holl
    July 24, 2017 @ 11:01 am

    Yep, this was a quick buy. I’m a huge fan of his work at RationalWiki and even if I don’t get around to reading the book, I feel like Gerard’s more than earned my £5 for all the joy he’s given me through his work on that (which, around the x00000th hour of copy-pasting quotes by some scam artist who believes you can cure cancer by saving up sperm in jars or whatever, must kill your soul).

    Reply

  3. 5tephe
    July 25, 2017 @ 5:15 am

    Oh, nice! Just the thing I’ve been looking for. I have a coder friend who has been looking into blockchains, and we think the concept has immense worth and potential, but that people are using them for the most banal, and frankly evil and destructive possible applications.

    Bought.

    Reply

  4. phuzz
    July 25, 2017 @ 8:41 am

    I’ve seen a quote to the effect that crypto-currencies in general seem to be trying to recreate every scam, con, and mistake ever encountered in any financial system in recorded history.
    I think that’s doing them a disservice. Some days it seem like they’re trying to recreate every possible coding and cryptographical mistake as well.

    Reply

  5. David Gerard
    July 25, 2017 @ 1:51 pm

    Not on SmashWords today – I have to get the print edition up in a satisfactory manner first. Current nuisance: all RGB previews of purported CMYK results are malicious lies, and printers were even more of a mistake than computers.

    Reply

  6. Daibhid C
    July 26, 2017 @ 7:10 pm

    Looks interesting.

    True story: at this year’s Edinburgh Science Festival I went to a lecture on why blockchains were the future. By the end of it, I had less idea what blockchains were than I did when I entered the building.

    Reply

  7. Cheap Web Hosting
    April 8, 2019 @ 11:53 am

    I have read your all blogs like one of my favorite one is “Don’t Push Your Foot on the Heartbreak”.

    Reply

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