21 Futures #11 — The Fable of the Tyrant Alchemist — Ioni Appelberg

Great to hear. That's a really interesting idea, putting a, um, a story at the beginning of a book. And I think that fits in perfectly with, you know, my take on, on things and the idea of the project, which is we need to ease people into the complex world of, you know, this technology through making them care through stories. And I think things in the space are really changing because I'm seeing a lot more focus on stories and people rather than just a big vision of the future and, you know, technical explanations. So that's really cool to see. Is this story still gonna be in your book as well? Is it going to be—

It might be, as long as that is not a violation of the contract, it might be. But this book is a project that will take me a long time to complete, so I will not be publishing it for at least another 2 or 3 years. And a lot of things can happen in that time.

Who knows? This story might take off and take over the world by then, so you may well want to include it.

We'll see how it does.

Yeah. So speaking of these stories, what other stories and art in the Bitcoin sphere are inspiring you at the moment? Who do you like to read or what do you like to watch or get inspired by?

When I think of stories, I think of them as— this sounds very pretentious, but bear with me. I think of stories as already existing out there in the world, and we just have to discover them and put words to them and give them words. And so when we When we, when a, a story is revealed to us, or when we find a story, when we have something that we want to say, we, um, then, then we can, we can find a story and put words to it. But what inspires me is not what other people create necessarily. It's more what I find in that infinite space of stories that already exist. And I choose the stories that inspire me the most, and I put words to them, and I put my energy and time into completing those stories, into actually making them come alive, to create characters, create settings, create problems and conflict in those places. So yeah, the stories that inspire me the most are the ones that I choose to create.

Yeah, really interesting. I think there's so much parallel between the idea of the cosmos, everything around us, this infinite amount of information and stories that we can gather and organize. And, you know, the organizational power or the ordering power of something like a blockchain. So quite a few of our stories have mentioned that and played on that. I think, like you say, It's about creating conflict and characters that we care about. I think that's maybe what hasn't been done so much so far in some of the stories that have been told about Bitcoin. So it's very cool that we can pick and choose these little pieces of data or just emotion that affects us and organize it into a story.

Absolutely. I'm very excited about this project to read the other stories and see what other people have created.

Yeah, there's a lot of, um, pressure slash, uh, excitement growing for this book. So I'm definitely excited. Can't wait to, for it to launch and see what conversations it brings because Yeah, I feel like this is really just the beginning of something pretty big.

Yeah. Yeah.

Um, tell us more about your, your own writing. What kind of writing do you do? You mentioned your, your book, um, Abundance Through Scarcity. Is that right?

Yes. Abundance Through Scarcity. So that's my first published work, but I've been writing since, um, Since high school, and I've always wanted to be a writer, but I got distracted along the way. I went to med school, I did a few other things, but it's always been there in the background, and I've always worked on the craft, but not really accomplishing anything other than just honing the skills, basically. And I think it's, uh, I, I, I'm a prolific reader. Uh, so that is where I've canalized my love for literature because literature is life. And that is something that my Swedish teacher told me in high school and that stuck with me, that literature is life. It's, um, it's con— it's life condensed.

Yeah. I was just gonna say that word condensed and ordered, isn't it? It's like, uh, yeah. A cheat

code

reading books because

it's, it's one of our most wonderful technologies that, that we ever invented, that we can actually extract our thoughts into a technology that survives our, that survives the creator of those or, or the host of those, those thoughts. And we can distribute them to other people and we can actually access the thoughts of the greatest thinkers in the world. Through the ages, and that's a wonderful technology that we have. Yeah, so I draw inspiration from quite a few sources or authors, I think, for, for a variety of aspects of my writing. So I think one of the most evident is for my language, my choice of a minimalistic economical language, and I draw inspiration from Hemingway there. I love how he uses, you know, weighty undertones and a lot of subtext. And he has, he has a kind of poetic punch that I really love. And I remember to this day reading The Old Man and the Sea, and it just changed how I looked at writing forever. And then I, when it comes to storytelling, I draw inspiration from writers like, um, Niklas Nattodag, who you may not be familiar with. It's a Swedish writer. He's, um, his last name literally means night and day, which is just an epic last name. And he has written the 1793 trilogy, which depicts Stockholm in the late 18th century.

Yeah.

It's, it's very raw and grim. It's kind of, uh, it's very similar to Cormac McCarthy. Um, who sadly passed away this year, uh, the author of The Road and Blood Meridian and so on. Uh, so, you know, it's the grim rawness that I appreciate with these, uh, writers, uh, in their work. The, the misery is palpable but not overtly stated. So instead, the scenes themselves do the heavy lifting. And I think that is just, uh, um, that is what I want as well. That is what I want to do. I want the scenes to do the heavy lifting rather than overtly stating what is going on. Yeah. And then of course, uh, the great and powerful Trey Parker and Matt Stone, creators of South Park. Um, it's, I, I think it's well known by now that they have this, uh, formula for creating stories, which is if you consider writing a story, uh, where it goes, uh, this happened, then this happened, then this happened, then this happened, that makes for a boring story. And what they employ instead is This happened, but this happened, therefore this happened. And I find that formula to be quite useful. It's simplistic, but it's, it works.

It's great. Um, um, you must have seen the documentary on how they make episodes of South Park. I think all writers should watch that because it's

100%

really eye-opening. And, um, South Park is great. It's something that through, through time, Has improved with this formula, whereas a lot of shows and a lot of books, I suppose as well, if they become formulaic, get worse. Yeah.

Yes. And, and I just wanted to finish that point as well. Um, like I have other inspirations as well, like Cixin Liu, a Chinese writer, uh, for big ideas. He's famous for, uh, the Three-Body Problem trilogy. I can't recommend it enough. For clarity, Carl Sagan and Richard Dawkins. There are a few other writers who can express their ideas as clearly as them. But what I do is basically when I have, when I found a story and I want to put words to it, I play around with the characters to get to know them, see who they are, and, and then I see what kind of world they live in. And then basically I just put those characters in a certain setting and give them a problem and see what happens. So I watch a movie in my head, I put on a soundtrack. That is why. I had, you know, uh, in, in the, uh, in the draft that you read, I had, um, music, uh, at the top. That is not because I want the reader to listen to the, to the music. That is because those are the, those are the songs that I listen to when I write. And so I just put the characters in a place and see what happens, basically. Yeah. I think a lot of people do that, but I just find that to be the most, the, the easiest way to To actually organically see what, where the story, uh, can go. And it has gone, I think every story, you know, that it is a world that you create. Uh, so this story has gone in several directions that are not, that did not make it into the final, final piece. Mm-hmm. But that, but those stories, those rooms that we entered are also important for, for subtext. And the way that I think about writing is that I do what Michelangelo did when he sculpted, um, the David statue. He, when he was asked, how did you make David? He said, I removed everything that wasn't David.

Mm-hmm.

And, and I think, I think that is, um, just a, there's a great lesson in there. So what I do is I write. I, I put the characters in a place, see what happens, give them a conflict or a problem to see what happens, write it down. Then I write it again, again and again and again. And I just remove as much as I can until the story is just, um, there are no more words needed to tell the story and there's no, uh, superfluous words in that story.

Yeah, I really like the, the I like the sculpting metaphor for writing. There are so many metaphors for writing. It's one thing that writers are best at is like inventing metaphors for writing. But yeah, sculpting, I think, definitely works well. We start with a big block, which is, you know, a rough story of like boy meets girl or something. And then

you

chip away, you know, first you create the blocks that start to form what the story looks like. And then, you know, you get finer and finer detail as you— Yeah. As you chisel away. Um, and I suppose it fits well with being a short fiction writer as well, because we like to delete rather than add things usually. Um, really interesting what you said about, um, your process of just seeing where it goes and going off on tangents and things. I think for beginner writers that can be difficult because you don't know where you are headed towards and it can lead to Giving up on projects. But on the other hand, I think it's really useful for creating something organic, as you mentioned. And now stories are not set in stone of, oh, it's a novel. Oh, it's a short story. Oh, it's a magazine article. It can be anything because of the technology that we, we have. Like, there's so many outlets and opportunities for multimedia and different types of story. Mm-hmm.

That said, I still begin with the end in mind, but the road there is unexplored.

Good tip. Think of the end first. Something that I'm pretty bad at, I think.

Yeah. Yeah.

Although hopefully, you know, the, the idea of this book was to have a book and that was the endpoint.

So yeah,

we're

getting there. Yes.

Let's talk more about your, your story. We haven't touched on it yet. Um, Fable of the Tyrant Alchemist. So it's You talked about how it came about. To me, it's like a condensed epic fantasy. So it's like a compressed epic. What is it about Bitcoin that relates it to this fantastic realm and magic for you?

I've argued many times before that Bitcoin is psychedelic. It is an economic psychedelic, but it also is a psychedelic in the sense that it, it's obviously not a chemical, but it, it is a psychedelic in the sense that it has the very same properties as the classic psychedelics. And so for those who don't know, I am, um, a big proponent of psy— of psychedelics, and I am following the psychedelic renaissance closely. And I am, it is my, one of my vocations in life to help introduce psychedelics into modern medicine, into end-of-life care, and to psychiatry, but also As something that we can introduce safely into society because as a species we have co-evolved with psychedelics. We have used them since before we were Homo sapiens. And I think that we, we are going into a society where the psychedelic renaissance will have presence and Hopefully they will serve as both a rite of passage and a catalyst for social transformation. And psychedelics have, well, the transformative effects of psychedelics both on the individual, the mind, and society are mirrored in Bitcoin. And that is how Bitcoin is psychedelic in my opinion. They both expose the flaws of the mind, of society, of a variety of systems, and they create a hyperconnectivity in the mind, in society, in the economy, and they introduce plasticity into the mind and into society and the economy in a way that is utterly transformative. They act as social and technological catalysts for For the future. So it is the world that we're going into, a world where Bitcoin and psychedelics exist. So my view on Bitcoin or my contribution to that space for now or for the past year or so has been to make that argument, to have people see, to look at Bitcoin For its transformative powers. And I think that looking at Bitcoin as a psychedelic is the best way to understand Bitcoin's transformative powers. And I'm not just arguing that it's a metaphor that works, but I actually think of Bitcoin as a psychedelic in itself because psychedelic means mind manifesting. And Bitcoin shows you what's inside your mind. What is inside the economy?

I mean, if it had a slightly more psychedelic sounding name, it would be much easier to see. Bitcoin sounds quite, um, uh, binary and hardline, doesn't it? But if it was, yeah, maybe if we rebranded as a—

But I, I rebranded Bitcoin in my story, gave it a more, uh, psychedelic sounding name, didn't I? I, in the story, Which, so my, this story that I contributing, um, to 21 Futures is, um, it is an allegory. And well, well, I, I'm not sure that people know what allegories are. Um, but an allegory is a literary representation that conveys meaning beyond its literal interpretation. So it employs characters, stories, or events to To basically symbolize a broader, often abstract or complex concept or idea. And they're often used to, to teach or explain complex issues or critique social or political systems or what have you. And one of the most famous allegorical stories in the world is the plague, la peste. By Albert Camus, which depicts how a plague sweeps through the French city of Oran in, in Northern Africa in 1947. And it is an allegory. It is a symbol for the rise of Nazism. So the, the plague comes with the rats, and that is a symbol for how Nazism And enters the world as a plague.

And ironically, it became one of the bestsellers during the recent pandemic in a non-allegorical way. Oh, actually? Like, yeah. Oh, that's so interesting. Huge boost.

Yes.

People, uh, people reading it for the first time because of that.

Okay. I did not know that. So yeah, that's interesting. So, um, and what I'm doing in this story is that, uh, I'm working with a kind of interesting contrast. I, at least I find it very interesting. That's what I did, why I did it. So I am writing about a future technology, which is Bitcoin, but it's set in the Middle Ages. So that makes for a very interesting contrast in my opinion. And Bitcoin is one of our most futuristic technologies that we have. It is, I've argued this before as well, Bitcoin is Kardashev Type 1 money. Uh, which makes it one of the most futuristic technologies that we have. And looking at that technology in a mid, mid, uh, medieval setting, I just found very interesting. But as you said, I, Bitcoin in itself does not sound, does not have a very psychedelic name. So in this story, I depict or I symbolize Bitcoin using a psychedelic brew called Elysium. So Elysium is a psychedelic brew that represents Bitcoin in this, in this story. And yeah, you asked about the story. Where, where were we on that? Remind

me. Well, just to comment to say, you know, I hope that readers of these stories who perhaps are used to reading more technical explanations and, you know, how-tos and, and, um, you know, nonfiction work on the topic are gonna get so much from participating in the reading experience. You know, with stories, the reader forms a lot of the meaning. And I think that's the fun part is like you're doing more of the work when you're reading, but you get So much reward. So yeah, I really hope this is gonna, um, get, get people excited about, uh, fiction, not just speculative fiction, but, but, um, stories and fiction again.

Yeah. Well, you know, Philip, we are, uh, we are a storytelling species. Um, it, it is what we do. We tell stories and Regardless, and I find this very interesting, that regardless of the state of society, whether we are in war or if we are collapsing, if we are, if we live as farmers or hunter-gatherers or industrialists, or if we immerse ourselves completely into the digital world and become something completely different, stories is what bind us. It is what we use. It is our best technology to convey information and It is what we do, and it is the one thing that survives regardless of the state of society. We have always used stories and we always will. It is the most powerful way of conveying information across times. For example, what do we have? Let's say, let's say that people like Graham Hancock are, are correct about there having been an ancient civilization far more advanced than We imagine, not at our level, obviously, because we don't see plastics in the oceans or satellites in space from any other civilization than our own. But let's say that there was a civilization far back that was basically annihilated by a cataclysmic event, like a comet. hitting Earth, an asteroid hitting Earth and creating, um, elevating ocean levels to the point where it all just disappeared. And this is the story of Atlantis, and it's the story about the, uh, the, the great flood in the Bible. I mean, these stories about, uh, Floods annihilating an entire civilization come across in several legends and myths. So let's say that there is something to that. Might be, might not be. I'm agnostic to that. It's an interesting topic to explore, but the point is that these stories have survived. And as stories are such powerful technologies that they can actually Survive the collapse of a civilization?

I suppose because we see value in them, we see that we can learn and experience something through understanding that it's possible for civilizations, i.e., our own, to collapse. Because that's pretty easy to forget when you're worried about, you know, checking Twitter as soon as you wake up or whatever. Yes. Janni, let's hear a little bit of your story. Um, yeah, maybe you can read us a passage from The Fable of the Tyrant Alchemist.

Yes, I think I'll read the first part. Um, so it's, it's a story of 10 short chapters, or 11 it might be, and I'll read the very first one to To give you a, a sense of what this world is and the kind of problem we're, we're facing here. And then we're skipping ahead to part 5, but in between those, I might want to give a little context. But okay, so here's the first part.

Great. Well, well, don't give too much away. Just, um, no, I will not. You know, people are, people are gonna, gonna wanna read that story, right?

So please, uh, stop. Great.

Yeah. Take it, take it away.

Yes. Part 1, The Failed Harvest. First, the quiet came. Each day, the markets grew quieter, the people hungrier. A farmer stared at wilted crops, dread settling in his heart. In a kingdom once resplendent with markets and sky-reaching monuments, It was the first failed harvest that marked the end of affluence and the beginning of collapse. By the second year, market traders stood before empty stalls, goods long gone, rotten, or ruined. Jobless men prowled, foraging the streets for vermin and meager scraps of sustenance. Young women offered their time, for bread, their eyes hollow in the act. Widows, too, entered strangers' homes, bartering themselves for their children's next meal. Orphans, gaunt and brittle, drew meaningless shapes in the dust, their laughter a forgotten memory. Rumors surged like wind through dry grass, Scapegoats were blamed. Superstitions gripped the masses. By the 3rd year, it was known to the people and the king alike: there would be no more monuments erected, only tombstones. The king called the council, heavy with despair. In a room filled with tension, ministers and knights, Sat around a table. Before them stood the realm's wisest farmer, a man worn from years of labor, hunger, and loss. His voice echoed the deep hunger that gripped the kingdom. Your Majesty, the land is weary. It cries for respite. His words hung heavy in the room. Laying bare the reality of their fate. So this is the first part, and it introduces what later will be known as the Great Famine. So this is a world in the Middle Ages where a famine representing a great economic depression hits them very hard. And, uh, and for context, then there is the king's alchemist who introduces a solution to the problem. And that solution is to transmute the, the youth of people, or basically their years, into into nourishment to, for the crops, for the land so that the harvest can grow again. So people have to give up their years in order to eat.

A buy now, pay later kind of, kind of deal.

Buy now, pay later. Exactly. Exactly. So later in the story, we're introduced to the main character. Which is Clara. And, uh, we, we, when we first get to meet her, we meet her having, she's having a dream about her mother and she wakes up and she's, uh, what we need to know about her is that Clara's mother is a very central figure in this story, but she's not present. She's, uh, she's present as in the form of a, of a ghost, just being there all, all the time in, in the background. And what Clara Mothers did that is so important for this story is that she was an artist in, in, uh, in, she, she was, she was working in the psychedelic arts and she was experimenting, trying to find a way to break this spell that was cast by the alchemists on, upon the kingdom. Using psychedelics. And, but she could never complete her work. So, and all of her work was done in secrecy. So Clara inherited, she had witnessed her mother do a lot of this work, but she didn't really understand what she was doing because she was a child.

Right.

And now that, uh, Clara is an adult herself, she's 20 years old when we get to meet her. She has inherited her mother's work and she's trying to decipher it and see what it means. And then she has a revelation and, and she goes on a quest to meet one of her mother's old coworkers, you could say, a man called Elric, which lives far, far away from the kingdom. And Clara has never before set foot outside of the walls of the castle. Or, or of the kingdom. And when she does, it is a very treacherous path that she has to go through. It's incredibly difficult. And I want to read, uh, up next, a passage where she is, where she has left the castle to go and seek Eldrick. Eldrick. I'm not giving away too much, am I?

Please carry on.

Perfect. So this is part 5. Part 5, Far to Go. 13 days out, Klara trudged through the ashen remains of a town, its name forgotten, its history lost. Empty buildings sagged under the weight of time, Their hollow frames like gravestones against the evening sky. Vacant faces, like clock dials without hands, glanced through her, never at her. Spying a rundown tavern, she cautiously stepped inside. The door whined on rusted hinges. She eased onto a splintered stool. Bread, she rasped. The innkeeper, a bloated man with eyes like rotted plums, flung stale crust onto the counter. Her teeth sank into the stale crust, her body weeping for nourishment. The air in the room reeked of unwashed bodies and sour ale. In a dim corner, men gambled their souls on dice, their faces marred by desperation and greed. As she made to leave, conversations dimmed. Eyes followed her. A calloused hand gripped her wrist. Far to go? The voice dripped with scorn. Her eyes darted to the innkeeper, pleading for an ally. His gaze, cold, turned away. Yes, far. She said, buying time. Then the struggle began. She fought, biting, clawing, drawing blood. Outnumbered, her cries dissipated into coarse laughter. Her clothes yielded, torn under the strain of her struggle. After the degradation, she stepped outside and into the soft rain of the night. Her path now carried weight measured in more than miles. Ahead, barren land stretched mercilessly. A fleeting image of her mother's face offered a brief moment of comfort. She tilted her head back, letting rain droplets fall onto her tongue to dilute the bitterness that swelled with within her. The night urged in tones only darkness knows. Turn back, it murmured. But she walked on, her will a defiant ember, the last flicker of light in a world teetering on oblivion, its humanity long forfeited.

Powerful stuff. Thank you. So much for reading. I really love some of the rich language in there. Um,

thank you.

I think in, in a way quite different from, from Hemingway's sparse, um, it

is different. It is different. Um, very much, but I, I see the similarities because that is where I, I learned so much from him. But then of course I can only canalize his, or, or sorry, channel his his writing through my own, and this is what emerges.

Sure. I was gonna say earlier, one of my favorite character descriptions is Hemingway, and he describes a character as a smart man with smart hair. And that's the only introduction we get to that character. And he's just reused one adjective, but I think everyone can picture a smart man with smart hair and know virtually everything about him just from that, um, little description. So it's a great example I like to use for, um, that is a great example.

And

sparsity.

He's, he's just a master of that economical language and, and the sparsity. Yeah, I am. I, it's fantastic. Yeah.

For sure. He probably would've enjoyed the, enjoyed the inn which featured in your story as well. Great. Jonny, thank you so much for coming on the show and, uh, treating us to some of your work. Um, where can everyone find you, get in touch with you? Is there anything you'd like to, um, to plug or tell people about?

So to get in touch with me, that would be on Twitter or now X. My handle is @ioniappelberg. Uh, my name, I-O-N-I-A-P-P-E-L-B-E-R-G. And, uh, I would also encourage people to, um, follow me on YouTube where I have Where I make Bitcoin videos, explain whiteboard explanatory videos about Bitcoin, mostly about the philosophical aspects. And I collaborate quite a bit with Knut Swanholm and Guy Swann there. We make these cartoon-like animations to explain Bitcoin and the philosophy behind it. And now I'm also starting this YouTube or this podcast series about the abundant future, about optimistic, an optimistic view on on the future.

Great. It's not all doom and gloom. Um, it's

not

all doom and gloom. Awesome. And thanks for telling us about that. Uh, brilliant. Thanks again for coming on the show. And I recommend everyone checks out Jonny's YouTube channel. All right. See you in the next one then, everyone. Thank you.