21 Futures #5 — The Last Mugging — John Champaign

Great. And it was, it was happily accepted. Yeah, we, I should say the title of John's story is The Last Mugging, which I think is a really, uh, interesting title. It's something that I immediately want to read to the last anything. It generates curiosity. And I love just hearing you talk then, John, that ideas are firing off in my mind as well of like extra stories that we could write, or this idea of a creepy stalker. You know, like figuring out someone's life from their activity on the blockchain. And I think that's one of the things which is great about the book is it's just got such variety in it. And John's story is the one that kicks it all off. So we'll hear a bit of, a little bit from his story a bit later in the show. Tell us a bit more about your writing, John. What kind of writing do you do? You said you Often participate in anthologies, which is great. I'm a short fiction writer too. So that's how the book came about. And yeah, tell us about what you write and why.

Yeah, so I kind of reached the point where kind of I could retire early around when I was 39, and then sort of my retirement project was writing and not to put food on the table, but just sort of more sort of a self-actualization type thing. And so I've been writing, you know, kind of, I'm 47 now, so the last 8 years or so I've been writing things and I've released 7 books. 3 of them are nonfiction. One's about being a landlord, one's about negotiating the best salary when you get hired for a job, and then the other 4 are fiction. And most of my books have ended up being fantasy books, kind of urban fantasy, I did a nautical high fantasy, and I've been interested in doing science fiction, but I hadn't really done a science fiction book. And it's strange, but when you're working at different lengths, it seems to sort of lend itself to different stories. Most of the short stories I've written have actually been literary fiction, so it's not genre fiction at all, sort of hyper-realistic sort of slice-of-life things. And so I, this was a real opportunity for a short story that was science fiction, which I wanted to do. I'm currently working on a science fiction novel, a longer science fiction book, and it's quite tough actually. It's been harder than the fantasy books. But I found that this as a short story came together quite neatly. So maybe just the form. Maybe I'm just better suited to writing science fiction short stories than books. I don't know.

That's great. I mean, that's an amazing output over 8 short years. And yeah, I think short sci-fi is tough to write because you have to do world building and all kinds of imparting information to the reader without just telling it and dumping it all in one go. Right. And your story is, is very short, shorter than some of the others in the book. So I think you did a great job of, um, immediately helping people understand, uh, what's going on. It's set in, in, uh, 2074. Um, why did you choose that particular year? Do you have any predictions for, um,

2074. Yeah. So it's, you know, it's 51 years in the future. So it was kind of, you know, a time period that the world would still be a little bit more recognizable to us was my hope is it's not gonna be like Star Trek. It's not gonna be something that's just radically different. But 51 years is an opportunity for a lot of change. The world's changed dramatically in the past 51 years. And so, and I think every year the world changes more. So I think the next 51 years we're going to see more change than we saw in the past 51 years. And so that was kind of, it wasn't ultra, ultra precise, but I just wanted something in that ballpark where I could have a somewhat recognizable world. But then with things had changed and people had gotten used to the changes, And acclimatized to them.

Yeah. I mean, I think it's getting harder and harder to predict the future because the pace of our change is getting faster and faster. You know, a lot of the typical, not typical, but classic, sorry, sci-fi of the earlier 20th century was predicting, you know, what's it going to, what's life going to be like near the millennium, 50 years in the future. Right. But, you know, things are drastically different. to 10 years ago for us. And it's going to get even crazier, right? In the next 10 years.

Absolutely. I agree completely. And there's been an argument that the singularity, you know, where there's an artificial intelligence that's greater than human intelligence, the future's unknowable beyond that point because we're just not smart enough to understand how things would progress at that point. And some people have argued that that's killed science fiction. that some of the classic science fiction, it feels like the 1950s in space, right? Where they're, you know, smoking cigarettes and being very misogynistic and whatnot in a way that seems very backwards already to us. Yet let alone it's supposed to be set in the future. And so I think that is a problem that the accelerating pace and the rapid changes are making it harder and harder to speculate about the future in any sort of reasonable way. Yeah.

Definitely. Um, but I think, you know, added to that, the most popular sci-fi tend to be near futures, you know, ones that really resonate with us, like Minority Report or something isn't, isn't, um, you know, a, a wildly crazy, um, space odyssey. It's something which is, you know, many of the, the things in it are actually technology that we have now. And what else was I thinking about? Black Mirror, you know, sci-fi or dystopias like that, which are very almost already happening, right?

Absolutely. And then even, it's funny because things from Star Trek, like our cell phones are in a lot of ways better than the communicators in the original series that Captain Kirk used, right? And so it's funny, I think near future science fiction Um, is probably a lot more popular because it's just so hard to speculate really far out now.

Yeah. And, and I think like with all sci-fi, if the message is true, if you know that the ethic, ethical or moral question which is being examined is poignant, the technology doesn't really matter. I mean, you think of something like Logan's Run, the movie, I don't know if you If you know that, but it's a classic, right? It still stands true today because the question at the center of it is interesting, no matter that it seems a bit silly, you know, the kind of technology and it's a bit out of date.

Absolutely. I agree completely.

I wanted to talk about your story, The Last Mugging. It's framed as a newspaper article. Have I got that right? Is it a newspaper article?

Yeah, that's right.

Why did you choose that format to tell a story in? It's an interesting choice and hopefully our readers will think it's a great way to start the book as well. What was the idea behind that?

Yeah, so it just seemed to me, I guess it was an interesting sort of framing to the story rather than a narrative where it was, this is happening and this person's mugging somebody and their feelings and reactions where it's Right in the middle of the action. If I was telling a story kind of as a more traditional narrative, it sort of gave the opportunity for more perspectives on the event and a little bit more detachment. So instead of it being from the mugger's perspective, what they're thinking when they're trying to go through it, or from the victim's perspective while they're being mugged and they're traumatized by it, the newspaper format as a newspaper article It let me sort of have a police officer sort of offer their opinion on it, and it allowed me to have a judge offer their opinion on it. And it just allowed a little bit less of an emotional intimacy if it was in the middle of the crime being committed, whereas people sort of discussing somewhat academically this crime that had happened in the past 2 years and 3 months before the article's written. And so that was kind of my thinking with that as a format. I started a school newspaper when I was in high school and ran it for sort of 3 years. And so I have kind of a tiny, tiny bit of an amateur journalism background, and I like kind of that format. And then it also let me sort of structure the story in a way as a newspaper article that I'm kind of giving the most important information first and then less in the inverted pyramid.

Inverted triangle. Yeah, yeah. Pyramid.

Yeah, exactly. And so that was kind of a nice way to sort of examine the event and convey information, and it let me get the most important information to the readers immediately rather than kind of if it was a pic— fiction, a narrative fiction short story, the big payoff might be at the end. So that was kind of my thinking with it.

It's such a great cheat code for short fiction, right? Like you can operate, you can tell us a story in, you know, a bunch of WhatsApp text messages, or you can tell a story as a newspaper as this one is. And yeah, what I like about that is it Detaches the reader one step further. So you are reading a story within a story, really. And

absolutely.

Yeah. Like you say, it adds so much thought to what the reader has to do to unpick short fiction. Sometimes it can make it a bit more difficult, but it's great if it's a format that the reader's really familiar with, like a newspaper article. It's so great. I don't know if you, if you know, if you write a lot of flash fiction, a lot of even, you know, shorter fiction, like under 1,000 words, sudden fiction, it's sometimes called, but that has even more variety of formats. You know, you could have a story as a recipe or a story as a pharmacy receipt or a, a school, a letter to the school from a, from a kid's mom. And yeah, it just offers a really immersive experience where the reader has to do a lot more of the work. And I think that's, that's very cool.

Absolutely. I don't do a lot of it. This was probably the shortest piece I've really released of fiction, and it kind of pulled me in that direction. My intention originally was for it to be quite a bit longer. And whenever I tried to lengthen the piece, it, the format just sort of fought against that. It wanted to stay very terse and very compact. And I haven't been particularly drawn to a lot of the flash fiction like you're describing. It's interesting, but I've done sort of, it's funny because I seem to, my sweet spot seems to be sort of short stories to novellas. And so I even like shorter than a novel. Interesting. But the, the flash fiction I haven't, um, I haven't done much of. This is the, uh, the first piece I've really done under 1,000 words.

Yeah. Well, maybe that's a, an idea for a, for a second installment of, um, 21 Futures. Could be a—

Sure.

21 Futures Lite or a—

Yes. Right. That's a good idea.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Great. Okay. Well, I think it's time. Um, to treat the listeners to a bit of the story. So would you like to read an excerpt from The Last Mugging?

Absolutely. Um, if it's okay with you, it's so short, I might just read the whole thing and you could edit out whatever excerpt makes the most sense, if that's okay.

Yeah, I think that, that sounds fine. Yeah.

'Cause I haven't really picked out an excerpt. I think the whole thing, it's about maybe a 3-minute read, so it is quite short.

Yeah, no problem. Yeah, go for it. Take it away, John.

Great. Thank you. So, The Last Mugging by John Champagne, published February 23rd, 2074 at 12:56 PM. Fraser Carver, 23, of Toronto, Was sentenced today to 5 years in jail in connection to his 2072 mugging and assault of Ted Elsie. With time served taken into account, Carver will spend another 2 years and 3 months incarcerated for his role in the event, which is being described globally as the last mugging. When the crime and arrest originally occurred 2 years ago, talk show hosts and newspapers around the world joked about the event. Financial crimes such as this have become a rarity in, since Canada's move from fiat currency to Bitcoin. Detective Marnie Dufton's press release explained, as the Toronto Police Service's financial crimes specialist, most of my responsibilities involve presenting at conferences and discussions of historical interest. The vast majority of financial disputes these days are civil matters. I was surprised that a financial crime had occurred, then floored that it was a muggy. Initially, I was concerned that this was some sort of criminal mastermind who was pulling a stunt by committing a crime thought to be impossible. Mr. Carver turned out not to be a criminal mastermind when he associated his identity to the blockchain transaction, followed him to the convenience store where he made a purchase afterwards. And arrested him just 43 minutes after the crime was committed. Yet Dufton does not agree that this crime should be treated as a joke. Mr. Elsie did sustain minor injuries, has, and has gone through a traumatic experience. The assault occurred because the victim had trouble understanding what Mr. Carver wanted. He didn't even understand being under threat of violence should he not comply with Mr. Carver's hostile demands. After the assault, Mr. Elsie transferred over 2 million satoshis to Mr. Carver. At the sentencing, Judge Charles Foran chastised the accused, admonishing, your lawyer has put forward the argument that the pointlessness of your crime absolves you and shows your lack of mental capacity. I reject this argument. Although you failed to anticipate the consequences of your actions to yourself, You clearly understood their impact on your victim. Whether or not your lack of intelligence is relevant, your predatory actions are not a joke to me or this court. Later on the day of the assault, arresting officers returned the 2,158,531 satoshis taken from Mr. Elsey. His physical injuries were treated at St. Michael's Hospital.

Thank you very much. Wonderful reading. Thank you. And, um, gives everybody a little taste of how we kick off the book in semi-violent style and very, uh, journalistic style as well.

Right.

Um, what, what, what are you looking forward to? Um, In terms of the 21 Futures Project, what do you think about the other stories or, you know, the future of what we are doing with ConsenSys Network?

So I'm certainly glad to be a part of kind of 21 stories that are being released. I hope that people find it an interesting anthology. It's interesting because it's kind of straddling a couple of communities. sort of readers who are just interested in short stories and Bitcoin enthusiasts. And it's always nice, a project that sort of pulls 2 communities into one another's orbits in that way. So the readers might learn a little bit about Bitcoin and Bitcoin enthusiasts who don't read a lot might get a little bit more engaged with, you know, kind of with the fiction and reading through the stories. I kind of find that most people who are readers, They've had the experience where one piece of fiction just really grabbed them and got them excited about it, and that turned them into readers. And so that would be wonderful if someone read this because they're interested in Bitcoin and then it got them more into reading. From a purely self-interested perspective, I imagine all 21 writers are hoping that people read our stories and enjoy what we've written, and then they read other things that we've written.

For sure. I mean, we hope that too. And I liked what you said about bringing these communities together. Yeah, I'd say definitely from my experience, Bitcoiners are massive readers. They're really keen on reading, but perhaps as you say, are reading more nonfiction than fiction. So it will be great if some of these stories resonate and hopefully your story will resonate with with somebody out there. And as a writer myself, I know if it just reaches one person, then it makes that difference. It fires that imagination, then that is really a great result. Absolutely. So finally, do you have any predictions for the future of Bitcoin? What's your ideas on that?

Yeah. So my interest in Bitcoin is very much from a technology perspective, sort of. I studied computer science and Bitcoin got on my radar really early on back when there used to be drips on websites that they'd give you some free Bitcoin to try to get people using the technology and interested in it. I actually had an Mt. Gox account before They had their kind of fraud and their raid and whatnot. And so kind of, I lost Bitcoin in that, which was quite a while ago. So funny. Sorry, excuse me. I've been really interested in the progression of the technology sort of as it went along. I'm a lot less interested in just the speculative investing element of Bitcoin. I'm very interested in it as an actual currency. that people are using to make actual purchases. I suspect like any other technology that what we're going to see is the early search engines on the internet were like Ask Jeeves and it was AltaVista and there's all of these different search engines and they were all competing with one another and kind of fighting. And then Google became the clear kind of winner from all of that. All of that competition. But then even once almost everyone was using Google, it continued to innovate. And so I think just like other technologies, that's what we're going to see with Bitcoin, that the technology year over year is going to continue to evolve. It's going to become better suited to the needs of its users, and we're going to see it shift over time in its capabilities and kind of what it can do, which I find really exciting. That's really the, The most exciting part about it, how it's going to change over time and what it's going to become.

Yeah. Great answer. And yeah, all I can say is I hope that is the case too. You heard it here first, everyone. Great. Well, all that remains to be said is thank you so much, John, for coming on the show and telling us more about your story and your writing. Where can people find you online? Is there any author website? account you'd like to tell people about?

Yeah, so if you just go to www.johnchampagne.com, all one word, there's links to my books. There's a blog where I write on various topics. There's links to interviews, things like this. And that can be used as a springboard for anything people are interested in. about my writing.

Wonderful. All right, John, thanks very much for coming on the show and best of luck with your future writing.

Thank you so much, Philip. It's really been a pleasure.

Thanks. Bye then.