IIRC, Stross learned about Bitcoin in 2011 when doing research for Neptune's Brood. Had he hedged his bets and bought $20 of Bitcoin before writing posts like "

IIRC, Stross learned about Bitcoin in 2011 when doing research for Neptune's Brood. Had he hedged his bets and bought $20 of Bitcoin before writing posts like "Why I want Bitcoin to die in a fire"[1], he'd be a multimillionaire today. At some point in the past decade, Stross went mad. He's become consumed by dogmatism and doomsaying. He constantly predicts disaster, and he's constantly wrong. Here are a few examples. He thought that Brexit would destroy the UK[2]: > I'm calling Hard Brexit a road to mass starvation and famine-grade deaths on a scale not seen in the UK since the Hungry Forties (that's the 1840s, not the 1940s). He canceled visits to the US because thought that Trump would become a totalitarian dictator[3]: > In which case, for me to continue to plan to travel to the United States in eight months time would be as unwise as it would have been to plan in February 1933 to travel to Germany in September of that year: it might be survivable, but it would nevertheless be hazardous. Here's a snippet from his 2018 retrospective[4]: > 2018 was the year that the global climate change alarm sirens began to sound continuously, with wildfires and heat emergencies and melting icecaps. 2018 was also, by no coincidence whatsoever, the year in which the global neo-Nazi movement made considerable headway, with neo-fascist demagogues grabbing power in Brazil, tightening their stranglehold in India, the Philippines, Turkey, the USA, Italy, and elsewhere. The UK was, for a third consecutive year, paralyzed by the utter shit-show that is Brexit, with the deadline now looming less than 100 days ahead of us. No matter how many times reality contradicts his views, he refuses to change his mind. Even in December he was predicting Brexit catastrophes.[5] Moreover, his writing style has become snide and dismissive. At first the transition saddened me, but now I just find it annoying. 1. https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/12/why-i-want-bitcoin-to-die-in-a.html https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/12/why-i-w... 2. http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2016/10/facts-of-life-and-death.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2016/10/facts-of... 3. https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2017/01/policy-change-future-us-visits.html https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2017/01/policy-... 4. https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2018/12/crawling-from-the-wreckage.html https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2018/12/crawlin... 5. https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2020/12/so-you-say-you-want-a-revoluti.html https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2020/12/so-you-...