Covering New Ground

Hot on the heels of CRYPTO SHRUGGED J. Lee Porter and I are working to wrap up the second book in the Bitpats series. This one is called CRYPTO CITIZENS. Naturally, we still are looking at the implications, the political, economic, and social ramifications of implementing blockchain, but this time the issues that come under our microscope are those of citizenship, surveillance (both government surveillance and surveillance capitalism) as the world tries to monitor international travel and implement smart cities.

As with so many things, smart cities act as a double-edged sword, and the goals set for them, such as being able to adapt to the needs of the people, also mean anticipating those needs, which, in turn require watching how people use the existing resources. When combined with a desire to preserve "order" within a community, the results can be satisfying or terrifying.

Citizenship is something that is considered a birthright and a privilege, yet it can also be perverted into something more sinister. A person from a certain country is bad, and one from another is good. It's a matter of generalizing so that people are easier to deal with. The problem is that, taken that way, citizenship becomes degrading.

The natural reaction to that is for people look for ways to have multiple passports, or perhaps none at all. This is a complicated topic, and our new novel can only begin to explore some of the issues involved. But we make a start. And, in future books, we will pursue that more.

While we edit, Elizabeth Mackey designed another wonderful cover for the upcoming book. We are definitely excited and hope you are too.