Bitcoin makes Alongside Night obsolete

This year, at Libertopia in San Diego, I had the… we’ll call it opportunity… to see the film Alongside Night, based on the novel of the same name by J. Neil Shulman. We also showed Silver Circle, and John Bush screened the first three episodes of his new reality TV show Sovereign Living, which I was utterly impressed with. As for Alongside Night, not so impressed.

Now, in full disclosure, I’m no fan of Schulman. I’ve never read any of his work. I just don’t like him as a person. That probably influenced my perception of his film, sort of how I don’t like Morgan Freedman movies. So, my review may be a bit subjective.

Nevermind. Alongside Night was objectively terrible. I met lifelong fans of the book who were embarrassed, even angry about how awful the movie was. The lighting was bad. The acting was bad. The set dressing was bad. And, despite being written and directed by the original author, the writing was bad.

Before the film he played an episode from a series called The Silicon Assassin. It was that unique kind of terrible where your jaw falls open you just can’t look away. An elderly nanobot cloud android and his hologram strippers are the last line of defense against tyranny, so they must assassinate the evil President Medusa. It was as bad as it sounds. Bad acting. Bad writing. Just all over bad. But not the main attraction.

Alongside Night was better than The Silicon Assassin, for what that’s worth, although Schulman had the poor judgement to feature cameos from the terrible show’s cast.

Alongside Night is a dystopian story intended to exemplify the principles of Agorism. It’s set in United States during an economic collapse. Hyperinflation, tyrannical power, precious metals are illegal, and an underground black market that interfaces with the public through a book store. What’s not to like? On the surface, that’s pretty much the setting of Silver Circle. The rebels in this world are an outfit known as the Revolutionary Agorist Cadre, an organisation plotting the end of the US government by means of counter-economics.

Here’s why I say Bitcoin makes the plot obsolete, if it ever made any sense. At the beginning, Dr Martin Vreeland, played by poster boy Kevin Sorbo, decides it’s time to bug out. He fakes his own death to avoid the Fed’s radical roundup, and makes his arrangements to escape the country. But first, you see, he must send his 16-year-old son, Elliot Vreeland, to collect some gold coins that they’ve put aside for their escape. The coins have been hidden in a belt, and left in the custody of a bookstore with connections the Cadre. Elliot gets the belt, but is separated from his family, ends up in a cat-and-mouse game with the Feds and must solicit the help of the Cadre.

First off, if Dr. Vreeland had put his bug out money in Bitcoin he wouldn’t need to risk his young boy’s life retrieving it. A few taps on his Bitcoin wallet app and his entire fortune could be on it’s way to Chile, or Venezuela, or Hong Kong, or wherever he’s going. In fact, he doesn’t even really need to send it all. His money is already wherever he goes if he sets up the wallet correctly. Say whatever you like about not being able to hold Bitcoin in your hand, that feature makes it uniquely difficult to confiscate.

Second, even if you want to stack gold, don’t store your bug out money in the backroom of a bookstore you don’t own. A million things could go wrong. The owner could bug out before you. And there are plenty of better places to hide it. The whole point of stacking gold is so you don’t have to rely on a third party.

And finally, I just couldn’t believe there was enough gold in that belt to justify risking the life of his 16-year-old son. Gold doesn’t become super valuable in hyperinflation. It maintains parity with other commodities. So, you don’t suddenly become rich by storing gold. It’s a hedge against inflation. It’s still worth the same amount of bread, and bullets. So let’s do some simple math. Say, a 1 oz gold round is about an inch in diameter. A belt is about 30 inches. Let’s be charitable and say 40 inches. 40 oz of gold is 40 oz of gold, whether your in ancient Rome, or in dystopian American. Gold is around $1,400, so 40 oz is around $56,000 today. Even with hyper inflation, that would be pretty close to the value of the gold in Vreeland’s belt in today’s dollars. (Maybe Schulman’s own belt would be worth more.)

So, let me ask you, would you throw your teenage son to the Feds for $56,000? Especially if you’re some rich Nobel Prize winning economist who has already transferred most of his assets to foreign accounts.

But by far the saddest part of the whole film were the appearances of Tim Russ, as General Jack Guerdon, and Garrett Wang as Major Chin, both officers of the Cadre. Tim Russ played Commander Tuvok, and Garrett Wang played Ensign Kim on Star Trek: Voyager. How sad for these actors that the only work they can get is some bit part in what looks like a Sci-Fi Channel reject, and they weren’t even asked to help promote the film. Maybe it’s a generation gap, but I’d have thought they had more name draw than Sorbo at a Sci-Fi convention.

Silver Circle is showing now on Video on Demand platforms! Check it out on our watch online page and find out about local theater showings of the film and other special events on our  -->event page -->.