“What is a number, Mr. Waterhouse?” Daniel groaned. “How can you ask such questions?” “How can you not ask them, sir? You are a philosopher, are you not?”
Neal Stephenson: Quicksilver
And how many are there?
Literelative.
“I know my father only by having read the books that he read.”
Neal Stephenson: Quicksilver
Monsterny.
“I have given up hope, tonight, of ever understanding money.” “It’s simple, really…” “And yet it’s not simple at all,” Daniel said. “It follows simple rules—it obeys logic—and so Natural Philosophy should understand it, encompass it—and I, who know and understand more than almost anyone in the Royal Society, should comprehend it. But I don’t. I never will…if money is a science, then it is a dark science, darker than Alchemy. It split away from Natural Philosophy millennia ago, and has gone on developing ever since, by its own rules…”
Neal Stephenson: Quicksilver
Pluralicity.
“Meaning what? That you’ve become used to preserving your faith despite being surrounded by heretics?” “No. Rather, it’s as if I’ve got an Amsterdam inside of my head.” “A what !?” “Many different sects and faiths that are always arguing with one another. A Babel of religious disputation that never dies down. I have got used to it.”
Neal Stephenson: Quicksilver
Shipcoin.
As with many stories about techno-libertarian fantasies, the tale of the Satoshi begins in an all-male, quasi-frat house in San Francisco in the late 90s.
[...]
In his scheme, the Satoshi would connect, via two looping tunnels on the water, to human-made floating platforms designated for agriculture, manufacturing and parkland. From the air, the whole community would form the shape of the bitcoin B.
[...]
Even scrapping the Satoshi proved to be a debacle.