Someone emailed me about this.
Haven't read it myself, but thought I would pass it on:
"This book is dedicated to liberty. Neither this book nor human life is a sole genre. I hope this book will clarify and widen your reality perception.
Viception is a fictional book by pseudonymous author Sythamin, first published in 2010, about the relationship between Vincent, a criminal apprentice, and Vice, a major black market participant. During their relationship questions arise. Does the supernatural exist? What is moral? Who do you trust? What is human life’s purpose? What political ideology is best?
Viception is a blend of the character Vice and the English word deception.
Viception is registered under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License."
http://viception.wordpress.com/
I was wondering if this book was mentioned on this website.
A friend told me to read this book. I liked it. Here is my review of it:
I have read Economics in One Lesson, the Concise Guide to Economics, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism, Meltdown, and other pro-capitalist literature. I learned more about economics from Viception than all my previous capitalist readings combined. The liberty message is explained in an argument/discussion in the middle of the book. It is the longest political argument I have ever heard, but it was enjoyable. It started with free speech, lies, blackmail, shouting ‘fire’ in a crowded theater, firearms, the Marshall Plan, the Great Depression (including Austrian business cycle theory, inflation, and money), and concluded with the power of ideas, the broken window fallacy, the U.S. Civil War, the World Wars, the Cold War, and more.
Viception was a surprising way to defend liberty, since the book’s defender is a crime boss, but he economically explains crime. Here is an excerpt: “The CEO of the local grocery store died recently. After his death, the store still provides good and services. This is expected by buyers. When there is a news story about a captured illegal powerful drug dealer, there is an expectation the illegal drug supply will decline noticeably. My point is not managers are unimportant. That is why they are paid well. If managing a company was easy why is not anyone hired to do it? Management is hard. A good manager has to divide decision-making while remaining in control, maintain morale, know who to hire, who to fire, who to promote, monitor competition, and speculate about the future. My point is non-small businesses, are bigger than one person. They still work, despite the departure of the leader.”
I almost forgot (the book covered many topics) that near the beginning was a religious debate. Every argument I know for the existence of the supernatural, including God, was countered. Religion appears later in the text. I speculate the religion debate is more important than the author thought. A common justification for tyranny is a religious argument. I know there are religious libertarians (not seeking for an argument with you all), but by countering religious arguments, the author denies the validity of a past and present argument for power, especially government power.
There are many topics in the book I have not mentioned: beauty, human nature, lie detection, fictional future technology, humor, etcetera.
Without giving away too many details, the plot is the relationship between Vincent, a criminal apprentice, and Vice, a crime boss. Vincent’s apprenticeship is affected by his memory, the discussions/arguments, his physical choices (especially the ones made on a timer) and finally the choice of moral consistency or compassion for a friend, a moral dilemma.
I recommend this book to anyone. There are no bad words (f-word, n-word, the whole alphabet of bad words), although profanity is discussed. You likely will not need to google anything because the text explains itself sufficiently. There are some violent scenes that may be inappropriate for children, but nothing like a horror book that will make you fear going to bed at night.
Is it just ten chapters? It says it hasn't been updated in two and a half months.
It isn't that great a book. It is just one godlike character that argues against a variety of strawmen and the topics don't even connect. There is nearly no plot but so much information that you can read in more common books. Some parts even feel like copied out of one of those. Viception is no book, it's a giant strawman-faq about morality, death-penalty, technology, psychology, religiousity, etc.
resist272727, it has been updated, but I do not know how much. The front page looks different compared to when I first saw it.
Metus, I feel bad I suggested something that was a waste of your time. Literary taste varies, so pleasing everyone seems impossible. I am less interested in arguing about the accuracy of using ‘godlike’ than you calling some things ‘strawmen.’ What were straw man arguments? Just because an argument seems dumb does not mean the argument has not been used. What one person considers a dumb argument another person can consider a smart argument. Regarding material that seemed ‘copied’, that seems inevitable. How many times can one argue about a topic, say the minimum wage, before the same arguments reappear elsewhere? I doubt I or many people here have a belief that is original.
"Metus, I feel bad I suggested something that was a waste of your time."-Gero
Don't feel bad for him. Look at it like a capitalist: if he read it, it was most likely in his own self-interest!
@Gero: I read the book before I read your review, so don't feel bad. It's just that for example the paragraph about the man who yells "fire" in a crowded room is an example for a copied part from Block's "Defending the undefendable". But as you said, taste is subjective, so I'm glad that there is at least someone who found the book useful. The more people are attracted to liberty by this book the better.
For the sake of not making a new topic, I will revive this.
I read the book and I am not entirely sure about it. Something like 90-95% of the book consists of a character (Vince or Jack) throwing a strawman argument at Vice, whereupon he blasts it out of the air. Actually, scratch that, almost everyone affiliated with Vice is willing to substitute for him when he isn't personally present. The bloody PROSTITUTE has a short speech to give. True, there is a LOT of information shoved into this book, but it is hard to think of the arguments in real time. If you read out Vice's lines near the middle-end section, it would probably take several hours. Also, the author needs an editor. Every once in a while something terribly incorrect in the grammatical manner appears, and sometimes someone says or describes something in a cringeworthy manner (for example, the aforementioned prostitute is "A sexy redhead wearing a bikini").
On the other hand, the remaining 5-10% of the book consists of some pretty impressive action. It was so little of the story, and yet it managed to be incredibly paranoid (not to mention the fact that Vice basically goes what he believes in consistently near the end). It counterbalances this by making the ending really, really crummy and abrupt.