How blockchain will be used to circumvent tyranny
In the wake of Chase bank, Paypal and even MasterCard targeting users for political views, the case for a decentralized alternative to Patreon is clearer than ever.
Last week we read how China’s social scoring is used to prevent citizens from traveling. Undesirable behavior as benign as sitting in reserved train seats is being counted onto a citizen’s social score, which may ultimately determine whether that person is eligible for even the most basic human rights, such the right to travel within their own country. To draw a parallel, this bleak present is not so far off from what we experience in the West. As we hear about massive financial bodies like MasterCard policing the speech of some for espousing certain political views, those who understand the importance of an open market of ideas are already making moves to use blockchain in getting around these early restrictions.
Tim Pool (VICE, Fusion) is an independent citizen journalist known for traveling to conflicted areas and live-streaming from the scene. From Occupy Wall Street to Caracas,and from Malmö to Berkeley, Pool’s brand is of adherence to principles of journalistic objectivity which he argues have long been abandoned by mainstream, legacy media. Recently, at the end of his videos Pool stopped asking users to contribute to his Patreon account, and encourages them to send crypto instead. Even more recently he began encouraging viewers to visit his channels on Minds.com instead of YouTube or Twitter (he has spoken about phasing out Twitter from his life) in the wake of continual censorship by YouTube and Twitter, as well as a recent debacle with Patreon against another prominent YouTuber, Carl Benjamin aka Sargon of Akkad (later resulting in the abandonment of the platform by prominant intellectual figures Sam Harris and Professor Jordan Peterson).
As we continue to move to a cashless society depending more and more on payment vendors like MC and VISA, a worrying image begins to firm. To make things worse, PayPal and even Chase Bank have denied service to certain actors including Wikileaks as well as political activists like Laura Loomer.
Army vet Joe Biggs, outspoken supported of POTUS, was also told by Chase Bank that his account is being shut down without any warning.
Why Crypto then?
Imagine if your phone provider started banning users for the contents of their phone conversations. If we learned anything from these incidents its that we have become increasingly less independent. Old arguments like “if you don’t like it, build your own” just doesn't cut the cake anymore when financial giants like MasterCard or dictating what you can and can’t say. What could once be achieved by entrepreneurship is not unattainable when the payment processor colludes with your web host on banning the ability of two consenting parties to engage in a transaction.
As Tim Pool argues in a video (embedded above), crypto can be used to circumvent traditional banks and other 3rd parties, rendering them irrelevant — or at least with significantly limited power: A user sends him $X worth of crypto, Pool receives the payment and immediately converts it back to his fiat of choice. In such a case, the particular coin being used during the transaction doesn’t really matter at all.
Popularizing this kind of contribution model can lead to 3 things I think are exciting to the blockchain world:
- Popularity — The individuals first affected by technological tyranny are usually those with big audiences. This could lead to a much more widespread understanding of the problems and, more importantly for blockchain, the decentralized solution.
- Principal — Last year we learned of Dragonfly, Google’s censored Chinese search engine. Companies who cater to regimes may think they have to, but encouraging a discussion on tech tyranny could show giants like Google that it may be worthwhile to stick to products that cater to citizens themselves, and not governments.
- Pressure —Aside from MasterCard which is powerful enough to act as a cartel, the above-mentioned entities involved with deplatforming may not be legally defined as monopolies but their attitude demonstrates that they view themselves as the only game in town, and that their clients will bend to their every command. If we make it clear that they are nothing by tools, they may return to catering to customers instead of dictating to them.
There is a larger discussion to be had on the rights of individuals and how tech companies and banks may be trampling these rights (in collusion with governments or otherwise). The point of this post is to argue for the use-case of a blockchain-based alternative to crowdfunding tools like Patreon, or at least for the removal of a dependent governing body. Other than a portal for discovery (more on that in a later post), what is Patreon if not a simple tool for subscription based monthly donations?
