The Short Version
Mission: The Paracontrarian exists to ensure that dissenting voices are heard, not silenced.
Vision: The Paracontrarian will share, demonstrate, and promote the use of decentralized tools, platforms, systems, and infrastructure, both in-work and in-place, moving Contrarian Content Creators beyond resilience into a realm of antifragility, where controversy becomes a strength rather than a source of risk.
My Inspiration
The Climate We Are In
(Though I believe the major points are evergreen, the following was written 8/27/23 and the facts could be outdated very quickly! )
Tom Woods puts it well by stating that the Establishment in today's world doesn't want us to debate facts or philosophy outside of some accepted, statist, pre-defined range. Tom calls it the "3x5 card of allowable opinion." The Powers-That-Shouldn't-Be would restrict us to debating anything outside of what the mainstream media (whether Left or Right) would prepackage, define, and sell to us as the "News" and the "Truth."
Conspiracy FACT investigative reporter James Corbett handles this topic very well with his podcasts and documentaries, including The Library of Alexandria is on Fire.
The Internet was once an eclectic place where vast amounts of data was accessible at people’s fingertips and ideas that were off the mainstream 3x5 card were free to be expressed, debated, debunked, reinforced, and shared in a Free Marketplace of Ideas. As Big Tech centralized control over content and governments (especially the US Federal Government) decided that it was politically beneficial to sway opinions and censor content on the Big Tech platforms, they partnered with Big Tech to do so. Not have certain stories, posts, and other informational content been removed from social media platforms, but news articles and other publications that went against Establishment views were deleted from more static locations.
This has been especially true since 2020. The US government chose to control all kinds of media and ensure that the 3x5 card became more like a 1x1 postage stamp in order to scare people, affect election results, and gain increased control. The medical scare may have faded, for the moment, but the nightmare is growing as the current regime jails and prosecutes people for daring to question election results or for practicing law in support of clients that do so. These actions are not crimes, and the real “threat to democracy” is that the US republic’s methods for collecting and counting votes will be dictated from on high and can no longer be questioned.
The faded medical scare appears to be reemerging today, as a number of organizations are floating trial balloons to see who will comply once more. This balloon isn’t likely to fly except in areas where people are especially obsequious to government, but the current regime will continue to push the boundaries of government power in areas previously unseen in the USA. With the supposed reemergence of the virus, a new election year coming, and renewed pushes for climate-related control, “wokeness”, and other agendas emerging, two things will happen:
The average citizen (of the USA and elsewhere in the world) continues to be kicked around and piled-upon, creating a fight on too many fronts to be tolerated. What Ernest Hancock refers to as “they, them, those that won’t leave you alone” are getting worse every day. Many will simply retreat into the world of convenience and entertainment that Big Tech creates, but a growing minority will feel a need to do something about it.
Divisions will increase between L & R, D & R, compliant & non-compliant, and across dozens of other lines, to the point where there will so much turmoil the current construct of the USA will likely come apart.
The evils of the current regime are focused on attacking Republicans and the Right, but don’t get confused about the “ring of power’s” source or how it will be used by those that possess it. When the pendulum swings the other way, Republicans and so-called Conservatives are likely to exercise the same overstretched, expansive powers to promote their own agendas, once the precedent has been set. The evils of too much concentrated power, Cancel Culture, and outright censorship will be exercised by anybody in power against their Enemy List. The ratchet will continue in a negative, ever-more authoritarian direction as one side reacts to the other, turning into a contest for who can be the most totalitarian.
The answer to this problem is NOT to shut down dissident voices, but to allow civil discourse and re-open the Free Marketplace of Ideas. This is the path to a peaceful society, rather than continuing escalation. This will only occur if Contrarian Content Creators exercise critical thinking skills and take appropriate actions, publishing and archiving their voices in decentralized systems where they cannot be shadow-banned, demonetized, and outright censored.
Solutions Exist and are Being Developed
I don’t listen to the Declare Your Independence with Ernest Hancock podcast as often as I should, but I admit to a lot of inspiration from the times that I have. This includes my decision to buy some BitCoin for the first time in 2016. In a recent podcast episode Ernie talked with Thomas Freedman about his development of the PirateBox and PirateStick, different instantiations of a system that makes it easy to post and share content on the Interplanetary File System and has a number of other features to assist Contrarian Content Creators (though Thomas calls them Peaceful Pirates), ensuring that they can communicate without artificial boundaries. Hearing that specific episode of the podcast inspired the new mission that I’m pursuing with Paracontrarian.
A few other examples of current and emerging capabilities for Contrarian Content Creators include:
Matt Raymer has created ContentSafe, which performs syndication services and more, to ensure that a creator’s cancellation on one platform won’t remove their voice (and, perhaps, their income) from the Internet.
Some acquaintances of mine have created Pluribus as a form of cancellation insurance to protect Contrarian Content Creators from losing their livelihoods over being canceled.
Bastyon is a decentralized social network with “No corporation, no centralized servers, moderated by the community,” that won’t be controlled by Big Tech or any government.
PirateChain is a blockchain with a form of digital cash (ARRR) that is truly decentralized and uses only encrypted, private means to exchange value. (Keep in mind that BitCoin has an open ledger, is only pseudoanonymous, and some people now make a living data-mining the blockchain).
And…much much more than I’m going to cover here today…
The Paracontrarian’s Role
We are not planning to create systems of our own, at least not now. Our efforts are about promoting existing and emerging decentralized tools, platforms, systems, and infrastructure that can help Contrarian Content Creators, by taking these steps:
Finding these systems
Research them and determine their fitness for use
Demonstrate how to use the best of them
Promote the best of them
Along the way, we’ll be laying out a map to summarize everything a Contrarian Content Creator needs to know to keep their voices present in a reemerging Free Marketplace of Ideas.
I will post a lot of my own opinions from a libertarian, borderline-AnCap perspective on my social media accounts, but my efforts here are not to decide what “free speech” will be allowed. I’m here to ensure that no voices are silenced.
Call To Action
If you are a fellow traveler of good will on this road, please do the following:
Subscribe and consider a paid subscription. I’d like to spend a LOT more time on this topic, and your financial support will allow me to increase my focus.
Share The Paracontrarian with your like-minded friends who hate censorship and the cancel-culture we are living in.
Stay on the lookout as our efforts make their way into X/Twitter and other platforms including IPFS. Please subscribe and share in those locations, too!