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> Cancel culture will not win But what are they doing to actually prevent censorship? This feels like an excuse to capitalize on the politically charged term

> Cancel culture will not win But what are they doing to actually prevent censorship? This feels like an excuse to capitalize on the politically charged term of “cancel culture”. My grift alert is blaring.

canistista 4y ago
until someone does a p2p btc/eth service this isn't happening.
pessimizer 4y ago
> But what are they doing to actually prevent censorship? Payment processing. edit: I have to say that I'm finding the replies unintelligible. The largest payment processors are banning organizations from receiving payments. This organization claims that they will not do that. Would that destroy censorship in the world, or keep Visa and Mastercard from banning people (or banning Parallel Economy themselves?) No. Does it stop censorship at your local high school paper? Also no.
- penultimatename 4y ago
  They never explained how they'll process payments when VISA cuts them off.
- shakezula 4y ago
  But… that doesn’t prevent censorship when it’s still reliant on the same core payment processors. As best as I can tell this is basically security through obscurity.
  - blisterpeanuts 4y ago
    Isn't Parallel Economy basically positioning itself as an alternative to Paypal? Not a "full stack" solution, at least not yet, but nonetheless a workaround if Paypal locks you out.
- woodruffw 4y ago
  Yes, that's what the site says. But they're presumably not running a settlement network from top to bottom, so it's perfectly reasonable to ask what they're doing different from every single other payment processor (or middleman, or reseller, or...). In other words: is the "censorship resistance" here just the pinky promise of someone who unironically writes a page like this[1]? [1]: https://www.paralleleconomy.com/acta/ https://www.paralleleconomy.com/acta/
egypturnash 4y ago
Their about page (https://www.paralleleconomy.com/about/ https://www.paralleleconomy.com/about/) explicitly mentions Parler: We are starting with payment processing. And keep building. We took on big tech and it was us who made Parler the most downloaded app in the world. Unfortunately we did not control Parler. We took on big tech and the success we had was unprecedented. We are back and we continue to take on all entities that want to abridge your freedoms. It is pretty easy to assume that the "freedoms" they want to protect here is freedom to be a right-wing racist Q-nut.
- jesusofnazarath 4y ago
  [dead]
- the_optimist 4y ago
  I support and believe in the freedom to be a left-wing radical.
  - Comevius 4y ago
    The difference is that radical left-wingers usually want better wages, free, universal health care, free education, a solution to climate change, gun control, equal chances. Some of them also advocate for a societal transition to veganism, banning cars, and universal basic income. Radical left-wingers tend to reject political and business elites. They tend to reject religion. The radical right-wingers are white supremacists frequently committing acts of domestic terrorism. They are hostile toward education and science. They support a free market with trickle-down economics and no regulations. They worship oligarchs, hoping to become like them. They regularly call for normalcy and the sanctity of the family unit, but they also think that women don't deserve rights, because they are thin-skinned and can't stand to lose any of their privilege. They call everyone snowflakes, sheeps and cucks, which is exactly who they are. They love watching oligarchs living it up on their dime. Most of their idols are scam artists preying on their fears.
    - kiawe_fire 4y ago
roenxi 4y ago
It can be grift and censorship resistant at the same time. The free market embraces not only JIT, but many other distressing tactics that only just work. I suspect, if they can stay ahead of the regulators, we'll be looking back at services like this in 20 years and note: 1. Riddled with scams and fraud. 2. Better overall results than the well regulated banks. The banks tend to rely on regular bailouts to maintain the illusion of competence, and don't fund a lot of ideas that would be good.
- pjc50 4y ago
  But this is just a payment processor, i.e. a frontend API to banks. They even talk about PCI compliance! Can't get much more mainstream than that.
goatcode 4y ago
Pretty much any assurance you have anywhere: the people doing the work. Theoretically, that is. I'd have to know the actual people before making a realistic determination as to whether they're not part of the same ilk as those whom they claim to oppose. As we see in any of the social media platforms with things like selective enforcement of rules: people are policy.

canistista 4y ago

until someone does a p2p btc/eth service this isn't happening.

pessimizer 4y ago

> But what are they doing to actually prevent censorship? Payment processing. edit: I have to say that I'm finding the replies unintelligible. The largest payment processors are banning organizations from receiving payments. This organization claims that they will not do that. Would that destroy censorship in the world, or keep Visa and Mastercard from banning people (or banning Parallel Economy themselves?) No. Does it stop censorship at your local high school paper? Also no.

penultimatename 4y ago
They never explained how they'll process payments when VISA cuts them off.
shakezula 4y ago
But… that doesn’t prevent censorship when it’s still reliant on the same core payment processors. As best as I can tell this is basically security through obscurity.
- blisterpeanuts 4y ago
  Isn't Parallel Economy basically positioning itself as an alternative to Paypal? Not a "full stack" solution, at least not yet, but nonetheless a workaround if Paypal locks you out.
woodruffw 4y ago
Yes, that's what the site says. But they're presumably not running a settlement network from top to bottom, so it's perfectly reasonable to ask what they're doing different from every single other payment processor (or middleman, or reseller, or...). In other words: is the "censorship resistance" here just the pinky promise of someone who unironically writes a page like this[1]? [1]: https://www.paralleleconomy.com/acta/ https://www.paralleleconomy.com/acta/

egypturnash 4y ago

Their about page (https://www.paralleleconomy.com/about/ https://www.paralleleconomy.com/about/) explicitly mentions Parler: We are starting with payment processing. And keep building. We took on big tech and it was us who made Parler the most downloaded app in the world. Unfortunately we did not control Parler. We took on big tech and the success we had was unprecedented. We are back and we continue to take on all entities that want to abridge your freedoms. It is pretty easy to assume that the "freedoms" they want to protect here is freedom to be a right-wing racist Q-nut.

jesusofnazarath 4y ago
[dead]
the_optimist 4y ago
I support and believe in the freedom to be a left-wing radical.
- Comevius 4y ago
  The difference is that radical left-wingers usually want better wages, free, universal health care, free education, a solution to climate change, gun control, equal chances. Some of them also advocate for a societal transition to veganism, banning cars, and universal basic income. Radical left-wingers tend to reject political and business elites. They tend to reject religion. The radical right-wingers are white supremacists frequently committing acts of domestic terrorism. They are hostile toward education and science. They support a free market with trickle-down economics and no regulations. They worship oligarchs, hoping to become like them. They regularly call for normalcy and the sanctity of the family unit, but they also think that women don't deserve rights, because they are thin-skinned and can't stand to lose any of their privilege. They call everyone snowflakes, sheeps and cucks, which is exactly who they are. They love watching oligarchs living it up on their dime. Most of their idols are scam artists preying on their fears.
  - kiawe_fire 4y ago

roenxi 4y ago

It can be grift and censorship resistant at the same time. The free market embraces not only JIT, but many other distressing tactics that only just work. I suspect, if they can stay ahead of the regulators, we'll be looking back at services like this in 20 years and note: 1. Riddled with scams and fraud. 2. Better overall results than the well regulated banks. The banks tend to rely on regular bailouts to maintain the illusion of competence, and don't fund a lot of ideas that would be good.

pjc50 4y ago
But this is just a payment processor, i.e. a frontend API to banks. They even talk about PCI compliance! Can't get much more mainstream than that.

goatcode 4y ago

Pretty much any assurance you have anywhere: the people doing the work. Theoretically, that is. I'd have to know the actual people before making a realistic determination as to whether they're not part of the same ilk as those whom they claim to oppose. As we see in any of the social media platforms with things like selective enforcement of rules: people are policy.