Post-mortem of the Paralelní Polis Prague project by Roman Týc, one of the co-founders. The text is translated from Czech language using DeepL with manual corrections (original text in czech language).
Disclaimer: This text does not express the opinion of Paralelní Polis as whole and Roman Týc is not part of the current transformation into a global online-first decentralized movement.
Roman Týc: Ten Years of Paralelní Polis
As a social experiment, I think ten years was enough. Now is the time to conclude the project, summarize everything, systematically process it and publish the output.
But in short, don’t look and go home, there will be no crypto-revolution after all.
Not having a clear goal
It was long, some of the time very inspiring, sometimes shocking, but mostly tiring and exhausting. At the outset, we at Ztohoven asked the question of whether disruptive technologies can overturn the status quo of the current social order, that is, whether they can challenge the meaning of the state and create the basis for a systemic alternative. For a practical investigation, we first and foremost needed a social incubator, i.e. a house in which we could create the most ideal conditions for the interaction of people who believe in the emancipatory potential of technology, are motivated to work with it, and are on several levels able, but also willing, to devote time to the project. The work of the Ztohoven group was to gradually equip the house with furniture, secure sustainable funding, complete the structure of the relationships, name the new discoveries, but above all record the event. All this with unconstrained expectations, the will to accept and solve all the problems that come with such a challenging project.
Mouse Paradise
The first task was to find a space, everything else was based on the layout of the house in Dělnická 43, which was rented to us by Richard Balous, the owner of the neighbouring La Fabrika theatre. His courage and trust that we would finance such a huge building still amazes me, because the monthly costs of running the building were around half a million crowns a month, which was a real challenge in the regime of a non-profit organisation without state support. The four-storey building, with about 900m2 of space, dictated the requirements of the operation to us. We opened the first weekend in October 2014, and in spectacular fashion, with the first annual congress, under the name Hackers Congress. The house was intended as a kind of “Mouse Paradise”. A preserve for people who believe in the social change that will naturally come from an environment in which all communication is encrypted, that is, there is no way for a third party to exploit the information exchanged between two parties. This way of behaving is called Cryptoanarchy. Meaning a compound of two words, Crypto/encryption and anarchy/defiance of enforced authority. Everything else came naturally after that, and it was a ride like an idiot.
And now to finance it
Very soon after the opening, bitcoin became the dominant theme. Considering that in 2014 virtually no one was dealing with this phenomenon and the price was somewhere around $200, which for some of the first participants of our bitcoin meetups had already appreciated their bitcoin assets many times over, a group of crypto barons began to meet in the space, which for the next few years determined the meaning and significance of the building. While we tried to dramaturgically interfere timidly with the operation, the bitcoin element was much stronger than we would have been able to divert it to somewhere we would have preferred to see the project. Unfortunately, this sometimes caused clashes, with the new occupants of the house craving absolute freedom without acknowledging the responsibility that automatically comes with that freedom. Due to this approach, in the early years Parallel Polis struggled with a dramaturgically unbalanced program that was based on people whose lectures were more reminiscent of capitalist propaganda and in some cases the preaching of oracles. No one was interested in a dramaturgically balanced dialogue. If they invited someone to a debate, their aim was always to make the guest argumentatively impossible. After a few months, no one wanted to attend their panel discussions anymore, and the program eventually dwindled down to a few egocentrics reinforcing each other in their (capitalist) truth. Apart from being a clockwork of the same characters repeating themselves over and over again, it was above all an increasingly, horribly uninspiring bore. Even though the project presented itself as sustainable, independent of state subsidies, i.e. essentially right-wing, the human laziness, opportunist and selfishness permeating society and political thinking from left to right, led most of the occupants to automatically expect external financial support to run the house, but this time exclusively from the private sector. Miraculously, I always ended up getting donors and we built a board out of them, which I had to convince once a year what an important project this was for the world. In recent years, I was no longer able to lie to them, and we let the two-year contracts expire without renewal. I still owe a personal thank you to all those guys, because without them, the project would never have gotten off the ground and would have fallen on its face much faster and from a greater height in times of crisis.
The first crisis
Despite the financial support of donors, in the first stage, under the leadership of one of the crypto barons, one Martin Š., the project accumulated over one and a half million in debt, mainly on rent and energy. People behaved in the house in such a way that they would take snacks in the café and forget to pay. Almost no one ever paid the voluntary entrance fee at lectures, and the director himself ran the project in such a way that we had to almost exterminate the premises after his involvement, especially his office. It was there that I first woke up and realized that you can’t assume a person’s qualities and abilities by the fact that they managed to buy a large amount of bitcoins at a time when it cost a few dollars. Nor was it possible to motivate him to perform financially. We then painted the space, cleaned the windows, got proper internet, bought more furnishings, and started offering the house for rent for events, and wow, suddenly it started to thrive.
Five-year lease.
In the second third of the operation, while we still maintained the original concept of not being able to pay in the space other than with cryptocurrency, we already knew that the responsibility for the formal operation of the house could not be delegated to the “community”, which eventually began to behave anyway, wanting to enjoy the benefits but refusing to share the responsibilities associated with running the house. As a result, my original idea of handing over the reins to a headhacker once the project was underway and locking myself back in the studio for two years for a change began to fade. By this time, our first five-year lease was coming to an end and we were moving up quickly thanks to some good decisions. Our conventions were completely sold out every year and the last ticket was always auctioned off for one whole bitcoin. We all bought into the illusion that attendees were interested in discussing social change, and we didn’t want to admit that the interest in the congress was primarily because we were the only conference in the country at the time that was fundamentally about bitcoin. The content of our conferences was up to 80% based on bitcoin, and our speakers gradually addressed nothing else in their lectures than the financial significance of cryptocurrencies and their appreciation. At that time, I began to notice that the cryptoanarchists in hoods were becoming financial advisors who were not shy about donning a jacket to sell and activate hardware wallets. They were getting paid hard for their consultations, and using Parallel Polis as a reputational backdrop and meetingpoint for free. At conferences, it was quite common for the leaders of the global crypto scene to be universally surprised that we were asking them to pay for the cafe with bitcoin, and to admit amusedly that they had never paid with crypto in this way before. But it was also the time when I first started hearing that bitcoin was not a payment tool but an opportunity to get rich. It was time to do something about it and pull this thematic weed out of the Parallel Polis dramaturgy. But it was also a time when Covid-19 came along, and we suddenly had to deal with completely different issues.
Covid-19 - second crisis
For the next two years, like most similar objects, we struggled for our bare existence. Instead of supporting and seeking consensual solutions to the ensuing chaos, by following basic safety and hygiene rules, we were accused by libertarians of being hypocrites and supporting the state in spreading panic because Covid-19 and its dangers were fictional and unproven. What these wise guys didn’t figure out is that if all four workers at Parallel Polis get sick at once, we’ll shut down and never recover because there will be no one to open the door in the morning for the members of the Hub, the paid coworking space that kept the whole house financially afloat. Unfortunately, there was also a situation at that time when one of the founders of Parallel Polis, paid his assistant over 200,000,- for helping to organize the congress, an activity that had been done by volunteers until then, and all the financial surplus logically went to the operation of the non-profit organization. At that moment, Parallel Polis was for the second time on the existential precipice and I lost confidence in the fundamental personality associated with the Parallel Polis project. To make matters worse, the next year the two of them organized a programmatically identical conference on a similar date in the East Germany. With the arrival of Covid, all the original creators of the project eventually disappeared in a panic, regardless of the consequences. This state of affairs, as everyone suspects, lasted for over two years and we survived thanks to a HitHit campaign, which managed to raise 700,000,- which, combined with a reduced rent from the landlord, was enough to take a sharp turn at the last minute with a bruised ass. At that time Veronika and I had our Babeta and I was not home from morning till night, which Veronika tactfully pointed out to me after a year and I knew that I had already given Parallel Polis my best and I would not like to blame myself later for not seeing our child grow up.
The right time to collect profits
The last third of existence was about finding a position in a new situation. Covid had changed a lot of people’s habits and expecting it to come back before the pandemic started after two years of madness was naive. Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies slowly began to slip from our attention as all of the original crypto functions were gradually lost or made more complicated for users, and the broader community, especially around Bitcoin, was concerned with virtually nothing but appreciation and speculation. The age of bitcoin primitivism had arrived. The crypto-scene became tribalised to such an extent that any dialogue between holders of different cryptocurrencies was no longer practically possible. The narrative of cryptoanarchy and the ethos of cypherpunk in the media space disappeared from bitcoin altogether. The thematic helm has been taken over by the YouTubers, who purposely for viewership populistically pump people with what the naive crypto newbie wants to hear, without the elementary criticism that is the sound basis for anything to develop. The bitcoin element has stagnated, hypnotized by cyclical growth, and the average user is just waiting for the right moment to convert back to dollars and wouldn’t even think of using bitcoin for payment, let alone anonymous payment, heaven forbid on the darknet. With every four year cycle comes stupider crypt holders who scream hodl, hopium, rocket, or bull run to the point of stupidity. Some crypto-anarchists will orient themselves in the new situation, opportunistically adapt to the market’s call, and, having learned from previous cycles, start shoving what they want down newcomers’ throats for fees. Bitcoin publications are being published on a treadmill, recycling the same thing over and over again. The more practical ones offer workshops to sell the confused what the internet is full of in various forms for free. But the word anarchy gets in the way of virtually everyone’s marketing and so they drop it from their vocabulary altogether. The original enthusiasts and fighters for financial emancipation become dollar millionaires. Instead of making meaningful use of their accumulated finances, which in many cases would last them the rest of their lives, they irrationally want bitcoin even more. The time has come when investment traps are brazenly produced, the smarter ones trying to mine coins from the less sharp crayons in the pen. As in the Klondike gold rush, in the end, those selling picks and shovels made the most money. Likewise, in the crypto, those who offered overpriced services made the most money. The hardware wallet was invented and is sold by guys who have no problem stealing coins from those who don’t have them sufficiently secured, which makes sense on a practical level, but from an ethical standpoint it’s a no-brainer, but they always manage to defend themselves among their admirers with the geeky phrase “no keys, no bitcoins”, which may have been true in the early days of crypto, but certainly wouldn’t hold up today in a robbed exchange, for example.
Our most recent experience was trying to support the Ethereum community, which in the end proved to be the most sick in its nakedness. We gave the guy from Ústí unlimited space in Parallel Polis, only to find out that his only goal was to use Parallel Polis to extract money from gullible investors, which he desperately needed to subsidize the development of his crypto pawn shop. After six months of his team’s involvement with Parallel Polis, he brought the barracks to the brink of bankruptcy, saying that he had to loan the project money to operate, which we therefore owe him. Lol. In the end he secretly disappeared and didn’t pay a penny for the rent of the conference we thought we were hosting all along. In the meantime the director of Parallel Polis hired by him collected over 10 000 000,- which never reached Parallel Polis. It should be noted that not only he disappeared with the money, but also the producer we hired directly for Parallel Polis. So the guys were counting on the anarchists not filing criminal charges against them. So the guy from Ústí fucked the non-profit this time, so congratulations, and we wish his pawn shop for ripping off the desperate to do well.
Dog eat dog
The goal and purpose of today’s bitcoin users is not to create a parallel economic system, but to temporarily hold bitcoin only as an investment and expect appreciation. Today, shameless bitcoin influencers advise when is the best time in which we should collect profits. But none of them are saying anymore that when they take profits on one side, someone else takes a loss on the other side. And the one with the loss is usually a person, egged on by useful idiot Youtubers, who jumps in hysteria near the top, and ends up selling near the bottom of the slump because he is unable to hold the coins at a loss for the entire next four-year cycle in order to move up a notch on the imaginary pyramid. These people are ridiculed by the smarter and richer ones, but no one wants to admit that these manipulated poor people are handing over money via bitcoin that was their naive chance to escape poverty. Statistically, there are more than 80% of such people who lose out this way. While bitcoin is not by definition an ponzi, the vast majority of its holders treat it like one. As a tool for financial revolution, bitcoin has become a toy for the rich, making the rich richer and the poor poorer. Bitcoin has lost most of the original features that made it so useful in the Parallel Polis. It has long since lost its anonymity, transfers are certainly no cheaper than with banks, it has become a regulated asset thanks to exchanges with enforced KYC, a tool for spying, and for several years now the big theme has been the centralization of bitcoin through computing power, represented by large mining farms, giant pools, or investment funds that have recently managed to accumulate several percent of all bitcoins in circulation in a very short period of time. The blockchain is likely to remain the same, nobody wants it to change precisely to maintain trust in the investment, but it all boils down to the fact that bitcoin cannot be manipulated in the future except through an institutional wrapper. It won’t be long before, thanks to large investment groups, bitcoin will soon be just another tool for market manipulation, just as it has historically been for stocks, gold, oil, etc. Ordinary people will traditionally sell bitcoin in a panic at the supposed bottom, and financial groups will profitably buy, hold, accumulate and manipulate the market as a result. Eventually all meaningful cryptocurrencies will be similarly neutered, and others will disappear due to lack of interest.
So what now? HODL FUCK!!! All right, all right, faggots.
You don’t want that
I’ve experienced everything in Parallel Polis. I’m sure everything you don’t want to experience as an operator of a facility like this. Theft, gold-diggers, coprolista brothers, bizarre porn, a slitted-up, horny mistress in the kitchen, fraud, defrauding, non-payment of invoices as a financial strategy, official controls, plastic bags of money, money laundering, tax evasion, an ex-Governor of a national bank, a fancy bar, classic wechsel guys, their mules, visiting Babis and Prchal (czech prime minister and his marketing guru - translator’s note), drug dealers, drugs of all kinds, lectures by complete lunatics, drugged-up staff, marital infidelities, denunciations, blackmail, snitching, promiscuity, fights, a nun hanging on hooks, tunnelling, arrests, smashing ATMs with an iron bar, a manipulated pensioner sending bitcoin via ATM to some bastard in Africa, a whitewashed economist, a celebrity, a porn star, a pimp, a shit-in-the-pants, a confused billionaire, shamans, charlatans, an aesthete, manipulators, stalkers, an interpol woman who’s been led around for months by a guy from the core team, a hospitalization in a mental hospital, backstabbing, recriminations, intrigue, hatred, arrogance, lying, passive aggression, sexual harassment, arrests, vandalism, but to balance things out a bit, the project had its bright moments, which included accolades, media attention, love, even a secret meeting with the future president, and there was dedication, understanding, and ultimately friendship. Perhaps the saddest realization is how few people understand the purpose and importance of non-profit organizations, because the largest share of our energy was ultimately consumed by fending off predators that were magnetically attracted to the illusory environment of an unregulated world without secular laws.
This time, without ideologues
And what now? There’s no more social experiment going on in the house, and it wouldn’t be fair to exploit the Parallel Polis brand just for old Benda’s sake. We will keep the Cowork for the people, it would not be right to say to the Hub members only “bye, we are tired of it, go away” because formally, with elementary care, the house still works quite well, only the responsibility for the operation will no longer be with the non-profit organization Parallel Polis, but physically we will take over the baton under the brand Second Culture together with Katka, with whom we have been running Parallel Polis practically since Covid. We’ll park the Parallel Polis nonprofit in the basement, where we’ll hopefully work systematically on some kind of bilingual summary of the ten years of the project, and I hope that it will result in a great publication, or at least a fat chapter in a book about Ztohoven. Ales Najbrt is the one who is going to do the publication, and I am really looking forward to it.
It’s been a ride through a dark world that I would never have learned so much about if I hadn’t convinced the Ztohoven folks that the risk would be worth it, and even though none of them made it to the end, I thank them for it.
Opt-out.
Ende.