No Due Process in the Digital Age

A Chocolate Taoist’s Stand Against an Unjust Practice

In my recent tango with the faceless payment processor, Stripe, a situation unfolded that felt like a modern-day Sun Tzu battlefield, only there were no armies—just an invisible adversary armed with a stolen credit card. 

So here’s the scoop — Someone, out there in the ether, used a fraudulent card to purchase a $6.00 subscription to my “Chocolate Taoist” Substack. 

And when the rightful cardholder caught wind of this, I was slapped with a $15.00 dispute fee, a punishment handed down with no recourse, no process, no accountability. 

It was an efficient, digital machine of injustice — pay up and move along. A machine that doesn’t stop to ask, “Who really holds the power here?”

This, my friends, is not just about $15.00; it’s about the systemic erasure of the little guy’s voice in a world that worships at the altar of efficiency. Lao Tzu would have seen this coming. “The world is ruled by letting things take their course,” he said. But in this case, “letting things take their course” means letting tech giants run roughshod over our livelihoods while hiding behind screens and automated responses.

Lao Tzu, Sun Tzu, Marcus Aurelius—they each had their moments of struggle, of being on the fringes of the systems they were surrounded by. They found value in standing apart. Lao Tzu would advise us to bend like bamboo, to allow injustice to pass without letting it fracture our inner selves. 

Sun Tzu would see the situation as a strategic loss, advising not to waste resources on a fight that cannot be won, but to prepare for battles where real change can occur. Marcus Aurelius would reflect, “You have power over your mind—not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” Together, they remind us that value lies in standing firm in who we are, even if the world refuses to notice or give a damn.

But is there also value in being an outcast, in shouting into the void? Absolutely. There’s value in stepping up to speak out against systems that wrong us. It’s not just courage to face an unjust charge from Stripe—it’s courage to declare that the world as it stands is unacceptable. 

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “I’d rather die than be afraid.” That courage is what resonates here. It’s not the absence of fear but the mastery of it. Courage isn’t just walking through fire; it’s declaring that the fire itself shouldn’t be there, and stepping into it, knowing the world may never change. But you will.

The world, as it is, offers little in the way of recourse for the average individual caught in a web of corporate indifference. Yard signs and votes are not enough. What the modern world needs—what Stripe and all its Silicon Valley ilk need—is someone to say, “No more.” 

Someone needs to step up and demand justice, accountability, fairness. And that someone, today, is me. The individual might seem powerless, but it’s only when we embrace our outcast status, our marginality, that we gain the clarity to see how crooked the system really is.

As Sun Tzu taught, in the chaos of battle, there’s opportunity. It’s time to harness the chaos of modern digital life to expose its shortcomings and stand tall—not just for me, but for everyone who’s been nickel-and-dimed by a machine that values efficiency over fairness. If we don’t step up, if we don’t have the courage to confront injustice, then who will?

The radical truth is this: the world will not change unless we decide it will. In the words of Dr. King, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Today, it’s Stripe. Tomorrow, it’s something far greater. But there’s always power in speaking up. There’s always value in courage. And there’s always freedom in being the outcast.

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