Maybe I am just tired, but I can't help feel that people aren't really into making this place what it could be at the moment. I am confident that someone will however, though it might not be through Hive - probably, it will be another corporation that will leverage everything that has been learned, take the opensource code and distribute it to the masses, while taking the majority of the value under the guise of community ownership funneled through their distributed gateways that all lead back to the same centralized base.

Move, peon!

Are we going to eternally be peons in this game as if it is the only way the game can be played?

As I have said a thousand times before, this is about ownership of experience, not just here on Hive, but in life in general. Your life and mine are not constrained to this blockchain, nor is the blockchain outside of other aspects of life or economy, it is all intertwined. Our success here impacts our lives everywhere else we live and our failure, leaves the rest of life untouched - more of the same - the status quo.

I have run a small business for about seven years now and while I am far from financially stable, what it does give me is some level of independence, some self-direction and an ability to influence my outcomes, in some way at the least. The amount of work it has taken to earn often less than what I could get doing an average job is insane, so why not take on less work, less responsibility and the higher salary?

Freedom. None of us are or can ever be free, no matter how much money we have - but freedom in the sense that I have a say over my own outcomes is important to me, as is having the ability to work toward what I consider important.

As said, life isn't fragmented across experience, it is all one stream and influences each other and as such, there are compounding effects across all that we do, improvement and degradation. I see that everything we do is connected to everything else we have done and will do, plus it affects the lives of other people, to greater and lesser degrees. I approach Hive carrying the understanding that regardless of what happens here, the development of process and habits that I have engaged in during my time better equips me for other aspects of my off-chain life.

The job I took about a year and a half ago was a position to manage risk of employment through my own business, get into a group of people who I think will come to complement my interests, as well as build some kind of financial opportunity. Financial opportunity means having disposable income that can be used as I see fit and I have used it to add some amount to build a crypto portfolio, get into a house and hopefully, secure for my family a brighter economic future.

I haven't kept this secret and I encourage everyone to build the habits of it. The problem is though, most will not take the risk of the investment, which in this case is actual ownership. Most are perpetual employees, happily earning a wage until they can no longer earn, the economy collapses, the company they work for closes and their life of reliance comes crashing down. Then, they expect to be saved, as every life is entitled to security.

I will tell you a secret that I think everyone should think deeply on. You are entitled to nothing in this world. NOTHING. Yes, you can look at laws and change processes and the algorithms of society to better suit some or another at various points, but life itself comes with zero guarantees - no protection.

"person that gives security"

The meaning of having a guarantee is to be reliant on someone or something else, to tie one's own security to the will of another. But these are just words, nature cares naught for contracts, social or otherwise and big business cares even less, unless there is a dollar to be made or saved - another thing nature has no desire for. Yet, we as humans crave security at the core level and are hard-wired to seek it - even if we only feel secure.

While complete security is an illusion, the closest we can get is through our own development and self-improvement so that we are as non-reliant on others as possible and the skills we have are complementary and necessary for others, so that we have something of value to trade. Nothing is for free, remember?

"Love is free"

Bullshit.

While money is the medium of exchange, that money is earned through the trade of skills that produce goods and services, skills that each of us possess and improve or neglect. If someone isn't willing to invest into building their own skillset that can be traded, why should anyone else invest into them? This is a challenge as like it or not, there are going to be many people who just aren't good enough at what they have the potential to do to compete, no matter how hard they might try.

Not everyone can do what I can do, and I can't do anywhere near what all of you who are reading this can do - we are all limited. But, limited doesn't mean we have no influence, nor does it mean we are useless. However, the world we are creating is going to at least for some time, heavily benefit those who are able to generate and store value and we are moving away from the need for unskilled labor due to automation processes and the changing demand for goods and services - which go hand in hand. We are suckers for ease and convenience, yet don't see what this does to our very own job opportunities.

Working a normal job isn't a bad thing, but the expectation that it is going to generate enough value last through to the end of one's life is likely a poor position. And, the worse the economy gets and the harder it is to get a job, the less likely it is that external groups like governments will be able to adequately support their masses. Even taxes won't be enough - as we can already see in a crisis, as country after country is going to go heavily into debt to make it appear that things are okay - printing money, but not creating owners.

This is the thing that perhaps most people don't understand about living without ownership or being saddled with debt. The jobs we have are largely busy work created to develop products and services that add very little value to our lives other than give us many to spend on goods and services that generate profits for the thinnest sliver of the population. Whenever we create something of value, like @ned, we sell out our ownership and back into the world they own - and think we won.

We keep trading our potential to own something for the experience of buying what is owned by others and is for the most part, highly disposable. They take the profit we provide them and buy what actually has value, land, gold and ideas - which they turn into more profit making enterprises.

Perhaps it is because I am tired that I see the endgame position of Hive and crypto differently to many people in the space, as while I am keen to take some "profits" and benefit my experience in some way, the real value lays in the distributed ownership where people support people and in turn, get supported. However, because nothing comes for free, we each have to think about what we are worth.

There is nothing wrong with being an employee, until you are unemployable. Due to the nature of corporations and their singular mind for profit seeking, if they can get rid of us from their roster - they will. Where will you turn and who will you ask to save you?

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Oh and love is free in the giving - but there is no guarantee of receiving a return. It is no different to anything we do in this world - but the giving is something we can each control.

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Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]