I've thought about posting this a lot, then reconsidered only to re-reconsider again. I've decided to finally just write this up and let it sit so those who read it can have a chance at weighing in with your own opinions and ideas as I am very curious to hear them.
The Blockchain is wonderful but people are fickle
Look at our history as a species and it's very easy to see what happens when power is centralized. It often results in some shitty things for the majority while the minority is kept elevated above the degeneration.
Social media has given us a portal into information exchange which the world has never seen prior to it and look at what we've chosen to do with it... memes, bullshit propaganda, brainwashing in the form of advertisements and behavioral manipulation. None of these are good things though some might argue on whether or not they're bad. I suppose that depends on which side you're on at any given moment... which brings me to the point of this article you're reading right now- sides.
Which side are you on?
The answer to this is simplistic at it's core. You are on your side, that's it. We all do things which are motivated by the self. It doesn't matter if you donate every last cent you had to some charity because you did it to fulfill some desire that was within you to go out and do that; every unselfish act is anchored to selfishness at the core.
So again I ask you... which side are you on? What influences your core and which direction will your intentions lean with regard to steemit. Chances are if you're a whale you're going to be influenced by the expansion of steemit and thus the growth of your own digital empire & riches.
If you are not a whale then you will probably fall into one of three camps:
- Those who have ambitions of becoming whales.
- Those who wish to use steemit for the sake of it being a new & interesting thing, whales be damned.
- Those who just really don't care either way, are curious and as soon as the curiosity dies you fade away.
The second and third group are very closely tied together as the majority with a general interest whom have no real ambitions of gaining influence will eventually become consumed with "real life" and wonder off to do other more productive things with their time. Let's face facts as they seem to be right now...
The steemit community is growing rapidly and as this happens more people will fall into various groups and at the end of the day the biggest group wins because it doesn't matter if there's no centralized power, the determining collective will always outweigh those who are not a part of the majority.
That begs the question then; who is the majority?
Is it the whales?
I think so... yes. Even though they are small in number their influence is BIG thus making them count as the majority. So then the question arises; "which direction will the minority follow and why?"
This is where things get weird
Taking into account everything which was just said above, I think the blockchain and everything which rests on it such as steemit and all future endeavors will rely on a fundamental shift in human consciousness. The way we think and weigh our options are founded on the "old model" or the old system of rewards. We don't yet know how to conduct ourselves based on this new model which has been proposed by steemit or the blockchain in general. This is a problem if it's not changed in my opinion.
Take a look around and you can see the old system in play.
We still have people attempting to police others based on personal opinion, and while that's fine to a degree some take it too far by performing actions which wind up hurting both parties in the longrun. Flagging posts which you "feel" have improper use of tags, the use of language or images you don't agree with yet these same things not necessarily falling in the realm of taboo or illegal- the list goes on but you get the point.
It's really genius when you think about it... it truly is.
What am I talking about?
The old system and why YOU need to break it
This is going to get a little philosophical, more so than it has been already.
Your entire life you've probably been programed to think and in turn act a certain way. Go to school, get a job, be a good little worker-drone then go home and sleep so you can wake up to do it all over again. This kind of mentality is what's beaten into our brains from childhood and it's all most of us will ever know.
How many of us have heard of someone breaking out of the 9 to 5, doing their own thing and making a great living for themselves? I'm sure you have a family member, a friend, some co-worker who knows someone... somebody!
What allows those people to get ahead of the crowd while the rest of those around them are stuck in the mud? It' the way you think, it's your beliefs and your ethics.
I think that steemit is either going to thrive to glorious heights or it's going to crash and burn miserably in the not so distant future- and it won't even be the system's fault, it'll be the people's.
Time after time I've seen it happen on numerous occasions. Something tremendous is created and then people come along and fuck it up with their fear and stupidity.
This is what I mean when I say it's up to YOU to break the old chain and the old ways and adopt the new chain, the blockchain. Unless we as people can overcome the old programing and beat-out those oldschool "values" which have been instilled in us since we've barely been able to talk we won't see success but instead just another failure.
Maybe I'm wrong
And I hope I am...
But nothing is ever "too big to fail" and that is evident time and time again. Empires have risen to great power only to collapse from within. It is the people who make up that power as a collective who will build something up.
It is also those same people who will tear it right back down.
Don't fuck up people- unlearn all those limiting, fear-inducing beliefs. The future of your's and everybody else's steemit ambitions depends on it. These are just my thoughts right now anyway and I expect them to shift and mold as steemit matures.
great post, and the thing that will force people to change very much is how much transparency the blockchain provides, honesty is the path to true freedom, and the more time a person spends on the steemit web site is the more they stop telling lies
I think I agree with you on this point you've made. It'll be interesting to see what happens... will steemit force people as a collective to fundamentally change or not? I'm excited to find out.
Thanks for stopping by craig, I appreciate you taking the time.
Your observation about honesty is a bullseye.
I write about how there exists only one law,
but honesty is the other subject that keeps me awake at night.
Honesty is orthogonal to the entire universe of the One Law
simply because law cannot address intention.
Honesty is information defined only in the context of intention.
Information without intention is neither honest nor dishonest.
If we could quantify intention ("Minority Report", yuck !) it would inspire a new era in a governance and marketing.
This was a great post with many interesting points, I feel the opinion you have is rather fair, and many of what you have said could be true. Good Content ;)
Thank you for taking the time to read it, I know it's not super short and I appreciate your reply.
You said
and that almost sums up my perception of the entire universe.
Reddit and all the other media have devolved into insult arenas,
censorship rules the day but as I understood it
Steemit has a more user-driven (self-?)censorship model - but still heavily centralized.
The question you ask about who we are misses this point,
so I just mention in passing there are probably quite few of us who are here
to get off the reddit/facebook/twitter machines
until a fully decentralized global forum arrives.
An evolutionary migration, perhaps.
Nice piece of writing - keep going.
(I am mostly not an anarchist,
but it is a close a match as I can find to TheOneLaw)
P.S. - I have an old video I made about your comment:
After reading both of your replies I realize I could have said a few things in my post a little better.
I think that people as a collective have this strange behavior which manifests it's self during times of distress, let me share a story with you to illustrate a point I think I was trying to make.
A while back I was introduced to the Rev-Share Scene... If you're unfamiliar it's basically an industry of calculated ponzi schemes with a bit of "advertising" thrown in to make it legal.
Anyhow... I joined up with a bunch of groups to numerous Rev-Share sites and just sort of sat back and watched what happened, it was interesting to see how rapidly things eroded from the inside when any tiny hint of change or potential negative outcome was found.
Each and every single site collapsed from within due solely to it's members lack of ability to keep composure and work together to build the platform and recruit more members. All I saw was "where's my payment?" or "how come this is happening, what should I tell my down-line, they won't trust me?" and so on...
The entire time the group's members were tearing the place apart out of fear and confusion the administrators and owners were making every attempt at damage control but to no avail. Eventually the thing collapsed and a lot of people were left burnt and out of cash. This happened over and over again like clockwork and it made me realize something important.
Anytime incentive is involved you almost can't rely on a collective to govern it's self because the illusion of order falls apart and collapse becomes eminent. I can see something like that happening with steemit once it grows large enough because that was another detail... this collapse and outbreak only happened once a group reached a certain size.
Now of course this is all speculation and I hope that it WONT happen this way. Chances are that the checks & balances in place were put there to prevent such things but time will tell if it all actually works. I hope it does. But that said, we as people need to have a fundamental shift in the way we think for such an open arena to be truly beneficial to us all as a collective. People tend to act like crabs in a barrel sometimes and that simply won't fly around here if those involved want to flourish.
Thanks for taking the time to read my post and respond, I truly do value everyone's input- it's an opportunity for me to learn more and expand my own perspective so thank you for engaging in the conversation.
Now that is an excellent description.
That there exists a human collective self-destruct mode is not something we often consider.
In engineering we examine material and system failure modes.
The same is not as known for collectives as much as it is for hierarchic organizations.
This bears consideration by those who design collective organizations.
Very eloquently put.. and I totally agree with you.
Why does blockchain and anarchy come in a pack. This seems really quick to assume. Thanks for the content though Good luck
In my own view.. and I stress this is just how I see it right now, I know my mind will change and my views will evolve in the future, but the way I see it the blockchain represents anarchy and not in a negative sense. This is strictly in the sense of no centralized government, the people rule themselves type of thing. Because steemit is built on the blockchain tech it's open for all which leads the idea that we all govern ourselves and my question is what will come of that? I don't think much good unless we as a collective experience a paradigm shift. I believe this great thing we have right now will inevitably collapse under the weight of ignorance and self interest unless people wake up and start "acting right" so to speak. But that can't happen until we / they learn better.
I don't know what you mean by that but it's pretty funny lol!