Call to action: Remove your STEEM from centralized exchanges.
If you've followed my philosophical rantings here for almost 4 years (especially as of late), you'll know I'm very interested in increasing human well-being and creating a world we all want to live in. I think violence distorts human decision making and voluntary interactions via share agreement are a much better model for structuring society. As I explore these concepts (and especially lately after reading people like Thomas Campbell), I come to similar conclusions that we might be in a consciousness training simulator as individuated units of consciousness collectively part of the absolute unbounded oneness. Different religions and spiritual brands have different words for saying essentially the same thing.
We're here to learn and grow up. We're here to evolve our consciousness.
It's easy to get freaked out over what Tron and centralized exchanges have done to take centralized control over the Steem blockchain. It's easy to point fingers at others. It's much, much harder to look at ourselves and find the fault within. The Steem community (and most cryptocurrency communities, to be fair) gave their tokens to exchanges so they could maintain liquidity and participate in speculation. They chose this over controlling their own store of value. I've been running the Exchange Transfer report for years to highlight this activity and make it clear.
Centralized, custodial exchanges have too much power in this space.
I've been saying this since 2013 when friends of mine didn't listen to my warnings and lost BTC on MtGox. Have we learned our lesson yet? Byzantine Fault Tolerant systems only work when there are enough sufficiently decentralized actors participating in the governance process. Distributed consensus is obtained when sybil attacks are made economically too expensive and enough people believe the story of the value creation being proposed to protect it by their direct involvement.
This means we have to take personally responsibility if we want to see these systems function correctly.
It also means, if you leave your votable tokens on a centralized exchange, you are giving up personal responsibility and you are directly weakening the security of the network.
Example:
@binance-hot has over 31M staked tokens.
Vote Weight
31,732,006 SP
These will require 13 weeks of power down to become liquid. These are what you believe to be "your" tokens if you have STEEM on Binance (or any centralized exchange, I'm just using this as an example). In reality, they are not your tokens because you do not control the private keys. Binance can (and will) vote with them.
They only have a million liquid STEEM:
31,731,800.885 SP
1,194,314.050 STEEM
3.728 SBD
What will happen if everyone tries to withdraw STEEM funds?
Let's find out.
If you have STEEM on a centralized exchange, withdraw it to your own Steem account. Vote for witnesses that want to protect the chain and keep it decentralized with future improvements to prevent this from happening again. Let's start a movement to take personal responsibility and direct ownership of our store of value. This is what blockchains and cryptocurrency are all about. No central points of failure. No third party counter risk. No rulers telling us how to peacefully co-exist.
I'm on a path to evolve my consciousness and take more personal responsibility. I'm becoming more convinced this is the very reason we exist. I hope you will join me by taking your own path to personal development, self-knowledge, and self-ownership.
If there are fractal patterns in this universe, if the sacred geometry symbolism does actually have significant meaning to our existence, then what we do internally in our hearts and minds can change the external world we see around us. The only thing we can control is how we deal with our own shadows, fears, and avoidance.
It's game time, and we're being asked to level up.
The Steem/Tron/Steemit situation is evolving quickly so if you want to follow along with my thoughts, you can do so on Twitter. I may post summary updates here as time allows.
I see both sides and i error on the side that was taken in action because there was really no good choice. I do think A LOT of the witnesses we had were rude to people, voted for each other (while pointing the finger and down voting others doing the same thing), barely engaging to others and entitled to the position because newbies barely even heard the word witness let alone know what it is and why its important. I for one, am glad some of these people are "out" and i hope they NEVER get back in. I have always respected you Luke and we have met in person before although i'm sure you don't remember. That being said EVERYONE here who is a witness needs to look into the mirror and ask themselves if they are earning every steem they get from being a voted witness. There is MUCH to improve all the way around for everyone....even the little peeons like me who don't really matter to any of the witnesses.....well until they need my vote. Same as in any politics i guess.
What's happening now is much bigger than our personal beefs with one another. I can tell you right now I've clashed with Luke. It's in the past. I'm not going to hold a grudge because we couldn't see eye-to-eye on something and enjoyed a communication breakdown.
I remember a few months back — when I saw you sulking and acting aggressive with members here due to the fact you were being downvoted — I wasn't impressed with you or the entire situation. I spoke up, mentioned how it was becoming difficult for me to work in that setting, with everyone arguing all around me. I think I said something along the lines of, "I'd like to see some professionalism around here." You lashed out at me, laughed in my face with your words, treated me like I was one of them, a thug, a gang member, when the reality was I played no part in that mess and distanced myself from it. Every time I see you around I think of that day. I don't hold a grudge. It's in the past.
It's time to move on. A fresh start. If we manage to get out of this jam, as a team, then these witnesses will have no choice but to finally recognize who's really in charge here (everyone), and hopefully adjust their attitudes accordingly.
I wasent sulking or acting aggressive with anyone.....except Acidyo....and I’m still gonna find him someday am have him call me the names he did to my face. He won’t because he a little loud mouth pussy who hides behind his keyboard. I meant what I said to him and I still mean it. He will get his chance soon. #facts #takeittothebank Now him and all his buddies just upvote each other which it exactly what they wanted to stop. It’s bullshit.
Dude. No need to flex. I didn't come here to argue with you. I can respect that was a difficult time for you and I understand what it's like to become frustrated. I lose my cool as well, and I'm not ashamed of it. I don't have a beef with you and we don't need to be friends either. Pay attention to the other things I said. The current problems we all face here are bigger than us as individuals.
I’m not trying to flex, I just want to set the record straight about “sulking” and “aggressive behavior “ statements you made about me. I have made over 700 videos and anyone who watches me knows I have never made one sulking or aggressive. Now I do talk trash (lots of it) during the football season because it’s the whole point of my channel. It’s in good fun. I contributed lots of ORIGINAL content for this blockchain, I invested lots of money and I did my part to help others get started. I was a circle jerker, I NEVER once said I was not. I had no problem doing it and I still don’t. The people I voted for provided great content here. I almost never voted for any of them anymore in fear of Acidyo, Pharesim,OCD,Curangel and their mob of mindless minion trail voters. I tried to get them to understand my point, reason with them, compromise. They did not give one single inch. They bombarded me with daily downvotes ( but that 4 way circle jerk votes each other’s posts many times) and made me rethink my strategy here to earn Steem. This is far from sulking and aggressive and you know it. So before you want to comment here on my post and lecture me about the bigger picture for all of us, just stick to the REAL NEWS and REAL FACTS and quit embellishing what the truth actually is......Justin Sun.
Now. Don’t have a problem with you, I actually don’t even remember who you are and if I even ever had a conversation with you. It doesn’t matter anyway for either of us. I will say what I got to say, call out people on this chain who are double standard sacks of shit and people who lie to cover their ass. I want what you want pal, believe me! The difference between me and you is, you want to vote to protect the chain at all costs, I will not vote (I have control of 500k in several accts) for the witnesses that I think “ruled” this chain even it if means sacrificing the chain for me and everyone else. I would rather get in Justin’s boat and row then vote for some of “our guys” in the top 20. That’s just me. I don’t expect anyone to for anyone. Your vote matters to me only in that you vote.....and not a proxy vote. People need to care and they need to think for themselves.
I can respect that was a difficult time for you. Maybe sulking was a poor choice of wording. At the time you were bad-tempered out of annoyance or disappointment. Fair enough. I hope those things don't bother you for the rest of your life. Life's too short.
I've seen some of your videos. I think I left you a snarky comment one time. You were grumbling about those NFL refs and I said you guys should hire some CFL refs and that would fix everything. I'm Canadian. More into hockey than football though.
The voting to protect the chain is temporary. I think the community did a great job pulling together and getting shit done. Far better than arguing and doing nothing.
There's no need to defend yourself to me. I'm not judging you. When all of those issues from the past were happening, I took a break. Stepped away for a bit, but that was planned long before there were so many fights happening. I work pretty hard on my stuff as well. You said 700 videos. I know it takes work. I've produced over 1000 digital images, many take a full work day to complete, but not always, and some take longer. Plus I write a lot. Then the comment section. That thing used to light up every day for me so I'd sit and talk with everyone, for hours and hours and hours LOL! It gets tiring but I do enjoy it. I'd be dead if I didn't take a few months to rest every now and again. And for some strange reason, I always come back when there's a new challenge to take on like we have today.
I just had a listen to the conversation Justin had with the witnesses recently. If you're looking for facts, go there.
Didn't read this part earlier, guess that differs you from me. I set aside personal issues with witnesses when push comes to shove, in fact I also set aside other issues when voting for witnesses in general even before this drama because witnesses are there to protect the chain and votes are there to enforce that and not used to cast on whoever you like while sacrificing the whole blockchain.
What the fuck are you talking about? If you're gonna accuse me of that maybe prove it with some statistics like I did when I called you out for vote-trading. As far as I remember all I told you was to fuck off before you went on an insulting and threatening spree and if I called you names after that then you pretty much deserved it. You still seem to be threatening and holding grudges over us attempting to enforce the EIP which if you haven't noticed has made curation much better on the platform.
Anyway, reading your other comments, you're right. You are a nobody here and so am I because Steem is much bigger than us and what Justin Sun is trying to do should not let personal feelings come in between us when we need to band together to save the Steem that we know and have positively impacted in one way/scale or another. The rest is on the others to decide who's done what with it but that's a time for another phase when we have this current cancer that ned created off our platform. I'd appreciate it if you didn't accuse me of votetrading on a select few people when you can clearly see the numbers of how many are posting in the OCD community and how we're trying to trend as many unique authors as possible. That said curation has not been so focused the past couple days after this witness shitshow Steemit is currently causing.
And I’m not dying to be a witness either......
Nobody is asking you to be a witness. What I meant was, a witness can't be a witness without our witness votes. The ones who vote are in charge.
Now, I realize many will say this place is centralized and only Freedom's vote matters but if you actually look at what happened today, you'd see that's no longer the case.
I'm not the best with names or faces, but if you remind me where and when we met and what we discussed I might remember.
That said, it deeply saddens me to think people here are more concerned about some witnesses who downvoted them or were rude to them (maybe, 4 or 5 total, right? Some loud, annoying ones, but just a handful, yeah?) and less concerned that the entire blockchain was most likely running on a single set of servers using all the same outdated price feed controlled by one single individual.
If people don't understand or care about blockchains or what secures them, then maybe they aren't ready for what Steem is trying to be. 20 witnesses controlled by one person who then can completely do anything they want such as nulling your account balance or forking away all your content, etc. This is a really, really big deal. The security of the chain was completely compromised with the help of centralized exchanges but you're saying you're happy about that because the sock puppet witnesses (all controlled by the same person) haven't flagged you or been rude to you.
I'm not trying to be mean, but as someone who has worked hard for years to secure this chain, it's quite disappointing to hear how little people seem to care about decentralization or the work witnesses do to secure their property here.
I appreciate VERY MUCH what witnesses do for us. I know the costs are huge, especially to get started. I understand how important it is. I understand it all man, I am a very smart, educated and research hungry person. I understood BTC at a very high level when it was at 7.00 USD. I’m no computer person Luke but I studied to learn what all the moving parts do on a blockchain. My vote is on you for this reason. I have reasons for every single witness vote and some of them would make no sense to someone else. Every vote I have ever made has been well thought out, scrutinizing, ever changing and competing from day one. I want witnesses to earn the tokens everyday for us. This is the way it should be. I feel we have a few bad ones and they have been moving down the list, it’s just the bell curve of life. Anyway....we meet at Anarchapulco 3 years ago. No worries man, it was just a casual conversation.
Steem is still an Insider's Game.... You are either in or you are out. I would like to see Steem survive, but there are many problems that should be fixed.
Here is an honest question for you from someone who has been on steemit for 2.5 years. Why should I vote for any witnesses that supported the softfork 22.2?? They may have started this entire war! Nobody knows for sure what Justin Sun was planning but now he has to make an example of this or look weak. They literally put him in a corner timeout for no reason and now he needs to do a show of force. It's a classic war move. Read "the art of war"
I explained (to every witness post I saw) that this would happen if they made a pre-emptive strike against a guy with a lot of money and power in the crypto world... But not only did they not listen, only 1 witness actually replied (not in the top 20) and gave me a shit answer basically saying I have no idea what I'm talking about.....
And here we are, exactly where I said we would be... (HuH, I guess I do know a thing or two about business and peoples reactions considering I was a company owner and a person who bought out companies). I know I know, my real life experience somehow doesn't apply to the crypto world right? LoL..
Now you want me to trust these same witnesses who wouldn't even give me the time of day to reply? Because they obviously think they are smarter than everyone else right? Now my choices are literally between bad or worse... Damned if you do, damned if you don't..
I am not writing any of this out of anger or trying to be mean or aggressive, so please don't take it that way. I just don't see any good coming out of any of this so how can I support any witness that supported softfork 22.2? It's an honest question that I would love a REAL answer to..
I honestly feel like both sides are fucking me right now! Both sides did something dirty and now everything is FUCKED! Not cool at all.. I just hope that we steemians, as a community, can push through all of this nonsense.
@moderndayhippie I'm 100% with you man. This is a message that I have been leaving for people.
Helly yeah bro! I completely agree. Glad to know I'm not the only one out here saying the truth.. Let's hope for the best but prepare for the worst for now. Take care friend.
It will be interesting what happens over the next few weeks but I honestly think the best course of action would be for the witnesses to appologize to Justin and admit that it was the wrong course of action to cut him off from his funds before anything had been done to harm the community.
Anything that Justin was going to do would be to promote the platform and improve it. He wouldn't want his investment to go to zero or something.
We will see what happens. Thank you for not being afraid to express your feelings. It has been an unpopular stance to take and like you experienced I have had a lot of witnesses and other not even reply to me on my thoughts.
Yeah, friend, I agree. Unfortunately, I don't know how forgiving Sun would be at this point but I think apologizing is the next best action the witnesses could do to try to come to some sort of compromise and end this war. The problem is that the top witnesses still don't think they have done anything wrong. They are still trying to "win" the blockchain back by more witness votes, no one is interested in trying to work with one another. Until people are ready to compromise this will just be a civil war we are all caught up in. And nothing good ever comes from war, especially civil war because we are only hurting our own people and our own chain :/
It's been nice talkin with someone on the same page tho.. I guess we will just have to watch while this all unfolds and see what happens.. Until then enjoy this !BEER my friend :0)
I agree with everything you are saying. Justin was put in a tough place but in some ways I feel like the news articles have at least sort of shown a neutral side to what is happening but they need some quotes from guys like us.
Thanks for asking this and for the points you've made. It reminds me of a "self-fulfilling prophecy" and I illustrate that with the example of people and snakes in my latest post.
Often, people have an irrational fear of snakes and claim that they are agressive and dangerous. Rather than leaving them alove, they attack them and get bit when the snake defends itself. Then they sit back and say, "See, I told you it was dangerous...."
Now the world will never know what Justin Sun would have done if left unprovoked.....
Are you sure the world will never know? We can't use actions like this as a pretty clear signal for what he's most likely to do absent any direct communication with him? Our actions were temporary to get communication going. It was done based on historical actions like what Justin already did within the Tron community, voting with tokens that previously were not to be voted with. That's not a decentralized governance system. Some would argue it's not even a blockchain.
@lukestokes If you bought a Lambo and a crack baby was trying to steal it would you try to stop him?
Can you really blame Justin for trying to actually have control over the account and funds that he just purchased?
What if the witnesses decided that they don't like what you have to say and locked your account and your funds?
Out of principle I'm just questioning what Justin did from the start besides try to bring Steemit.com back into the conversation? This place hasn't exactly been healthy and has been slipping down CoinMarketCap for a long time.
I can see both sides of the argument but the Witnesses really drew first blood by holding what Justin just bought hostage.
What if a bank held your funds hostage? How would you feel @lukestokes
I think he should have had a conversation like we intended instead of running the whole chain on sock puppets controlled by what looks like one person. That's not a blockchain. That calls into question the entire security model of DPoS (which includes Tron). I didn't see the temporary action is drawing blood, but I can respect that perspective. Justin himself didn't seem too upset based on his first open letter post. I think if the Steem consensus witnesses tried to prevent my funds from voting or being transferrable without a good reason, they would get voted out and people would lose faith in Steem as a blockchain. As to the action taken for this specific stake, there were reasons for them I already explained here. When one witness (Tim) disagreed, they got voted out by the community. Is that not DPoS consensus?
Banks hold funds hostage all the time. That's why I prefer blockchains. I also prefer code-based agreements over social contracts. That's what the ability to removing voting rights feature added in HF14 is about. I do believe this stake is Justin's property. I also think it had expectations set by the owner that are transferrable and need to be clarified by the new owner. Based on those clarifications, the community will go their separate way or stick around.
Honestly, you can't point to a previous action as evidence for a future action. I've ripped off drug dealers before... yet I'll not be doing that again... I've been incredibly unfaithful in relationships before... yet I'll not be doing that again.
Since the move by the witnesses forever prevented us from knowing what would actually have happened, then yes, I am "sure the world will never know" - That's how missed opportunities go.
Thank you @papa-pepper That is a very good analogy. Probably better than my analogy of a crack baby trying to steal a lambo from a Witness. LOL
How about this perspective (no analogy needed):
If you spent almost 4 years of your life building content on a blockchain you believed would live on forever and someone comes along, buys up stake which has previously been promised would never be used to centralize the network, buys up the main interface, buys up the company behind the development (without their say in the matter), and tells everyone your content, your tokens, your apps, and everything will migrate to a new chain you have nothing to do with and you have no say in the matter at all... wouldn't you ask those you democratically elected to prevent this and protect your property?
I've been here since July 2016 and lived through all the empty promises and price implosions.
Whether Justin was to buy up Steemit INCs stake or slowly buy everyone's funds who are dumping STEEM on exchanges overtime he still had the money to influence the Witness votes.
And what is the difference of STEEM being its own chain or being a TRX token? They are both DPoS with 3 second block times and TRX has smart contract capability. Even Steem-Engine tokens could have likely been migrated to work with the TRON smart contracts......etc.
Justin had done nothing yet and you guys locked him out of something he paid tens of Millions of dollars for.
Did you not think he was going to play defense to your offensive attack?
The mass majority of the community was likely to gain in value from the Partnership / Acquisition. Even your own stake would have likely appreciated.
What the whole thing came down to was you were going to lose partial control and a cash cow that has been a huge cash cow for a very small part of the community that has primarily been selected by @freedom and a few other key parties ....etc.
You guys have masked this war as "Decentralization" blah blah blah.
Most wars come down to power and money. Why were we in Iraq? It wasn't weapons of mass destruction. Mainly control and money
All that being said I do see part of both sides because people have put in a lot of work here and maybe initially had good intentions in some respects even if it wasn't helping the community or the price. But you can't peg Justin as a total villain in this situation. I don't agree with everything he has done overtime but if you are in his shoes are you just going to sit back and let other people lock you out of your investment you just purchased?
It's sad you think this was all about money on the side of the witnesses. I've seen witnesses go with little sleep for weeks since this all started, many of them nearly unpaid backups working to protect the chain from the centralized take over we experienced and you seem to gloss over all that. Please, focus on how DPoS actually works and how serious it is that one person was able to take over the chain, in spite of efforts to protect against that very thing.
I mean yeah it is a serious thing when one person has the money and power to make a power move like that but I just don't see how that is so much different than any other chain. If someone spent enough money even on a POW chain they could take it in a direction they wanted to and if they had enough friends running exchanges .....etc then the same would occur essentially.
Until we have more decentralized means of exchange like a good way to do Atomic Swaps or something then the weak points will always be at the exchanges.
STEEM has been an interesting experiment though and the premise of the SBD could have alleviated the need for the exchanges if it could have reached critical mass and continued to grow as an ecosystem.
I don't know what is going to happen but I'm personally surprised that more Witnesses haven't came to the conclusion that no one can really expect Justin to not launch a counter offensive if he just spent Millions and then suddenly all these people with less influence than him in the crypto world who have less stake in the game are trying to cut him off from the multi million dollar investment he just made.
I just wasn't the right way to go about it.
It is like throwing someone in jail because they might drink and drive when they were no where near a car or showing any intention of driving.
Also to add to that. You are acting like your time and money is more important that Justin's time and money.
If money is a partial reflection of store time / energy then Justin has ultimately invested more than most if not all the witnesses.
Also @lukestokes I know you aren't a bad guy and there are a lot of good witnesses that have good intentions. I know I play devils advocate / Internet troll sometimes but I would still shake your hand at an EOS event and have a peaceful debate. Just differences of opinion that is all. Don't take it personal.
Hopefully the STEEM blockchain can figure out a way through this without pointing too many fingers and vilifying each other too much.
Pretty crazy what is going on overall though. Uncharted territory for sure.
You make it personal when you make accusations like this and presume my intentions or lack of integrity.
Sorry, but no. If you are an asshole ("troll" if you prefer) on chain but nice in person, I'll still hold you accountable for the many personal things you said to me and about me. If you don't want it to be personal, don't make it personal.
Honestly @lukestokes you might be a little more amped up now because of the stress of this and you have more time invested in this in the last month and more money invested here as well.
This whole thing is more of a sideshow for me at this point because after I didn't get my proposal funded when the SPS launched that was sort of the point where I took my funds out for the most part and moved them to other chains. I gave it a solid 3 years of thugging it out here and at that point I had to see the writing on the wall.
EOS despite its issues, I have been stacking since mid 2017 and I have never sold. I just keep stacking more and more and more even when others have had doubts.
Hahhah. @lukestokes Man I know you are stressed out but when it boils down to it I'm apologizing online and I will apologize in person. It's not that big of a deal.
The thing about losing partial control and a cash cow. I don't see how that isn't true and it isn't meant to be mean. It is just stating a fact in my opinion.
Plus I have always said I know you aren't a scammer and you mean well. The main disagreement I have always had about your stance is that Witnesses only need to process transactions.....etc. And I always took a stance that there were other more deserving Witnesses that were doing that and providing a ton of other value like @partiko and there are a lot of other examples that fell out of the loop and left.
That was the main thing. Well and the whole thing about Ad revenue. I had said this place needed Ad Revenue long before the price imploded to create a feedback loop and give bloggers an additional revenue stream instead of just trying to rely on price speculation.
But all those disagreements are not really a big deal. It is just a difference of opinion.
That have been points where I have been really frustrated with this place but now I just don't have as much of an investment so I'm just sort of watching what happens and chiming in some.
"What will happen if everyone tries to withdraw STEEM funds?"
-> Withdraw temporarily unavailable
I already withdraw all my ETH, BCH and other coin in Binance and dump those BNB shitcoin...
Pulled 1800 off Bittrex last night, no issue with Bittrex, transferred within 6 seconds.
Don't drink Tom's kool-aid buddy:) We know practically nothing about consciousness and to say it's evolving is stupidly dishonest. Evolution is a biological survival mechanism called natural selection. Nothing more in my opinion. To say that the universe was evolving prior to the onset of biological life systems is even problematic.
I get that simulation is interesting but I don't see the justification for taking ot too literally as a metaphysics.
Crypto? There is an absurd contradiction built into it right from the getgo because those who arbitrarily get to create money gain all the power from being able to do so...
BTW: to transfer the biological selection process of species survival onto human economics will prove to be one of the dumbest things humanity has ever done and this error will likely destroy us all...Ironic reversal.
Would you describe memes as going through an evolutionary process? Richard Dawkins seemed to think so, right?
Well, Dawkins would likely chuckle at Tom's new religious grand narrative. Do cultures, economics, and political ideas change and develop over time? Yes! Are they linear in a grand Hegelian sense? Absolutely not! Natural selection attempts to allow species a place to survive in equilibrium within confined eco-niches. It doesn't colonize the whole earth via economic predation. That is not natural selection but something else entirely.
And there is nothing at all to suggest that the consciousness of a five-year-old is any different today than it was 5000-years ago. The inputs and outputs though are now embedded within technology advancement.
More on crypto: if I could sit in an office and code money into existence I'd talk about decentralization all day long, too...The only difference between me and the 1% here is that I'd be honest enough to say I was full of shit if anyone asked about my intentions sincerely.
On Sun (the demiurge) : you guys were not willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that he might make things better than the morons who created this site. Now, maybe you were right in that regard but from my perch, you were also woefully lacking in your assessment of the owners of this site.
Having said that, you are one of the better actors in the top of the pyramid here and that isn't snark:)
Have you read his My Big TOE series? I listened to it twice and find his arguments compelling. "Evolution" of consciousness is clearly not exactly analogous to physical matter evolution, but the similarities are strong enough to make it useful within the framework he outlines, IMO. When I look into things like the quantum entangled delayed double split experiment, I have to step back from hard materialistic determinism (though I am a fan) and consider other possible explanations.
I'm familiar with his oeuvre and find it an attempt at exploring metaphysical ideas that he then wrongfully turns into a grand religious narrative.
Read Wilber's Quantum Questions if you haven't already and no quantum physicist who understands it well ( I certainly don"t ) don't subscribe to grand religious narratives about it.
Musing playfully on ideas is certainly something I'm in total favor of but Tom crossed the line into religion and that is simply not justified.
I listened to his book twice, and it's not religion.
You might not be aware of the online cult following that is now springing up around his theories.
I have nothing to do with an online cult following or with religion.
I didn't think you did for one minute. But what I said about what's developing around Tom's theories is happening. That might not be his fault.
The same thing happened with Wilber's TOE in that it became cultishly religious...
Please understand that I'm not being antagonistic to you...I hope it doesn't come across that way. I like some of Tom's ideas. But it doesn't go much further than that for me.
Please keep in mind that I'm an old geezer luddite, too. So my perspective on things might be different than yours.
here here!
Let's hope we learn to evolve
Hi @lukestokes I translated your message into Spansih here!. Hope it helps to spread the word!
Hey Luke,
Firstly, I hope you're well amidst the drama. I also hope it isn't too long until we meet in person again.
So much I could say around the whole affair but I'll stick to the key theme of your post. While I agree 100% that people should take personal responsibility of their tokens, a blockchain cannot be architected on this premise.
A DPoS blockchain should assume that people won't take personal responsibility for their tokens (and won't vote) unless incentivized to do so. As crude as the Steem hyperinflation was, it was at least an attempt to incentivize users to hold Steem in their own wallets (somewhat).
I'm certainly not suggesting hyperinflation is the answer, however, if the concern is with the concentration of tokens (and by proxy influence/ voting power) in Exchanges/ third party intermediaries, then solutions must be sought within the game theory of the protocol.
Else the assumption needs to be that centralized Exchanges will be large stakeholders (and key influencers) in any DPoS eco-system.
The Steem status quo, where there is this weird reliance on the benevolence of the largest stakeholders (whether the stake was obtained by ninja-mine or custodianship or bought OTC), is fundamentality flawed. As we know, DPoS is designed for the largest stakeholders to have the largest influence.
If anything, a DPoS system should incentivize active engagement (and vote participation) from its large (long term) stakeholders and their interests should be aligned with the Witness and wider community. Particularly if those stakeholders are Exchanges.
Steem should want as many of these Exchanges invested in Steem's success as possible. As we know Exchanges will play a key role in facilitating greater liquidity and adoption... at least until we get to the point where Decentralized Exchanges become the norm.
TLDR; if we want to mitigate against Exchange influence it must be done via incentives and protocol game theory rather than hoping for a change in people's outlook on life. Otherwise, Exchanges, as large token holders/ custodians should be incentivized to actively participate in voting to ensure their interests are aligned with the Witnesses/ larger community.
Nanzo
Why would anyone have Steem on an Exchange ??? Especially a Whale ?
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