When kings rule the land and their subjects are busy sucking their teats, both king and subject lose their night vision.
Image Source: Patricia Piccinini's Skywhale hot air balloon [I'll be sending the artist 10% of this post's SBD earnings and also sending her this link]
Let's break this down using this known fact about human nature: attachment based on personal gain has destroyed more kingdoms, corporations, people than we can even count.
How do I know such a thing?
I have experienced this feeling of attachment to money many times in my life, and yes, quite recently. If I experience it, there's a good chance that many others do, too. If not directly, then there are many who wish they could experience this attachment to money. The ones who wish they had it believe in the false idea that having it will solve all their problems. It won't. It will solve a few issues, but not all.
I realize I could lose all my money at any moment. What I cannot afford to lose is my integrity.
Money can be replaced, integrity cannot.
I have lost fortunes and gained them before, so anything is possible. I know how to live as a poor person as I've been doing that for much of the last 10 years. It does not scare me. It would suck, because I'd probably have to work for some assholes again, but other than that, I would still do exactly what I'm doing already: writing, learning, coming up with ideas to benefit people, social media and creating stuff. My time doing it would be greatly diminished. But that is all. I live the same way as I did when I had nothing.
I know that anything is capable of completely imploding at any time.
Steemit is no exception. I believe that it will succeed, because the technology on which it is built is groundbreaking, but the word, 'believe' was used, so I have no factual evidence that it will succeed. The main flaw in its construction and ongoing development, however, lies in the fact that Vulcanesque individuals who represent less than 1% of the population are constructing it and making the decisions without thinking through how the rest of the population will react.
I hope it does succeed, for obvious reasons, as I have invested approximately 864 hours of my life into it. And Steemit has rewarded me handsomely for my time and endeavors. I have every reason to continue supporting it.
But I am not a puppet, nor can I ever be bought off. I will not sacrifice critical thinking skills in exchange for money.
And no, I don't have any other cash cow, other investments or anyone supporting me. I am completely on my own. We are all on our own. It is an illusion you've bought if you believe you are not. The only thing we can know for sure is that things will change.
For the record, I never invested one dollar of my own money into Steemit.
I wasn't a miner, developer or any other crypto insider. But I learned all about Bitcoin when it first came out and shared this knowledge on social media back around 2011. I learned about mining and was fascinated but I never got involved. I also knew about Second Life, and its digital currency and I think I joined Second Life, but never became active. I loved the idea of virtual goods having an actual real monetary value.
I came into Steemit as a user, just like everyone else, with zero Steem Power, zero money, zero friends and zero goals. I have never had a real desire to become a witness or miner (due to the fact that I already spend too much time on the computer and it is a goal of mine to reduce the time I spend on computers, not increase it.) So, ultimately, I still have a user's perspective, not a whale's or early investor's perspective. I am not attached in the same way they are.
Because I am an independent creator who cannot be bought off, I will continue to write in any manner that is honest about the issues I care deeply about.
If the whale teat dries up, then so be it. But I'm not going to censor my mind and I would advise you not to censor yours in favor of whale votes. A mentally censoring environment is detrimental to growth and will suck the oxygen out of an environment faster than you can say "Nama mugi nama go nama tamago."
I'm not going to censor my thoughts and cave into the minute-by-minute trending pages to figure out what the whales are voting for. I've gotten quite a bit of heat with my last post from early investors, whales, etc., and this indicates that their night vision has gone out the window. Critical thinking skills are at an all time low which is never a good thing. But everyone has a right to their opinion, and I am no different.
I would add also that I give absolutely no financial advice whatsoever. I only invest time and energy into projects, not real money.
Other lame news....
It appears that a new flagging ninja group have attached to me after yesterday, and my highly articulate article (that first appeared on the website, Interesting Engineering) has attracted losers flagging my Nikola Tesla content (which is absurd considering the entire article is about the world's most amazing inventor). It's to be expected that people do not use their creative energies in a way that could truly benefit them.
In a nutshell, when we become whale shills, we censor our most creative energies, dilute their strength and churn out mediocre shit that no one wants to read.
I've heard comments recently, "I like your stuff, but 90% of the crap on Steemit is worthless." Some solutions are being implemented but I still would like to 'VOTE LIKE A WHALE" on some occasions. Is it possible to transfer Steem Power to certain authors' posts? What are the reasons we cannot push a button and give the author our SP and have that show up? I am not in favor of burning SBD. I don't like the feeling of doing that because the author is not the recipient of the transaction, the shareholders are. That seems like a misguided attempt to solve the problem. If the author was the recipient, I would feel differently.
I realize that perhaps this stage of Steemit's development is rough, and perhaps it will improve with hard work, but I want to insist that everyone become vigilant in their tendency to write popular fluff in place of posts that they feel passionate about. If we cannot be truly honest when we write our posts, then no one will grow and we'll be left to contend with the shriveled remains of our weak egos as we pack our bags for the next platform. NOT GOOD!
I understand EXACTLY how you feel. I'm a newish user, here just under a month. In that time I have been overwhelmed by the opportunity to solve my financial issues. As I've journeyed along I've discovered:
What you said resonated with me. I KNOW how to struggle. It's fine I can go on, I am just going to enjoy myself and see how far it goes.
I would like to see less boring content though. I come across some awesome stuff on the "new" page, and always go there when I have time. (Hahahaha, juggling my job, and steemit what is THAT?!)
Peace
Hi @stellabelle, one random thought that I've had lately with regards to the issues you brought up concerning privacy: One thing that a lot of people seem to do lately is to discount Steem because of issues they disagree with about Steemit. I would just make a humble request to not throw out the baby with the bathwater! Steemit is just an app built on the Steem network. The network itself allows for rapid consensus of pretty much arbitrary data. If people want a purely private, encrypted social media platform built on the Steem network, that is actually possible. True, it would take some creativity to implement correctly, and it might be easier to build from the ground up (like Synereo) but it is possible to build such a platform on the Steem network. Just thought I would mention that. Steem is greater than just the Steemit web app. It is like a blank canvas for creative programmers to work with, who knows what can emerge. :)
Yes, I realize that. I also had run out of patience since I am the one primarily the one who has been dealing with a few women who are being constantly harassed. I had been emailing about this for months, many users have written posts about it so have I, and yet nothing happened, not even a blurb about it. People who are not being actively victimized, harassed and threatened will never understand this stuff. My quality of life was being invaded. It was ugly. The reason you don't hear about it is that several women after being victimized, have left Steemit and are also broadcasting that this is not a safe place for women. After i relayed the fact that i was publicly doxxed TWICE by some nutjob, and that Steemit had no way for me to disconnect from this person, my acquaintances (who happen to be police officers) inquired further into what is going on here. The transparent nature of the blockchain is helpful, in that if any investigation were to take place, then all the evidence would be collected. I like that aspect. But I don't like the lack of control over user's privacy. A block feature could be implemented, or let the users decide who their content is visible to. Privacy and safety is completely ignored in this environment.
The dam needed to break because it appears that people were not taking me seriously. I was being too nice.
Yeah, I know that Steemit is just one branch of Steem. Maybe I'll be interested in creating a new one, but the amount of work that takes is well, a bit overwhelming. Why not make Steemit great, one that no one can touch? Recreating the wheel..............could you start one from scratch? This one already has a user base a fully-functioning ecosystem.
If it is built on top of the steem blockchain then it can be different but still tap into the same ecosystem. Steem Power, Steem Dollars, etc should all move with you to any app using the blockchain.
You could start from scratch, or you could do one of the following:
It also doesn't have to be @kaptainkrayola. I happen to know him and happen to know he is building most of his code himself and also working with @fabian with regards to some jsnode things. I do not believe he is using piston, or steemit.com code at this point.
As to privacy... that really depends on HOW private. Being able to see the wallets and transaction information is critical to stopping cronyism and corruption. Anyone can follow the paper trail. If by privacy you mean it is exposing information that should be private that then can be used to doxx you then yes the is potentially a big issue.
As to women... yes women are more often targets for such actions, yet it is happening to other people.
I have @feminism trolling me just like he does you and @beanz.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I think you are right about integrity and you should not feel the need to censor yourself or your opinions. I think most of the people on here would expect nothing less.
I think there is a bit of a cheerleader mentality which happens around any system, organisation or platform that people feel passionate about. That said I don't understand why people would start flagging your Tesla post. That makes no sense. Did they give a reason?
The "vote like a whale" feature would be awesome. I've been testing out the promotion feature and whilst I'm not as bothered by burning SBD (I'm used to the concept from other cryptos) - I would still prefer the vote "supercharging" option. That way the money would go to the author whom I was trying to support.
I think this would be a real killer feature that would really help address inequality - along with the proposed vote delegation feature.
Hopefully these things can be added in soon.
All the best:)
i agree with your assessment that the supercharging feature could be a killer feature. Dan said something about it being a bad idea because of sock puppets. What are your thoughts on that?
I'm not sure what he means by that. Yes people could make fake accounts to promote a post but they still have to pay so I don't see the problem - there would be no point in making hundreds of accounts and using them because you would need to have the money. As I see it, the potential downsides are minimal.
I think if steemit is to continue successfully in the future they need to equalize voting in some way. Maybe supercharging is the way. If minnows feel they won't be rewarded for good content unless a whale votes them up, they won't stay very long and contribute to the community imo.
This is another reason I was an advocate for an up votes only platform. The only thing I think should be flaggable is plagiarism, spam, and abusive posts.
That's what's so attractive about you and your writing, it's raw and uncensored. I appreciate that, and I'm sure a lot of people do. Keep doing what you're doing! <3
WTF? Why,why would anyone flag that...... :O
But thankfully they are just "dust" accounts, no SP or Rank whatsoever, they can't hurt your rep, but still....
On point.
Stella keep being true and continue to do as you did before, big support!
No one can hurt @stellabelle's rep. She is the highest rep account. Higher even than the founders. :)
That's quite the balloon. I agree with you that molding your writing to what you think the whales are going to like is short term thinking. I personally hope that as time goes on there will be more and a greater variety of whales, so that no matter what your interests there will be a whale to upvote your content.
BTW, it is always great to bump into other women in crypto. I've been involved since 2013. Unlike you I've actually tried mining. Fun but on the expensive side...
On a side note... What does a whale's teet taste like?! I'd like to experience it just once... ;)
no idea!
Nice post! Haters are gonna hate I guess...
I feel exactly the same way, I tried to write about it last night, but you expressed it better! Nicely done.
@stellabelle If I could up vote this twice I would have, once for the content and once for the fantastic images. Keep on keeping on doing what you're doing :)
thanks, i do appreciate every comment and upvote I receive.
Do it for the art. ...& not the art club.
(I prefer blowholes. I'm not even sure what that means...?)
Good Job.
Of course upvoted again and great article!
Sweetie, please step back and see the broad view. They are showing themselves to have a vile dark image, you can't help but see it. Look at how they have become a HATE group.
Seriously, who on Steemit hasn't read and come to know your work, and aspire to write more like you. You are the poster child.
Please understand what it is for all of us to watch this, and know we are all watching it.
This is a dip in the road for you. You have been very clever and forward thinking here. Take a breath and come back with another new idea.
it's supposed to be funny too.......at least it was humorous to me.....I guess everyone has gotten serious! Being too nice is boring. It makes one lose one's edge.
I totally took it at face value. I was really worried about you. You got me. Thank goodness. Now I'm laughing at myself. It's one of my favorite pastimes!
I have read your recent posts and completely get your concerns. You have been eloquent and bold at the same time which I find inspiring.
I am sure that, despite the issues you mentioned, the majority of people on Steemit admire and highly value your consistently high quality contributions.
I am sure that great innovations are on their way to the Steem ecosystem that will address your concerns. If that does not happen it will be because the community here failed to see and take advantage of their first mover position.
This would also open the door for another initiative to get it right and gain market dominance.
In either case you win by the fact that you have built a reputation and skills which will be in demand any place you decide to go.
In short, you have much to look forward to with little downside.
Have a great week...I look forward to more from you.
I see a lot of accusations aimed at the whales, and I often think, "Why so mad? Why so accusatory and judgemental?" Maybe that's not where you're coming from, but it reminded me of so many other posts I've seen. Sure, everyone has a right to their opinion and should voice it confidently based on reason and evidence. What I don't get is the amount of frustration directed at the very people who made this system possible. I've disagreed often with many whales, and I've always tried to do it in a respectful, reasonable manner (same with anyone). I don't presume to know what they have or have not thought through, and when I state my opinion, I'll try to make clear it is actually just my opinion.
You have a great following here, Stellabelle. You've built a platform and an audience through your passion and hard work. It's yours to do with as you please. I hope for everyone's benefit you won't silence yourself or be someone you're not, and I hope you'll stay clear of unnecessary negative drama or accusations. Maybe that's just my preferred style, but I think a non-violent communication approach helps the entire community. Thanks for letting me voice my opinion on your wall.
Good post Stella.
You're integrity can easily be fixed in my eyes.
I hope we can eventually go back to talking as allies again. I feel pretty shit after all the smoke and dust settles and I'll do no further attempt to sensationalize what I may not agree with 100%.
Godspeed Stella. <3
( ͡° ͜◯ ͡°) ＣＬＯＷＮ ＦＩＥＳＴＡ ( ͡° ͜◯ ͡°)
Hi! thank you for your posts! Not sure you read my message, but you are one of my favorite writers in this social network! I sincerely admire you! I wish you good luck!
Steem power is supposed to be cold money. That is to say a committed amount attached to some user. The ability to transfer it would make it like other cryptocurrencies. These are subject to manipulation of price for short term gains by those that manipulate the market at the expense of others. The idea is people voting should have a kind of longer term interest in the Steem platform and currencies. That is why SP is never transferable.
Dear @stellabelle. Sorry for using that "dear" but I'm using it because I can feel with you and I want to share some of my thoughts because I think they may help and not for $.
First I wanna congratulate you for this post, it's brave and honest and that is what I respect with the whole of my being.
Second, I think you hold some grudges that are not right and you must accept more of others opinions. I can't point to them but for reading your content but I can just feel them. Everyone is free to have his or her own opinions even if they are wrong.
The third is a thought I came up yesterday when I couldn't fall asleep but it was a big revelation for me. Money is nothing don't worry about it. Money is just thing people accumulate to push their will on others and feel easier with their crappy existence. It's worthless compared to the freedom you have without it. It has become funny for me how people jump to kiss asses of those post with big potential payments in pursuit of happiness they think money will bring.
Fourth, I watched @steemsmart with you as a guest and experienced your beautiful energy, don't lose that. But please consider my second point.
Final point, stay true to yourself, be strong in beliefs about yourself and be compassionate with others but don't let them push you off track.
Thank you and don't upvote this, better respond to it if u feel the need.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@clayking/women-are-abused-on-steemit
I completely agree that this is an issue. You bring up some very great points. I strongly disagree with some of the statements indicating you in any way brought it on yourself with topics you post about.
For the solution. Can I ask that you, in the position you are in, start looking for the solution. What I mean is I would think you wouldn't have a hard time finding a few people with coding knowledge that can help work on the solutions.
I suggest this ONLY because I am sure the sources you are going to, dan/ned and such are not unwilling to help, but in their rush to implement everything are swamped.
I am only wondering if coming to them with a solution partly worked on would be an approach that could work.
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