It's not so much your cynicism, and I do like to think about complicated topics like blockchain, politics, and religion too; But the more I read the whitepaper and see the direction Steem is going, the more it annoys me to no end. There are two analogies in particular which are stacked back to back in the whitepaper, and thinking about them in conjunction with one another lends some insight into the mindset of the developers.
(A.) "The fact that everyone “wins something” plays on the same psychology that casinos use to keep people gambling."
I read that before, and I was okay with it; Mostly because I like how Steem draws creativity out of people. Also, this can help individuals realize the dormant potential that they might not have known they had, were they never challenged by the baked-in gamification. So, that was mostly forgivable as the net effect is something one may consider a positive. Anything which is not too negative and makes people get better at creating seems like a good thing to me. Granted, you may have those who up and quit out of sheer disillusionment because they do not see a return, or because they dislike the challenge; And perhaps these folks would be better off visiting a bonafide casino.
(B.) "The goal of building a community currency is to get more “crabs in the bucket”.
And this is where I begin to question the intent of the developers. I mean, it's almost like they're trying to create a Casino Hotel California. Picture this; You go to the grand opening of the Casino HC. You put a quarter in the slot, and much to your surprise you win the jackpot. Woohoo! Knowing what you know about odds and statistics, you cash out and make a b line for the doors. Only some random patron thwaps you over the head and snatches your winnings, returning them to the cashier. You're like what the fuck, I won that fair and square with my money, why did you do that?
The guy is like, I've been here all day pulling that their lever. Meanwhile, you just waltz in with your fancy pants and try to do a hit and run. Not on my watch, he says menacingly! So you go to file a complaint with security. The security team responds: It's not our problem, those are the rules, Sir. So you stalk this asshole who ganked your shit. You follow him around for days; stealthily lying in wait, and hoping that he strikes it big. Finally, when he does; You treat him in kind. Revenge for the sake of revenge, because nothing is quite as sweet. The abuse and cycle of abuse repeats ad infinitum.
At some point, you've got to ask yourself: "What the hell kind of Casino is this?" And in the question lay the answer, it is hell. Steem was designed to keep you trapped, the developers say as much in the whitepaper. And what better trap is there than the cycle of abuse? I was pro-Steem when downvotes were shown as flags, and this is because people were less inclined to abuse and use them.
I know we've got different ideas as to what constitutes abuse with regards to the reward pool, and that is fine, it's whatever. I see merit in both content and stake because the purchase of stake causes scarcity which generates demand, and this demand is what drives the market value. HODLing also maintains scarcity which secures market value. Whereas you see merit in only the content, but without the carrot of extra control over the reward pool, there would be no market value because there is little to no incentive to purchase Steem.
And why do people desire extra control over the reward pool? They want it to reward themselves. I mean it's the fucking biological imperative at play. We can't just drum this out of human psychology, and every time people try to on a grandiose scale, systems fail. This is part of the reason why Steem needs to define itself and demystify all the elements.
Instead of rolling out free flags which is immensely destructive and encourages this crab mentality where everyone hates and envies each other right up to the point where they are boiled alive, they could have simply modified the rate-limited voting accordingly if there was a problem, but I don't think there was a problem, outside of the people who feel entitled to the stake of whales who use theirs on themselves.
So I like what WeKu has done; The whitepaper mentions nothing about crabs in a bucket or gambling for starters, and this lets me know they’ve seen the value of steem regarding content creation and want to harness the open-source model more positively. They still have a flag button, but they haven’t added a downvote button to normalize the destructive behavior. I’m hoping they will go their own way with it, and not mindlessly adopt Steem’s destructive HF. The social media/blockchain marketplace needs some healthy competition. This will help them all to get a bit better.
The IW has a WeKu community presence with a sizeable delegation provided by the WeKu team. That said, if you want to mirror some of your content over there you are more than welcome to. We have at least one curator who watches for new IW content, and he rewards it with the group’s upvote. I’m hoping if BTC moons again, the choice will be clear which is the better crypto to invest in. I hope that Steem will get its shit together, write a less offensive white paper and implement a hard fork geared more towards harmonious human behavior. I’ve not read WeKu's full whitepaper just yet, but it comes off far more respectable with the simple omission of destructive elements like the ones I mentioned above.
"The economic effect of this is similar to a lottery where people overestimate their probability of getting votes and thus do more work than the expected value of their reward and thereby maximize the total amount of work performed in service of the community. The fact that everyone “wins something” plays on the same psychology that casinos use to keep people gambling. In other words, small rewards help reinforce the idea that it is possible to earn bigger rewards." Steem Whitepaper - 16/32
"The goal of building a community currency is to get more “crabs in the bucket”. Going to extreme measures to eliminate all abuse is like attempting to put a lid on the bucket to prevent a few crabs from escaping and comes at the expense of making it harder to add new crabs to the bucket. It is sufficient to make the walls slippery and give the other crabs sufficient power to prevent others from escaping." Steem Whitepaper - 15/32
The italicized bit above is why I stopped worrying, wash my hands of the politics, and learn to love the activities of people like the downvote posse. If the folks who wrote the whitepaper see us like crabs in a bucket, stuck in gambling psychology and that’s the atmosphere they’re trying to foster, then the intentions are Mal from the beginning, and they don’t deserve to win in the marketplace of ideas.
On the other hand, if a company like WeKu, for example, can run with the positive elements, harness a different spirit, and lead by example, then perhaps they can either avoid or transform the negative into something positive.
So the “extreme measures” of HF21 and the downvote posse have become humorous to me. They may as well cut off their nose to spite their face because they are without a doubt in my mind hoisting themselves on their own petard. But give it time, we'll see how it all unfolds, absent a BTC moon it's a bunch of speculative meandering. If we get said moon, it'll be up to BTC holders which chain is lackluster and dilapidated, as opposed to which one is shiny and new.