My "You Didn't Earn That" post sparked lots of discussion, with 86 comments thus far.
My takeaway from that discussion is that the human ego is very much invested in the idea that people get, or at least should get, "what they deserve". The problem with this attitude is that it goes against everything that science tells us is true. Science, and simple logic, show us that life is far more random than our egos like to suppose, and nobody "deserves" their lot in life, for better or for worse.
But why are our egos so stubborn on this point? Why do they insist that we each have "free will" and therefore that we each should "own" our outcomes?
I think the answer is simple. If we abandon the idea of free will and instead accept the increasingly obvious alternative, then how do we justify "punishing" people when they screw up, and how do we justify "rewarding" the exceptional among us so lavishly?
If you've never read Nassim Taleb's books The Black Swan and Antifragile, I strongly recommend them. They go to great lengths to demonstrate that life's outcomes are far more random than we suppose. They also demonstrate how we regularly rationalize away this randomness via after-the-fact explanations to make it seem to ourselves like people "earned" their reward for innovation.
One possible takeaway from this conclusion that nobody "deserves" their lot is that there's no justifiable basis, morally or rationally, for large variations in those rewards.
But Taleb contends otherwise, using market-based economies and centrally planned economies as means of illustrating his point.
Let's suppose that some human-benefiting innovation--like the glue used by Post-It Notes, to choose a simple example--was discovered as a matter of "dumb luck" rather than true innovation (and, actually, it was, and so were most of history's great innovations). In which economy would the Post-It Note most likely be "discovered"--a market-based economy where risk taking and experimentation is showered with outsized rewards when successful, or a centrally-planned one where a few decision makers at the top direct the efforts of everyone below in a highly focused and coordinated way and wealth is more evenly distributed?
Obviously, the former. The market economy is decentralized, or "open source". Consequently, more people take risk and "roll the dice". More minds are constantly thinking "outside of the centrally planned box". More people rolling more dice increases the odds of one of them hitting jackpot. And we only need one of them to occasionally hit jackpot to provide extreme benefits to society. Take away the outsized reward for risk taking and experimenting, as centrally planned economies do, and innovation slows to a crawl.
The word entrepreneur means simply "risk taker". And it's that risk taking that decentralized, market-based systems reward. It's not the discovery or the "creation" of the innovation itself, and it's not the "brilliance' or the "ambition" of the discoverer, for those are ultimately fortuitous.
The Steem system actually works the same way. Rewards for the most popular posts are "outsized". Because they are outsized, they encourage people to strive for them--they encourage posting and creativity, for example. They encourage more people to "buy" more lottery tickets by writing and posting more often than they otherwise would, and to target their writing to interest the community.
But the Steem "winners" didn't "earn" their reward anymore than the discover of the Post-It note did. Mostly their winning was a function of "luck"--the right idea sprang into their mind unconjured, the right whale happened to stumble upon their post and upvote it at a convenient moment, causing others to see it and upvote it also. The right person made an interesting comment that sparked lots of attention and debate.
And yet, if because of that we developed a more "equal" distribution of Steem rewards, we'd actually see posting and innovation and effort decline precipitously.
To conclude, outsized rewards are completely justified because they benefit society as a whole and not because they represent the "earnings" of the discoverer/inventor/contributor. Bill Gates didn't "earn" his fortune, but society would be insane to deprive him of it (communism already tried that approach).
How funny would it be if you got like 45,000$ for this analyze hahahha (I wouldn't mind some of that, even if i didnt earn it ;))
Looks like every upvote by @dantheman is throwing away ~200 USD. I wonder whether this ~200 USD is also getting deducted from @dantheman wallet? If not, then where from this ~200 USD is coming to the system?
Please read the White Paper and learn for yourself. It can be found at steem.io
It's coming from future people who will buy steem and power up.
I think people need to initially step away from effort = reward. Then step away from value = reward. To end up with value + luck + reverberating message outside of the content = reward.
That's how the game is played.
what does this mean?
something that is in the 'collective psyche' will catch more peoples attention as a percentage of readers and (likely) catch more upvotes.
at least thats my interpretation :)
As @blakemiles84 said, something on the 'collective tip of the tounge' . Also something that inspires more people to join and build up the community at a more rapid pace.
Ok, I understand, thank you.
There definitely is an element of luck involved, but you can help it along by having consistently good content, as you seem to. Hard work MAY also be rewarded...
On Reddit, I use to love the thrill of waking up and checking my phone and seeing a comment or submission hit the karma jackpot. And I love it when a comment I make on Steemit hits it big even more. This reward system has the potential to bring in millions of people who don't have a clue what Bitcoin or crypto is.
This is circular logic. The post must have been good, because it earned a lot of money. And it deserved to earn a lot of money, because it was good. A simple look at the average quality of the top earning posts discredits such an arugment. There have been some good quality posts. But mostly its been spam, catfish, empty CL, and plagarism.
Outsized rewards to a small, select exclusive group of people, who are guaranteed them regardless of post quiality do not inspire higher quality. They inspire lower quality because they encouraged the authors guaranteed the rewards to post regardless of if they have any meaningful content. This phenomenon is called a liquidity trap. The same thing happened with american manufacturers in the 1970s.
Also, i don't think most people object to the outsized rewards. They object to the fact that those rewards are decided by a very few people with a disporportioniate level of influence and franly, what seems like terrible taste and judgement. ANd who gained that influence through a closed premine.
Now you can say its all a matter of taste, but the falling price of steem shows that most people don't share yours and the other whales. The only reason that price is above $1 right now is chinese investment. Judging by their conversation in their tag, theyre pretty disgusted by it too.
This post is a great example. You like the reward system, so your post will get pinned to the front page by those who benefit from it. Those who disagree with you will keep quiet, since youve already threatened reprisals against anyone who posts an alternative view.. Which is all well and clever, but its also exceptionally hamfisted. Its obvious to pretty much everyone.
The ironic thing is that, youre hurting yourself more than anyone else. I gotta wonder how far the currency has to fall before the "elite" on this site start to scratch their head and wonder if they might be doing something wrong.
Yeah right. and it doesnt strike you as a bit at odds with you theory that it always happens to the same people.
I see you chose to focus only on the Steemit-related portion of my comments. They actually flowed as an afterthought. My post was actually about much bigger societal issues, not Steemit.
But I also see that you have a rather large chip on your shoulder about Steemit. So let me see if I can help you with that.
First, who said anything about a post being "good"? The whole point of my post was that rewards are not based on merit or the quality of the content but rather largely on luck. So there was no "circular logic". Did you even read my post? Try reading it again.
The purpose of Steemit is not to "inspire higher quality". That will be a likely beneficial side effect in some cases, but that's not its reason to be. Stop thinking of it a that way and you'll spare yourself a lot of angst.
"Influence" on Steemit is for sale, just like in the "real world". Anyone with money can have it. As for me, most of my "influence" was acquired with cash, and a fair amount of it. I had no "premine" (and actually, nobody else did either). I believe in the platform, I wanted to have a say in how it develops, so I bought Steem Power. You or anyone can do the same, and by doing so you can also have an outsized voice in the system.
Instead, many came here expecting something for nothing. Or at least for little. They thought they could show up at the party like a "wild and crazy guy", start throwing up a few posts, and reap tons of reward. Well, it doesn't work that way. Steemit is a SOCIAL network. People who know and like each other support each other. Just like in the "real world" it takes a while to make new friends and admirers, but those who make the consistent effort get rewarded. Those who don't, and who wish to rely only on "merit" or "quality" to make their way in the world...well...they have a little tougher time of it. This is no different from the "real world".
So, like in the real world, friendship and familiarity are at least as important as "quality". Remember that and, once again, you'll save yourself a ton of angst.
If the influential people here do in fact have "terrible taste and judgement", as you so smugly suggest, then...you know what? THEY WILL BE THE ONES TO PAY THE HIGHEST PRICE FOR IT. And, that's the beauty of Steemit. The people with "chips in the game" make decisions in proportion to their amount at risk, unlike in the "real world" where it's "heads they win, and tails you lose."
I've never threatened anyone with reprisal for simply disagreeing with me or the rewards system or for offering up a helpful, constructive suggestion. I have threatened people with downvotes who are obviously just trolling--meaning that they are intentionally spreading factually incorrect information (and not just opinions) and/or they are engaging in ad hominem rather than constructive and issue specific related debate.
The currency is doing just fine. It's gone from 20 cents to $2 in a month. The whole thing is still in beta (closer to alpha in some ways). But you're right--if I'm wrong, I will pay a steep price. As it should be.
But...I'm not wrong. Just wait and see.
The "same people" who get consistently upvoted do indeed benefit from "luck". The most extreme type of it. They were fortunate enough to find Steemit early. They invested tons of time into building a strong reputation here. They made friends. They contributed to the various debates. They hung out on Slack.
They took risk and believed in the system at its earliest stages. And as LUCK would have it, the system has taken off. And the contacts and network they built over the last 60 days is paying off for them. There's a ton of luck in that.
... and then you don't look into trending page. You find valueble posts in different categories. And good writers or just decent common sens or sharp mind in the comments.
And then you enjoy the system disregard the money race, the whales, the obvious tricks.
But you already knew that.
This is one of my favorite comments on any Steemit article. The Liquidity Trap is something that I think @dantheman and others involved with the Steemit Project should research. The flip side to whales posting "just to post" is "curating just to curate". I do this all the time. I see a model with nice breasts in the first 30 minutes on active or trending with $12 and 25 votes, and it gets my upvote (and I'm not even straight). I think there are a class or category of post types that have made it to "must-curate" status. (That might be a great tag!)
"Circular logic" is a great way of describing this.
A lot of users are realizing this and are discouraged from sharing their content. It could be argued that we shouldn't focus on the reward, rather, focus on the effort... but simultaneously, isn't one of Steemit's main objectives to reward people for their efforts?
Please read my reply to his comment. There is no "circular logic".
Even if your reply tracked logically, which is does not, its still circular logic. The justification for the payment is the payment itself.
I give you credit for not trying to pretend its based on the quality of your posts, but all youre doing is making the same arugment without the skill part.
Of COURSE the justification for the payment is the payment. That's how "price" is determined in free markets. In a free market, where nobody is compelled to buy or sell, the economic value of something is determined by what people are willing to voluntarily pay for it, or in this case what they are willing to up vote.
You, like many central planners, hypothesize that "value" and "price" are two different things--that something can have a very high price in the market but be of little to no "value", or vice versa.
Respectfully (and I'm not trying to engage in ad hominem here), what you are labeling as "value" or "quality" is just a matter of your subjective preference rather than objective price. And, you're cocksure enough to presume that you're estimation of value or quality is superior to mine or the market's. Such is the arrogance of all central planners.
But, what I don't get about you is that, even if you are right, you're so obviously wrong. By that I mean, even if its true that Steemit whales are currently rewarding crappy content that nobody is interested in and therefore that the platform will fail to attract users in the short term, this does not mean that it will fail in the medium term. (And by the way, there's no shortage of new users in the short term).
For it to fail, several things must be true. First, whales must be both stupid and unwilling to learn from their stupidity (that is, unwilling to change their voting strategy). I see evidence for neither. In fact, whales have take steps to remediate problems like bots, trolls and spam, and the recent reputation system implementation has gone a long way in that regard. Additionally, there's a concerted effort under way among whales to alter their voting strategy to avoid circle jerking and reward a large diversity of content. We are already starting to see the results.
Second, for it to fail, whales must insist on keeping control (and avoid dumping) despite that the platform is failing. In actuality, were the platform failing whales would dump and the coins would move into the hands of, presumably, people with better taste. Different content would be upvoted and new users wold therefore be attracted. Ultimately, the coins will end up in the hands of people who best understand what the public wants.
The only thing that would prevent this would be something superior coming along very soon and establishing a network effect advantage over Steemit. But, even if something like that comes along, it's most likely to be a fork of Steem (meaning that Steem holders would have coins on all such platforms).
Steem and Steemit are both essentially open source. Consequently, they will evolve quickly to meet the public's demand, whatever that may be. Given that, the odds of Steemit failing for the reasons you suggest (stupid whales upvoting crappy content in one giant circle jerk) are extremely unlikely.
Thank you for reiterating, that makes much more sense to me. It's much better to be optimistic. I was just throwing in my two cents (literally, haha).
Since you ragged me a bit for only addressing the "steem related" part of your post, i figured id post some thoughts on the non steem related parts. Youre not going to agree with me about this part either.
I know a lot of people who share your worldview... that it's all just luck. I was actually a professional card player for many years, and its a pretty common notion in those circles.
Its worthwhile to note that this statement "Science, and simple logic, show us that life is far more random than our egos like to suppose, and nobody "deserves" their lot in life, for better or for worse." is unsupported by evidence in your post. If there is such science or logic that supports your weltanschauung , you fail to cite it. You cite two fiction novels.
I could probably make a pretty good guess about your backstory, but i suspect you'd take umbrage, so ill refrain. I will say that people who believe this typically have 2 things in common. They usually don't have a vocation that adds substantial value to society (which is why the idea is so common among poker players) and they are usually broke most of the time.
I have no idea why you think bill gates didn't deserve to make the money he made. He was an innovator and he certainly worked hard for it. This sort of example, as well as your fictional postit example (more on that in a moment) are a typical argument used by those who espouse the ideas you do. In essence you attempt to bring everyone's accomplishments "down" to your level by attributing their success to luck rather than hard work and diligence.
The fact is that for most people luck plays a very small role in their professional success. If i told my clients "hey i fucked off all week. and by the way im not too bright. but don't worry everything will work out its all luck anyway", they would be horrified. I don't want the guy thats luckiest to be building my house or the bridge im driving over, i want the guy who is best at building things.
Your post-it story is a great example of how people who think like that tend to gloss over the work part and intellect part. You either don't know the real story, or youre tweaking it to fit your point.
At the end of the day, most people who espouse the "luck" thesis are people who have no skill or value to add to society, so they come up with the goofy notion that capitalism is some kind of get rich quick scheme because merit and hard work doesn't matter. Sometimes the scheme will work and theyll get rich, but they almost always lose it all and more when they move on to the next scheme and the one after that.
What you present is a pleasant fantasy for people who want to make a lot of money with a very little effort, but thats all it is -- a fantasy.
BTW, i didnt want to include it in comments because its a wall of text form me in the thread already, but heres the real story about the "luck" involved with the creation of post it note glue.
https://steemit.com/capitalism/@sigmajin/he-did-earn-that-the-story-of-the-minnesota-mining-and-manufacturing-company-and-spencer-silver
I just posted a lengthy explanation of my worldview and how I arrive at it. Read it when you can and you'll better understand me. My worldview flows naturally from a single foundational insight. You'll probably disagree with that insight, but we can debate that another day (and I'll be happy to offer evidence in support of it then).
In an event, you have me all wrong. Like you, I am a lawyer by education. I'm also a CPA by education. I have worked in financial services for decades where I have founded multiple highly successful businesses. I currently employ about 35 people, and I'm quite confident that my annual earned income exceeds your's. Google me and you'll find out other things that I do/am.
My net worth very likely exceeds your own (and yes, I read about you cashing out for $5 million--congrats on that!). Most of my net worth is in my businesses, but I'm also a successful speculator. I was a very early bitcoin adopter, buying most of my coins at an average cost basis of about $6. But, unlike you, my risk tolerance is quite high. So, I've held most of mine (or at least my family has). Let's just say I've done quite will with that, but it still represents less than 10% of my family's net worth.
I also acquired Ethereum in the crowdsale. I've done quite will with that too, despite recent events. But it too is a small portion of my family's net worth.
In short, my track record in identifying and acquiring crypto assets is quite good, and I'm more enthused about Steem than any of the others (and I'm still REALLY enthused about them!).
So, your suppositions about me are wrong. But, given that you tried to psychoanalyze me, let's see if I can do any better in returning the favor:
You've done well in life, but you could have done far better. You've had opportunities to make massive wealth, but each time you bail too early, and that bothers you. You don't have confidence in your ability to skillfully identify opportunities (because, in your heart, you too think, or at least fear, that life is much more random than you like to admit), and as those opportunities becomes bigger and bigger, your confidence in their continued growth declines proportionately. Consequently, you invariably sell out early. Yes, you make good money, but you miss the truly great money. You didn't have the "killer instinct" in poker--often passing on statistically perfect opportunities to go "all in". You bailed on bitcoin too early. You bailed on numerous other things too early. And now you've panicked and bailed on Steem, cashing in most of your coins.
Given your history of being cashing in too early, you don't want to think you've done that again. You want to be right this time. Really badly. You want to think that you sold the vast majority of your Steem at the perfect time, just before Steem failed. So, at an unconscious level, you are ignoring the obvious (for instance Steem's inherent anti fragility) and you're subconsciously rooting for Steem's failure. You are looking for reasons why it will fail instead of why it will succeed. You suffer from confirmation bias.
But, just in case you're wrong again, you kept a few thousand dollars in Steem, and you even recently Powered Up with it. So you've hedged your bet. Why? Because in your gut you know that life is random, and you never know.
Bill Gates essentially made his billions by bundling FAT with floppy disks. Genius.
He was also a very good marketer. People fail to realize that Windoze is not how he made Microsoft into the empire that it is now.
Compare what was done with Winblows versus the *nix operating systems and how you market a product (or don't market it, in the case of most *nix operating systems) changes the public's perception as to what is your standard PC.
Not saying that the guy doesn't justly deserve his riches or anything.
He knew the right people (networking) and marketed his brand.
Kudos to Bill.
Nassem Taleb is pretentious, his writing style is almost unreadable.
I upvoted because
a) tits
b) trending potential
He's also brilliant. And right.
Yeah. Do you think Steemit is a black swan?
I think blockchains are definitely a black swan. It's hard to know which blockchains will succeed though. Steem certainly has potential in my view.
I think it also drives people away
I suppose it does some. But this model has worked pretty well for Vegas for decades. There's no shortage of gamblers in the world.
Here users who got "lucky" as you say, have a greater chance of getting lucky next time
Its like in vegas always the same 20-30 players won, don't you think that would have driven people away?
If that were true, then yes it might. But I don't think it's true. Influential and/or creative newbies are often rewarded and become top trenders.
In some ways, those on Steemit who have established reputations are like "the house" in Vegas. True, the house always wins, but that doesn't keep people from gambling since others have a chance at winning too.
It is true.
Some people vote stellabelle because it is stellabelle and think they will get more rewards when the post goes high, for example. Ive seen the comments.
I didn't say newbies had 0 chance, but it is much more likely for a newbie 's post to go unnoticed; on the other hand, a popular poster has a much higher chance (maybe even 100%) of a good post to be trending
Even more so, a high chance of a so-so post to be trending
Yeah, completely different scenario
Your analogy is flawed. You state that the current system stokes innovation people will "target their writing to interest the community." Except, right now it seems like you need to target your writing to interest the whales.
In effect, it's not appreciably different than the centrally planned economy... a few people at the top decide what's popular. People on the bottom try to convince them they should be popular.
Let's go back to your post-it notes. Arthur Fry, the inventor, makes exactly the same amount of money if Bill Gates buys a pack of post-it notes as he does when I buy a pack of post-it notes. Arthur wasn't thinking of Bill when he created the invention, he was thinking "lots of people might find this useful."
Admittedly, I'm still new around here... and things may change over time as whales become less important. However right now it seems like there's a strong incentive to cater to whale interests, then to community interests, rather than to promote your own ideas and write quality posts.
You seem to be among the folks who suggest that we can't measure the true "value" of a post on Steemit based on its dollar value (since whales overly influence that) nor by its number of upvotes (because the opinion of minnow voters is corrupted by pandering to whales).
There are at least two reasons to doubt these contentions. First is that Steem, like unregulated markets in general, is organized around the principle that the people whose vote counts most also have the most to lose if they are wrong. Free markets built upon this principle function as remarkably useful prediction markets, and provide accurate information about society's preferences and values, despite the fact that "whales" control these markets too. Second, the type of content that gets upvoted here on Steemit is exactly the type of content that gets upvoted on other social media sites like Reddit, FB, Twitter, etc. where whales don't have outsized votes. Actually, if anything, there's less porn, trolling, memes and pandering to the lowest common denominator here on Steemit than on most of these more "democratic" sites.
In any event, by my personal taste, the quality here on Steemit is actually excellent. Earlier this morning on the front Trending page we have the following (in order):
*. A post by the well know Dollar Vigilante.
*. A Steemit exclusive post from New York Times best-seeking author Neil Strauss describing for the first time ever his difficult childhood and his long struggle to become a successful writer.
*. An awesome original post about OP's experience in the Himalayas.
*. Steemit's first ever "dance tutorial" (original content). You may not appreciate it, but I assure you there's a great many people who do.
*. An excellent original piece of photojournalism on why women to go bars (tons of awesome photography). The piece is written in both Chinese and English.
*. Several original charts from some pretty good technical analysts
*. A travel diary on OP's trip to Zion National Park, complete with some awesome original photos.
*. "Indentured Solitude"--Part 1 of an original 4 part work of fiction.
And...I'll stop there for now. I think these post represent both good quality and good diversity.
The inventor of Post-it notes may make the same money when Bill Gates buys a pack as when you do, but Bill Gates (or at least Microsoft) buys a shit ton more packs than you do. Fry and 3M have made the vast majority of their money providing solutions to (or "pandering to", as you call it) very powerful businesses (whales), not minnows like you and me.
Aside from your big assumptions about me...
"the people whose vote counts most also have the most to lose if they are wrong."
What do whales lose if they're wrong? Is there a penalty for upvoting something that no one else does? And aren't people incentivized to upvote a post simply because a whale did so, thus removing the chance of him being "wrong?"
Let's make another comparison that's perhaps more appropriate (given that post-it's have largely business use, while Steem is closer to an entertainment/information service.)
Look at YouTube. Anything and everything can be posted there, and it's led to new forms of entertainment that I doubt could have ever gotten through Hollywood. Unboxing videos? Let's Play? That sound thing I can't remember the name of?
Right now Steemit is more like Hollywood. Impress a big producer/whale and your project gets made, and you make millions. Youtube, however, which is essentially 1 follower = 1 vote, means lots of little guys finding little niches and making money.
And as long as there's a work of fiction in your list, think about that. What if none of the whales like mystery, or horror, or fantasy or romance? Any one of those genres could fail to get real traction on this site based on the tastes of a few people at the top.
Again, I'm not naysaying the site, merely talking through my early observations. I'd kind of expect that over time the whales will become less important... but I'm also thinking some tweaks to the system might facilitate that. (Maybe, again, still new and learning the system.)
Steem doesn't lose value if a whale up votes a single "bad" post. But if whales consistently up vote crap content (which everyone seems to be worried will happen for some unexplainable reason), and posters of quality content are not sufficiently recognized, the posters of quality content will stop posting. Without the opportunity to read or post quality content and have it recognized, users won't come to the platform. Fewer users equals less demand for Steem. Less demand for Steem means a lower Steem price.
Consistently upvoting crap has nothing to do with anything I've said. I'm more worried that good stuff will be missed because it doesn't fit the whales' tastes. So you're deliberately promoting LGBT, but would you deliberately promote content that was fundamentally opposed to your philosphies? Can you be sure other whales feel the same?
It becomes a non-issue if everyone can promote things based only on their taste. People who like LGBT will upvote LGBT, and those authors will see money trickle in slowly. Without that... they are dependent on you. It's not much different than the Patrons of old really...
LOL... trying to figure out how to use the Steem API to look through my transaction history and I found this!
Not to dredge up the argument again, but it doesn't seem like much has changed... there's still a limited variety, minnows still struggle to get noticed, and now a couple whales have pissing contests on the trending page.
If whales are wrong, the value of Steem declines. Whales own the most Steem. Hence whales lose more if they are wrong.
No, if they understand the system, people are not incentivized to vote after whales. Rather, they are incentivized to vote BEFORE them. It's the early voters who get most of the curation rewards on a given post. Many people make this mistake.
What empirical evidence do you have that pandering to whales is resulting in different, and presumably inferior, content being posted here compared to other social media sites? From what I can tell, it's mostly the same stuff (though perhaps far more crypto focused)--travel blogging, philosophical and political debates, pretty girls (though less than on, say, Reddit), persuasive writing, fiction, photos, etc. There's no evidence that I can see that Steemit content is materially different than, and certainly not lessor than, content on other platforms.
I do share your concerns to some degree. For instance, I've invited several notable authors to join Steemit who write primarily for the LGBT community. To date their posts here have gotten little to no attention. But, I'm convinced that will change over time, both because the currency will be more widely distributed, and because whales are not stupid--ultimately they will support posts that don't interest them personally simply because it's in their economic interests to do so. For instance, I have little personal interest in reading LGBT oriented material (its just not my thing, not that there's anything wrong with that), but I consciously invited two different LGBT-focused authors to join and post here, and I've made every effort to up vote and promote them whenever I can.
How does steem "lose value" if a whale upvotes a bad post?
Steem would be such a fun place, if everyone would write great content. And with great content I mean stuff you like.
Why are so many people so greedy for money and so jealous about the money other people have / earn ?
Much better than the first part. Upvoted this time.
Next post about "you did earn it" and show us some examples.
I dont think not much people here "earned" it (in your view) to get more than...idk 20$ for a Post.
But iam happy for everyone here who got some luck.
Ding ding ding! Winner Winner! Chicken Dinner!
Quite some interesting points!
Thank you for sharing and have fun steem-ing.
The point isn't whether you deserve it or not.
Important is, that you feel you have earned it, to become happy with it.
I don't agree at all. Most desire to punish comes from an unfairness that happened before to us, more than from the behavior of person being punished.
Punishing is an excuse, I believe
envy?
Not all risks pay off.
You need to rehabilitate your reputation score. I've been upvoting you some, but you need to get others to do so also.
Calling women "bitches" for absolutely no reason and specifically saying things like "You better get on your knees and suck my cock" to unsuspsecting women on Steemit will continue to garner downvotes. Verbally raping women is not going to be tolerated on this platform. As long as he continues to hate, he receives downvotes. As long as he stalks certain women on Steemit, he will continue to receive downvotes. It's quite simple actually. Oh, and before you decide to upvote him, realize that I too have been verbally attacked. At one point Earnest said that "someone is sucking Stellabelle's cock." Think about it, I have the highest rep out of 50,000 people on steemit. The only 9 score. Do you think I deserve verbal abuse? I think not.
Hear hear!
Cg
IMO it was inappropriate regardless of rep score. I actually agreed with earnest on the issue being discussed at the time -- its tragic that he let his emotions get the better of him. At this point, it makes little sense not to just start fresh with a new account.
As to the stalking accusation. I was following that situation to an extent (if im thinking of the same one, i know there were several conflicts involving earnest). The points he made certainly seemed cogent to me. I have no way of knowing if the user being discussed actually lived through all of the things she claimed to (including one copied and pasted form another website) but its certainly something that would appear suspect to a typical person looking at steem.
You decried catfish and other fraudsters as potentially fatal to the systenm in a recent post... you must realize that simple fact checking is the only way to protect against them.
Thank you @stellabelle. I was unaware of much of that history. I've seen some crude posts/replies from him, which I have have never hesitated to downvote, but none like you describe. He's also made some articulate reasoned comments in the past, which I haven't hesitated to upvote. I will make sure that I am discerning. Thanks again.
I'm glad you said something about this, because myself and many other female users have been victimized by this type of verbal abuse. From an outsiders perspective it seems like you condone that behavior when you upvote the perpetrator. Thank you for clarifying your standpoint.