There must be a thousands blogs on this very subject, so I thought to myself; I think it needs one more.... round numbers are only cool for tax purposes.
The Cabals
I wish I could remember the name of this user, but there used to be a dude on here (I think it was a dude) who always accused top earners on the platform of being part of a cabal of sorts.
In his mind he was sure that this whole ecosystem was nothing more than a honey-trap for unsuspecting users, a clever way of bringing them on to pump the cabal member's bags.
I remember him specifically because he accused me of shilling for the cabal. How much are they paying you? - he would ask, because the very idea of defending our blockchain with sincerity seemed to far fetched.
We have to admit, and I have no problem doing so, that there are factions on here and always have been. There are people who support others due to the relationship they might have, more than the content they are putting out. That being said, I would hardly call this a cabal or cabals. It's just people being; you ready for this? people.
Parrots and Money
I remember watching a video about this and it blew my mind a little bit. They taught parrots the concept of money? Are you kidding me?
It's probably common knowledge at this point that parrots are crazy intelligent. The African Grey probably sits on the throne when it comes to bird brains, and thus there's been a few of them who've become quite famous on the Internet. (Einstein the bird comes to mind)
However, I never imagined their intelligence would reach the point of understanding money and inequality. You see, they taught the birds to use tokens to get treats. Once the idea was cemented in their heads, once they understood the value of the tokens, then the real cool social experiments began.
The most amazing experiments have to be the inequality ones. They would put two birds in adjacent cages, so they could interact with each other, but remain separate. Then they would distribute tokens unfairly and record their actions.
A parrot who cared about another, who had a relationship with another parrot would gladly give his tokens away, share if you will. Now, the amount of inequality, the amount of tokens the rich parrot would give his poor buddy depended mostly on the type of relationship they had. A stronger bond meant more tokens.
Makes you think...
Could it be that the very thing we find wrong about this place, about how the top dogs remain top dogs, and the little fish get a cup of water to swim freely in, is nothing more than a reflection of how society works in practice?
The idea of equality is beautiful, and I happen to be fond of ideas that in my view can get us closer to it, but I have no illusions that it can be achieved. We can move the needle, and we should, but that's the eternal struggle of any functional society.
The closes thing to equality we've come up with is the attempts we've made historically of setting up system with equal opportunities. The idea being that the outcome cannot be controlled, but the rules of the game should allow for competent players to rise above the fray.
Are the systems we've setup perfect? Of course not, is Hive perfect to be more specific? No, but we are getting closer and closer to a workable system. As a matter of fact, changing the way upvotes worked all those years ago was in my opinion, the biggest move in the right direction we've ever made.
Unfair by design
Life and it's events just is, that's all. It might be that most people don't have the necessary skills to be bloggers or vloggers or developers. But it also doesn't mean they can't work on themselves to acquire those skills.
I happen to know of someone who came into this platform as a troll, basically, goofed around for a year, before getting serious about it and doing amazing.
Just like everything in life: nothing of value requires no effort. If we accept this, and still want to climb the hill, the mountain, then it's up to us to develop the skills we need to succeed. And, I would argue, in this blockchain, the skill of making connections, making friends and building an audience, is probably the most important one.
If you call this unfair, then you should say life is unfair too, we are a reflection of it after all.
What about quality content?
I can only speak for myself here, but I suspect I'm not in the minority. Most people with skin in the game tend to vote for people who they like, and who put work into their craft.
In other words, someone who is unpleasant could be writing amazing posts, uploading amazing music performances, etc; and never get my support.
This is not to say I'm the best curator as I'm sure I've missed out on thousands of quality posts on this blockchain. Hence why I follow curation trails I trust.
Anyway, I think I've made this too long already... so maybe I'll do the 1002 posts on the subject after all, or maybe not.
Cheers
MenO
Ok, let's illustrate the thing a bit and clarify the concept even further.
man, you da best!
We all know that who you know on Hive can make a big difference, but then it's so small and the votes get concentrated. It's not always about quality and I accept that some will find my posts unimpressive. I get support through making contacts, but I never ask for votes.
People vary a lot so you will never get 'equality' in any economic system. Trying to enforce it brings problems. I think what Hive offers is opportunities. You can earn in various ways and contributing can take many forms.
Do we have any parrots posting?
Hey, not for nothing, but we might end up communicating with some animals in the near future. And, I mean communicating like you and I are doing at the moment.
They used AI to determine already some really interesting communications in different species. They determined, for example, what dolphins have a language different from killer whales, but when they meet in the ocean they speak a common one. This very fact blew my mind!
All this to say, that it might be that a parrot will one day have an account here, and we might not be able to know. We might just confuse it with a really weird guy
We forgive you ;)
It is almost impossible to get this done in the way as it is projecten. Curation takes time and endless scrolling and also in the categories thst you also dont have all interest for.
Im always quite proud when I have the time to scroll through the 'new' posts from peolle thst I dont know and leave a comment here and there.
Small wins are also wins right?
life is all about the small wins