First of all, 80% of the ideas regarding blockchain, smart contracts, unstoppable, and so forth code are taken directly from this video of Andreas Antonopolus. In my opinion @julianhorack kind of plagiarised this post, but that is another discussion.
Now to the issue at hand. Blockchain is an infrastructure that can be used to guarantee freedom of speech, some human rights and access to information. This does not mean the current applications are doing this, but we have a test bed that is giving us real-world data and can learn from it. I believe we will get there.
On the part regarding censorship, I have to agree with @gtg. Downvotes are a way to reduce visibility, but cannot actually censor information. When enough pressure will be put on Steemit Inc, the company will need to close and maybe that is for the better. Steem will still go on as a blockchain, but with different API's, like busy.org.
Regarding the power of authorities to stop blockchain enabled code, I really hope they cannot. The moment when blockchain becomes a problem for the military, that's when we'll see how unstoppable it is. Luckily, there are several types of blockchain and more are emerging, and hopefully at least one will prove to be immune to outside interference.
And finally, regarding the conspiratorial tone of the original post, I believe that more of the bad things that are happening in the world are due to the shortcomings of human nature, rather than opaque groups of interest that influence many aspects of human existence. And to be honest, today I would be more afraid of google and facebook than Illuminati or other such groups, money and banking was last century's ace up the sleeve, today technology is the focal point of freedom, as well as control.
Dear @lishu
Thank you for sharing your view and accepting my invitation. Appreciate it a lot.
ps. just wanted to check your own recent publications and realized that your latest post is quite old. hope you didn't give up on steemit buddy
Have a great upcoming week :)
Piotr
@crypto.piotr for the past week I have been working almost around the clock on setting things up so I can launch my ebook "Introduction to Cryptoeconomics - The Path Towards a Trust Economy".
I have almost all thing in place now. And part of the promotion campaign will be here on steem, so I will have some activity.
You can check out my site www.prosocilallabs.com, I also have a crypto shop for the ebook :D
It's me again @lishu
I never actually thought about it. Good bloody point!
Thx again, Piotr