How trusting are you? Who would you put your faith in?
I think that these are interesting questions to ask here since many border on anonymity yet are trying to build a society of trust. It is a paradox of sorts since to do what they want to do requires cooperation with others but, people are less willing to trust them enough to cooperate.
Humans are more 'seeing is believing' when it comes to trust and this is part of the reason why so many can have the wool pulled over their eyes with visual propaganda. It is only going to get worse of course as the technology gets better.
Can change happen in anonymity, behind the veils and in the shadows? Of course it can. But, what kind of change will it be? What do the shadows encourage? If no one is looking and one thinks they will not be discovered, does human nature encourage good action for the many, or poor action for the few?
I find it interesting to think about especially since there is a degree of conspiracy leaning in the people who cover themselves the most. Many believe that there are unseen forces at play working to influence the outcomes in their favour. Perhaps it is the banks, or the Illuminati, the mafia or the field of science and medicine but, it doesn't really matter which.
The belief is that there is are groups that act unseen to manipulate and this causes a lot of the suffering and problems in the world as they work towards gaining vast amounts of wealth and power of the many.
But, what is the difference in those hiding now, those acting in a lot more for their best interests than that of the many? Aren't they just doing the same?
Here is the problem, they may be fundamentally different but, they look a lot like what people expect the nefarious to look like which means, many may not stay long enough to hear what is to be said.
The interesting thing however tends to be that those who act the worst, do it in plain site and nothing sticks when caught and they just keep marching along to live another day. Perhaps this is because their supporters feel that they 'know' them even if they have only paid attention to a very narrow view of their activity.
This is perhaps why politicians can have so much scandal and yet survive as they can create large user bases and a significant part will either never become aware or, dismiss any of their negative aspects. It could also be that there is a sunk cost fallacy at play saying that, 'we have come this far together'.
It is an interesting problem to deal with as anonymity may be important for a future in a life dictated heavily by an authority but, that future is more likely because the anonymous working against it are untrusted by society.
We can see this in the way the average person views Cryptocurrencies as many seem to believe there is something shady going on but, who informs them? The people they trust, people they can see, the politicians, the bankers, the financial experts. They have been largely led to believe is that cryptocurrencies are the gateway drug to crime of some sort or another or, dangerous and when they do investigate for themselves, most hide their faces.
Look at the estimated top 10 of Blackmarket values in the world:
If they are using a lot of crypto, all would be to the moon. US alone is almost double the current market capacity. That doesn't mean there is no shady business but, it does point to a few other things such as, what currencies are they using? Now, this has no real relevance and isn't an indicator of anything but is an interesting thing to consider. What happens if government corruption is included in those figures, over-payments for defence contractors or the donations made by lobby groups across the world?
It takes a lot of work to trust someone you have never met, never talked to and never even seen a picture of their face. Introduce money into that mix and suddenly it adds another factor of complexity to the mix that complicates the relationship even more. Then, watch the large scale abuse taking place and the community's inability or unwillingness to deal with it and it puts more barriers in the way of acceptance.
There are many things to consider when it comes to being part of a decentralised, largely anonymous, financial incentive driven social media. Trusting our own judgement over who is worthy of that trust is a difficult process which means, many relationships go undeveloped.
Many here have become little islands that only look out for themselves but, do not have all the resources necessary to satisfy their wants. This means they find a myriad ways to influence others, scam others and then bury their faces to avoid detection and identification. Is it a minority or a majority here? How is a (mostly poorly) hidden voting circle any different to a secret society working only to empower themselves?
I wonder, will a point come where people feel safe enough (or brave enough) to come out of the shadows and what will the cost be when they do? Will transparency of person lead to better interactions or worse, improved behaviours or worse?
We will see in time.
Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]
These scammers benefit from that anonymity, hence Dan's radical transparency kick.
Do you think it is possible in the longrun (100-200 years perhaps)?
Human nature won't change, but behaviour is fluid, based on the available rewards and penalties. Compare the flaming and trolling here against anywhere else.
We just need to build the environments and populate them :)
great post. i am from India. disgusted with government and banks.
i was under the illusion that my county is in a very dirty position.
in my country the one and the only culprits are politicians due to which every thing else got spoiled. present PM stepped up creating an illusion in the country that he will wipe off corruption and bring back Swish Bank Black money to country. in India 5 years is the tenure of Government....
now the next elections are approaching shortly. so in one tenure he raised a feeling in the country that the earlier shameless politicians are better than this fellow.
my illusion was that India has bad political system. but 7 dirty fellows are above my country. only crypto can change the world. but will these dirty fellows allow??????
very nice post. i liked it.
Government is a symptom of the people as a whole in some regards.
very true
I had a similar discussion with a friend recently... Myself, I usually trust implicitly, until there arises a reason for me not to trust suddenly. This has got me burned in the past before, but I've also seen it inspire honourable behaviour in others. (That is, they're surprised at my trust and work harder to keep their end of the bargain because they don't want to disappoint me.)
And you're right about the small things... I remember feeling quite ashamed when someone pointed out that, here in Brazil, everyone complains about corruption in politics (and truly, it is crazy) but then they go and print a fake university enrolment form in order to get half-price at the cinema... I was doing this, and stopped immediately.
Ultimately though, I always refer back to Stephen Pinker's research... The world is a better place to live in now that it has ever been, and becoming even better year by year. And it is because of you, and people like you... The altruists of the world, combined with the ease of communication... Spreading and inspiring good behaviour in others. I only wish I could live longer than my allotted ~80 years to see where we end up in 500-100 years...
Yes, and it is a chicken and egg problem. The government are representatives of the community and also encourage the community. If one could locate the source countries of spam and fishing, where would they come from?
Well, of course, Nigeria is now famous for being a huge source of scams etc, but I believe the famous "Nigerian Prince" scammer was recently found and arrested, and he is actually a white guy from Louisiana. Also, a quick google shows that phishing scams originated in the 90s with AmericaOnline.
I didn't mean the original source otherwise modern terrorists may be the Dutch farmers during the Boer war :)
The world is getting better but I am pretty sure that a few small changes in each of us would have a massive effect to speed it up, no matter our history.
so this corruption is a world wide
The trusted faces we can see that don't deserve trust, and untrusted faceless we don't see who deserve trust... quite the predicament :/
Crypto has negatives associated with it from taht faceless anonymous lack of trust, but also the name. Crypto, cryptic, cryptography, implies hiding information, secrecy. But then as you say in other ways, banks are privately keeping your info secret while it's the opposite in crypto... lol, as wallets can be viewed on the chain openly... So there is a blindness and somewhat hypocritical double standard being applied.
Crypto is secret, untrusted, veiled, shrouded in darkness, the fear of the unknown... chaos... there is much unconscious symbolism being applied...
yes, it all needs a massive rebranding. Unfortunately, the people who are currently in like the cloak and dagger of it as it makes them feel special in some way.
The only person I trust is myself, but I believe what other says. When trust is broken it hurts than a cut, so I don't even let myself into it.
Steem is falling like angel falls. Anonymity is like the double edged sword. If you trust someone and make faith. It may be dangerous sometimes. But the trust is only thing which makes us to continue our work. Hope the bad thing will not be there in future.
Thanks for sharing such a good article.
A fascinating article
Our country is on 8th no .....thats great ...cheers..😜
cheers
Logical point is, humanity is being overloaded with philosophy and logicians.
Human being socially trasparent but mainly you need to study them deeply!
One of the reasons to remain anonymous on Steemit is the fact that wallets are publicly displayed. If I were a well-known Steemian, I wouldn't necessarily feel as safe walking down the street with people knowing how much money I had in my digital wallet. There's a difference between people knowing that you're wealthy and people knowing how much you're wealthy. I think it ads a tangibility that can encourage bad behavior. Just one narrow point of view on a complex topic.
Yes, these discussions have come up before in regards to hiding the wallet etc but, it goes against the concept of the experiment.
What do you mean by "It goes against the concept of the experiment?" Is it that specific as to measure what happens to people's interactions when they can see the worth of the other individuals around them? I was under the impression that it was broader in scope. Then again, I haven't read the whitepaper for Steem.