When you start to follow the 99% majority, keep in mind the 1% are either quiet or the ones yelling fire and pointing towards the exit.
Hint, there is no fire, and they plan on locking the door after you leave...
I've always had my most significant wins when I go against the wind, where everyone else isn't going.
Madness doesn't come with a blueprint! Chaos doesn't come with a construction manual.
I live & die by my principles. When I make a stand, I stomp deep into the dirt.
It's not about what's good now, its about what's good for the long haul. Always keep in mind most lose money and quit before their opportunity comes.
Luck favors the prepared and the bold.
It's never easy, and if it was, you were on the wrong track to begin with.
On the other side of easy is a pit, filled with people who want to get rich but don't want to put in the work. Getting rich isn't all about hard work; sometimes it's about having the right mindset at the right time.
If you enjoy the process, hard times should intrigue you. Of course, we all want life to be pleasurable, but you don't always get what you want. It isn't essential what happens to you; we can't control that; what matters is how you handle yourself during the storm.
For me, it is about finding a like-minded community and buidling your dreams. That is why I love the Steem blockchain. I like decentralized platforms that are stake based.
I don't like Facebook & Google because I don't like predatory monopolies that gang together to wipe people from the face of the internet.
Much respect to Everipedia (decentralized Wikipedia), listen to the reasons why Wikipedia isn't the route we want to go down when talking about history. Think about it; Google has the power to change history, skew search results, favor different views than others. This is scary shit, and blockchain is here to fix all of that.
That is why I am worried about Quora. When I ask a question on DuckDuckGo, odds are it is a Quora answer that pops up (or Steemit). I would hate for Quora to turn into the next Google. I have hopes for Quora but moving to a decentralized blockchain is their only hope. Visit this answer in 5 years, if Quora is still up, and see for yourself.
I'm a believer in if you buidl enough value, the universe will find you and come knocking on your door, even if you live in the middle of nowhere. It's the value effect, if you get one person, that person will tell two friends. Those two friends tell two friends, and thus the snowball grows.
This is where I first found Quora. I needed an outlet to express myself, and while doing so as a by-product, I was helping people. It all started when I lost 100 pounds in 4 months. I never was a writer, never read books (I listen to audiobooks) and learned by going with what I innately knew.
When writing, it is usually a mess, but with products like Grammarly, nice haircut and clean clothes and my writing is good to go. I found Quora, and I saw someone asking: "How to lose weight quickly?"
I thought, "Hmm, I know how to lose weight quickly!" I went on to write a very detailed, step by step guide on how I lost the weight. The answer took off, started getting thousands of views, then tens of thousands, then hundreds of thousands.
So, I kept writing, kept expressing myself. There were no boundaries; nothing was off-limits, my closet, and all my skeletons were on display. I could care less; I was offloading everything in my head; others found my junk useful.
Quora is a compelling place; people go there to find answers to tough questions. I was browsing through reading replies, and I noticed one of my answers was collapsed by a Quora mod, without explanation. I wrote to them, said it was an error and it took them three months to uncollapse my answer. "Hmm... that was weak," I thought to myself.
Then I noticed that I was not the only one, many people were getting their answers collapsed, deleted, and then people even started getting temporarily banned from the site.
Quora is a newer website and is/was a small website; now it's creeping up to become a real force in this world. This is a place people will look for answers, and if a centralized party behind closed doors can censor those answers without any explanation, that is not a road that leads to freedom.
I believe the bigger these websites get, the more vulnerable to government interference they become. Companies like Apple sue the government for trying to leach customer data from Apple devices; of course, the government wins every time. Just look at Facebook, it is a government-controlled shit show; Zuks has about as much control over Facebook as Dr. Victor Frankenstein had over his creation.
It's funny when I first started on Quora in one of my answers, I stated a goal of mine was to become a top writer. At the time, I never really thought much about it after that. However, once I became a top writer, I got to ask the question of who elected me?
Moreover, why? The process of selecting top writers is also centralized and controlled by Quora. As we can see, centralized social media sites start innocent, but it is all a trust game for the content producers because the ball is always in Quora's court and the game is a private one. It seems like no big deal now, but in the future who's to say there won't be agendas on who becomes top writers.
I just got tired of pouring my heart into content, helping grow a beast that one day will feast on us all. Social media is not a joke or some small thing; human communication is the most critical aspect of life; without it, we are back in the stone ages.
However, what is worse than no contact is deceptive communication. When the information becomes skewed, and people can't tell wrong from right, truth from false, propaganda from reality, we set a dangerous precedent moving forward.
I have no issues walking away from a platform that is in threat of becoming a part of the predatorial monopolies of the world. Also, while I don't think Quora is quite yet there, give it a few more years, and we will see people being shadowbanned, straight up banned and censored just like we are seeing on all the big centralized social media sites today.
That is the reason I walked away from Quora (almost two years ago). I have recently rejoined Quora, but now my mission is to use centralized sites to spread decentralized awareness.
I really hope to see Quora move to a public blockchain like Steem one day. I would hate for Quora to be the next blockbuster or myspace.
If you BUIDL it they will come. I now have a haven in the form of the Steem Blockchain and now feel at home.
If you want to help me spread awareness about Steem on Quora, join the "Steemian Roundup" space https://www.quora.com/q/otycmrjbbhahuqae where we help Quorains learn about Steem!
That's why I've stopped using most google services... I'm using Brave browser with duckduckgo, the only thing left is gmail, which I'm still weighing options...
Now that's a mission!
I understand that centralized platforms need to censor and shadowban some of their content, the world is full of darkness and if they let that darkness pour out into their social media, governments from all over the world would get pretty pissed off... which is unfortunate, people live in total blindness of some issues that the world has, they shouldn't be blinded, they should watch with their eyes wide open and accept that we do have problems in our species! Isn't acknowledging there is an issue the first step in dealing with it?
STEEM being decentralized is the best thing that has happened for free-speech all over the world! It doesn't matter where you are from, anyone with internet can write on the blockchain and leave their content for the rest of mankinds history...(with or without payouts, the content will be on the blockchain forever) We could even make a case that before blockchain there wasn't any true factual history since before blockchain the winners wrote history...
I was never much of a quora guy, I mostly sticked with reddit, medium and youtube.
Tutanota mail or protonmail, I prefer tuta though more after research. ps, nothing in the crypto world is actually truly decentralized :P
I've been hearing a lot about Cryptext, its a end to end encryption email provider and they even have canary warranty on their webiste. I've been hearing some bad things about protonmail so I choose to stay away from it, first time hearing about tutanota, got to research it.
Yeh protonmail isnt the most trusted! Theres also mail.io, blockchain email but its not fully working yet, cant wait until blockchain encrypted mail can be used😊 tutanota is german and they were crypto friendly.
Theres also Obsidian messenger app that i found from a steem post, but its in testing
It's reassuring to read someone else that I feel like "gets it". It'll be cool to make some money when Steem takes off, but that's not the exciting part relative to where I can see this going.
When I'm looking at the biggest problems I feel like are plaguing the world I see Steem as the answer. As you said, communication is so INSANELY important for the human race. If you're at war and you have control over communication, you win, period. Now we're living in this world where the whole planet is connected, but there's these tiny minorities of people with their fingers on the levers of all information pushing it this way or that way depending on their particular agenda. People don't have a clue what's really going on and there's no solution for leveling the playing field, until now. >:)
Well said. These are very pressing times filled with amazing potential. We, as a society will need to work together in order to make this work. I believe the future of communities are online and based on blockchain. ;)
Quora used to be cool but I think they're so desperate to retain traffic that they're shooting themselves in the foot. The other day I saw two questions that I had already written blog posts about and I answered and left a link to the blog post and this is what I got
Just like Google and Facebook are trying to keep you in their ecosystem instead of trying to be the most helpful source, Quora is doing the same. They're so desperate to hold on to users for impressions to serve ads
A guy I know from the comic book circles just got his account deleted by Facebook. No warning. Nothing. I’d love to wrangle him and his group here but they didn’t bite when I tried as Google Plus shut down. I really wish some of these folks would see the value in this place compared to the stale centralized platforms that are the standard. Argh!!!
I hear you, I know many that only create on YouTube and they can be next. I am seeing more people starting to see the light and switch over, it has been a slow but steady progress.
Is there any way to DM you @theycallmedan?
Yours, Piotr
Musing.io was doing a Maddening job just like quora, however it was even decentralized and even better, sadly things didn't go so badly at the end of the day it turns out we're what we are and can even replicate these status of these Centralized platforms with time and even be better as well. I'm glad you rejoined it's time people seeking decentralized answers find them with our blockchain
Hope we have something related like quora on steemit. Musing was near at a time then but fall due to some personal reasons
Very well said. If things were easy, there wouldn't be any sort of accomplishment in what we do and it wouldnt be any fun.
I dont currently use Quora but using centralized media platforms to spread awareness about decentralized ones - as you discussed, is basically how I see facebook nowadays. Other than that the platform is a waste of time.
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I've written a year ago about Quora's censorship, actually I've written constantly about that since they started to apply a heavy handed censorship on subjects defying historical facts to serve propaganda, and how they on multiple occasions 'collapsed' (their term for soft censorship) my answers and later they banned me from interacting for a while - forgot exactly how long - and since then I'm doing a backup of my answers there here on steemit including the answers in my posts and linking to the source on Quora.
When sharing my answers on Quora on the social media pages, groups, and accounts I have access to, I share them from the steemit posts.
Here's an example of Quora's moderators' censorship: https://steemit.com/busy/@arabisouri/quora-s-admins-do-not-like-criticism-of-terrorists
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Have you tried reaching out to Quora at all about building on steem? An SMT might be just their ticket.
I have, it hasn't been easy but I sent them a lot of good info. Would be great to have them here.
Censorship and manipulation is everywhere except steem and this is only place where we can express our thoughts without worry because we know that our content will remain here always.
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Is that really how you feel @alokkumar121?
Can we really express our thoughts without worries here?
Im personally always confused about this reason. STEEM is like a database. So obviously all what we post will stay in that database (which is public). However does it really matter that much?
After all Steemit.com and other platforms /tribes are centralized and they may easily be forced by authorities to "ban" particular users. And this content will not be seen by anyone.
Am I wrong? What's the difference? I mean for real: let's say that your content would not be displayed any more on Steemit and Steempeak. Would that not "silence" you well enough? Would it matter that your content is still someone out there on STEEM blockchain?
Just curious
Yours
Piotr
#trusttheprocess
quora is not bad, but steemit is better
Hi @theycallmedan
Do you really think so? I'm not from US and I don't know how powerful your administration is. However part of me believed (and still does) that corporations are already above the law and nothing really bad may happen to them.
ps. do you believe that social media can be decentralized and still function well? Would you also consider steemit in any way decentralized? Or semi-centralized ? Just curious.
Yours,
Piotr
Dear @theycallmedan
I'm writing to you because friend of mine suggested that you may be able to help me and guide through difficult time.
Few hours I uploaded publication OPEN LETTER TO WHALES: please be mindfull with your MASS-DOWNVOTES before it's to late" which has been downvoted to zero by few powerful accounts (berniesanders and few others).
I never got involved into any flag wars and being downvoted by over 600k SP for reasons I don't understand seem to be very brutal and discouraging to me.
Right now my publication isn't even being displayed any more and I never felt so discouraged to continue my efforts on Steem blockchain.
I hope you do not mind this comment. I'm fully aware that it isn't related to your subject and I'm not sure if there is anything you could do to help my case. I'm not sure what anyone can do in such a situation.
ps. It seem that HF21 provided us with excellent ways of fighting with different abuses, except of the worst one of all - downvoting abuse. I wonder if there is anything that could be done to stop users like bernie.
Yours,
Piotr
Glad you are off the the Quora kick, @theycallmedan. You efforts are better placed here.
I saw you resteemed the post asking us to promote 3speak. I would do it, but have no idea of its purpose or difference from dtube. All I know is that is is a closed club and only some people can get in.
I know you are a big supporter of it. If you could do a steem post with concrete details an idiot could understand, I will gladly try to help promote. I see the huge rewards, so it must be a good place.
off topic - our friend the bern is causing carnage all over the place. You can look at his comment/reply stream and how many posts he has down voted to invisible to see the nastiness going on all over steem. People who have never even heard of him before the fork are being down voted and attacked. Not one person - many, many people are getting creamed right now. His "z" account is also our biggest power up this week, so he is getting ready to do even more damage.
I think this would be a good place for you and your roving gang of down voters for the good of steem. Anyone coming to look on STEEM while thinking about joining will see these horrible comments within minutes.
Many thanks for all you do for all of us. Dan. I am a big fan of the changes of NewSTEEM and realize we are working through bumps in the road now. I'm doing all I can to keep the small fish posting and working 18 hours a day at it. The bleed is pretty bad.
Praying my small efforts will help us grow into the vibrant place I see in my dreams. We have so many places for success to happen - and it is happening in some of them. I am ever the optimist.
Excellent comment @fitinfun
I also don't really know the difference between dtube and 3speak.
I really liked Musing.io when it was in its prime on Steem. It is still out there, but I don't think it gets the traffic it used to when they had their delegation. I really enjoyed spending my time there answering questions and giving advice about the things I have experienced in my life. It was such a great dapp that my wife even got a Steem account so she could answer questions. She has no desire to blog but she said to me "I can answer questions". I wish it would get the support and backing it deserves again. If it does it would need to be run much better this time. It was very evident why they lost their delegation.
I do not know the quora platform, but at this time I will discover and find a way to show Steemit to the members of Quora, its publication is excellent, especially I love that you reflect on several platforms and give advice :3 A hug
👍
~Smartsteem Curation Team
@theycallmedan, Control is everywhere and now we have to look towards a space which is free to express and Steem Blockchain is that alternative. Let's hope that in near future Quora will decide to convert into the Decentralised Ecosystem.
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Hi @chireerocks
Would you consider Steemit as "decentralized ecosystem"? I think that at it's best we could say that it's semi-decentralized.
PErsonally i wonder if social media can function properly as decentralized structure.
Cheers
Piotr
In my opinion Decentralised Ecosystem will come with both blessing and curse and by that i mean. Freedom With No Control can go either way. Stay blessed.
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Hi friend I thought about you.i understand your post.can you help me ?
I have no steem power. Can you give me steem power? when I have steem power isend you.my account name @avinashsingh