I wonder if the creators were really so naive, thinking that the peer-to-peer quality reward system would actually work, and that there would be no people who would try to game the system out of greed. I can hardly believe that...
And you see, I've had the exact opposite thought, which might be assigning them more credit than any one really deserves.
What if this was all set up to see exactly what people would do with it? Aside from the code, there really is no governance. There are pages of etiquette, and plenty of users who buy into one philosophy or another, but really, the only tools that we ever get to do much of anything with seems to always put the rewards in the hands of those who all already have it.
So, it's either a grand experiment to see how people, in a rather benign way, rise up against the nameless, faceless oppressors and overcome, or it's just a means by which unassuming patsies can come in and do grunt work so that those with control of the rewards can continue to make money.
In the second scenario, the rats have already abandoned the ship, but they're trying to take as much of it as they can with them. In the former, there's still hope. The selfless still have a fighting chance, we're just never going to know.
Either way, it's assigning an actual formulated plan to what goes on here that someone behind the scenes masterminded. Would I rather believe that there's actual purpose to what happens here and that someone actually does know what they're doing? Yes. But that means either way, we're hamsters on the exercise wheel running as fast as our little feet can fly.
I completely agree. It’s like I said hard to believe someone sets up somthing like this without purpose.
As things are looking now, I tend to say they could have spared themselves the trouble and just could have come over and I would have told them. But of course I wouldn’t have given them such a fat paycheck as they’ve given themselves - lol
But I also believe there is hope -maybe not for the platform or the main goal of the social experiment, but the selfless have a chance to fight every day. If I look around me and I see how many people adapt to the ‘pay-it-forward’-mentality, which is ‘taught’ by the selfless, it gives me hope for the future. Not on steemit, but I like to believe people take that mindset home, teach it to their children, pass it on to others, which will - in the very long run - maybe make the world a better place one day.
Now why didn’t I think of setting up this social experiment myself. I love social experiments. I would love to be the one looking into our hamster cage and watch all those running hamsters ;0)
Too much drama for me. Hamsters don't seem to play well together. :)
Well, I'm glad I'm not the only one with the conspiracy theory going on. The alternative, that no one knows what the heck they're doing and we're just on a runaway freight train or rudder less titanic doesn't give me any comfort at all. I'd rather be a part of someone's evil plan, and know it, then be a part of a meaningless series of unfortunate events.
Okay, I'd rather not be either, but... :)
I get ya :0)
I've been wondering the very same thing myself. Is this a social experiment to see how we actually behave given no governance?
It's super easy to draw that conclusion. It's also much easier on the ego to think there's an actual purpose to it all, rather than we've all been duped for the personal gain of some scam artists with computer engineering degrees. :)
I like to believe there's rhyme or reason to the randomness or the contrariness. Things that are supposed to do one thing either not doing it or causing something else to get out of whack. I'd rather believe they're trying to come up with difficult, near impossible scenarios to see what we'll do to prevail. Will we give in to destructive behavior, just quit, or find the sustainable and fair way forward.
As I said, it gives a massive amount of credit and brain power to a pretty select, fairly unreachable few, but when things don't work the way they're supposed to work, there aren't many more options to consider. And none of them are going to be any better than they're doing it on purpose. :)