The idea of decentralization is so prevalent in the minds of everyone involved in the crypto and blockchain space. Decentralization comes in many shapes and sizes - that is, in fact, one of its greatest appeals.
The way that Nassim Taleb deploys the idea of decentralization in his book Skin in the Game is very interesting to me. The way that he deploys these ideas in the excerpts that follow are highly relevant to you as a member of this decentralized community on the Steem blockchain!
You see, one of the greatest pleasures in life is finding your “calling”. Your passion, your art. Your outlet for creativity and hard work. When you find that “thing” you will know little else that fills you with such a high level of excitement and fulfillment.
Writing has been one of those “callings” for me. I may not be very good at it, but I actually enjoy the process. I enjoy the process of finding an idea, curating it down to something that is simple and easy to understand and then bringing the idea from my brain onto the page.
This idea of focusing on your calling and leveraging it as your creative outlet is central to the idea of the Steem blockchain.
In my opinion, one of the most appealing aspects of the Steem blockchain is to bring decentralization to creativity and art. It’s to allow the common man, woman and child to focus on their art and share it with the world and hopefully, improve their economic situation in the process.
We all have our own journeys in life and we all have a need for a certain level of income and prosperity. 99% of people are forced into jobs that they don’t like by the societal need for income to cover their basic living expenses and potentially, their materialistic drives.
“We may be better off in a narrowly defined accounting sense (in the aggregate) by exporting jobs. But that’s not what people may really want. I write because that’s what I am designed to do, just as a knife cuts because that’s what its mission is, Aristotle’s arête—and subcontracting my research and writing to China or Tunisia would (perhaps) increase my productivity, but deprive me of my identity”
What if there was another way? What if, instead of focusing solely on the economics and income and materialism we could instead do what we love and allow the income to be a byproduct.
Rather than constantly focusing on making more dollars, what if we could instead focus on making more art and being more creative. I think the Steem blockchain is poised to bring about that world.
It all starts with a small, tight-knit and passionate community - like what we have now. As more and more dApps develop here on the blockchain, we will see a greater and greater ability for the average Steemian to find their platform and create their art.
We’ve already seen this come about with DTube, Steemit, Steepshot, Steemhunt, Steem Monsters and others, but this is just the beginning. These are just a handful of dApps.
Things start to get very interesting when you extrapolate the happenings of this blockchain out into the future - 1 year from now we could have SMTs and an even easier platform for the average person to launch the project of their dreams.
5 years from now, we could have thousands upon thousands of dApps, each fulfilling their own purpose in the real-world and each providing a unique value proposition to Steemians and new users!
10 years from now and who knows what could happen. Millions of dApps? Millions of ways to create? Millions of ways to interact? Millions of ways to change your economics? Millions of ways to _____… Anything is possible.
“It may be cruel to cheat people of their profession. People want to have their soul in the game.”
“In that sense, decentralization and fragmentation, aside from stabilizing the system, improves people’s connection to their labor.”
People want to do something that matters. People want to be a part of a tribe - a community with a mission. The world, as a global community, has become less and less tribalistic in nature - which serves to make us crave a tribe more and more.
If you look at centralized social media platforms like Twitter, you’ll see tribes popping up all over the place and around all sorts of different ideas and communities. It’s interesting to see people gravitate towards this, but many of these tribes lack the capabilities to make a true impact in the world outside of their community.
This, again, is where Steem comes into play. Steem can bring a greater level of empowerment to each of these communities and tribes and it can truly change the way that we interact with the world as we know it. Both on an individual and on a community level.
The future of the world and of the Steem blockchain has never been more fascinating to me. Every day when I read about new developments and new dApps, I get more and more excited. We’re moving in the direction of a decentralized world of creatives and artists who focus on what they love and allow the economics of the Steem blockchain and the upcoming SMTs to be a byproduct in their favor.
Quotes From: Skin in the Game By Nassim Nicholas Taleb
I can't wait for time when we can tokenize everything. From art to real state.