Steemit has a big social dilemma. Let me start with explaining what is a social dilemma. From wiki:
In simple words, it is when a person or a group of people start acting against the interests of the whole community. Some users in steemit are doing this. If all of us started doing this, then steem would sink to a few cents. Thanks to the work of a few good whales and big part of the resonable users, the network is still going up and running.
So, who are these people and why is their actions bad?
Take for example, ranchorlaxo (not sure if I spelled that correctly). He is voting on haejin's posts and sending them to the top using his stack. But since he is a big whale, all his votes are doing is, disrupting the trending page and giving a single author the power to dictate what is shown in there.
So, why is it bad?
Lets assume a new user comes to steemit. Then he will only see the posts of a single user with huge rewards. This will most likely make reasonble new users think this site is a scam or something like that. It will make a negative impression.
But all whales aren't doing what he is doing. If all whales started racing to try and get to the trending page, it would then make users with lower stakes angry and they will start leaving steem. Steem price will crush. I think many of the people with high stack don't understand this properly. If they did, they probably wouldn't keep on doing things that are bad for the community's overall growth.
Since steem code is open source, if the social dilemma reaches critical level, some users may decide to split from the main steemit and create another by forking steem. It has happened to bitcoin with bitcoin cash now threantening to take it over.
I think something like that would be bad for steem/steemit and that's why I think all users with a reasonable amount of stack should be concerned about it and try to do something that will solve this problem.
This is already happening.
And there are ongoing high profile marketing campaigns on Twitter. We're basically sending massive invites to people to come to our house when there's shit smeared all over the walls.
I'm making every reasonable effort I can to fight the filth but, if we are altogether unsuccessful because the mighty and greedy, it may be time to consider an exit strategy. I don't like it because, with the right community, Steem can be so much more!
I personally believe that steem will fail if the community doesn't develop in a way where whales believe it's morally right and good for steem as a whole to spend their voting power flagging abusers instead of getting curration rewards with it. I'm really happy that @berniesanders is showing everyone a right direction, but we're quickly running out of time. SMT tockens might delay that a bit or just make the process of abuse much faster, we'll see.
It's better known in economics and ecology as "the tragedy of the commons". It's an argument for common-wealth and essentially government regulation. Which I'm fine with, to the right degree, but it's not something that the anarcho-capitalists here would support much I wouldn't think.
Interestingly, we have @berniesanders here at steemit. Not the real one, I assume, but do we assume he is more socialist minded than some of the right-libertarians here? I bring him up, of course, as he is in a running battle with @haejin and his minions ;) regarding "reward pool rape". What's interesting in all this is that @berniesanders most closely represents the anarcho-capitalist ethic in terms of his stake and how wildly unequal it is compared to 99% of the rest of the community. So I find myself a bit confused by how he might possess some socialist ethic regarding equality, yet stands above the 99% by such a huge margin. I think he probably represents a benevolent dictator type of character. But do benevolent dictators always remain benevolent?
He's like a half truth that always leads to a full lie!
Meanwhile he's raping the pool himself at the tune of 0.5%:
https://steemworld.org/@berniesanders
Don't censor people with your flags or you'll learn the hard way.
Explanation for high upvote : https://steemit.com/steem/@transisto/temporarily-pausing-my-anti-abuse-efforts-while-sbd-is-off-the-chart
Isn't that what bernie is doing?
I don't support bernie trying to shut haejin's followers down.
Bernie is on a censorship rampage and noone is standing up to him?
https://steemit.com/steemitabuse/@steempolice/steem-has-no-future-unless-self-vote-abuse-is-stopped-steemit-inc-and-whales-do-your-part
Half truths are the most insidious. People have no trouble accepting them as the full truth. It's how cults form, which is funny given all the claims that people following your guidance in TA are cult members...
Yeah, I don't know who's right in this argument between you and him, but there does seem to be a bit of hypocrisy from the Bern.
This is very much sums up my thoughts. Here is a little old article that helped to make me a Dash fanboy and one that made me feel skeptic about steemit in the first place: https://www.dashforcenews.com/bitcoin-disincentivizes-community-harmony/
I've gone on record saying that steemit is BTC 4 years ago.
You seem intelligent. I'm going to follow you.
Do people really see bernie as benevolent? All I ever see him do is bitch and moan about others "raping the reward pool" when it's what he has been doing since day 1.
Yes it is https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons economic theory of a situation within a shared-resource system where individual users acting independently according to their own self-interest behave contrary to the common good of all users by depleting or spoiling that resource through their collective action. The concept and name originate in an essay written in 1833 by the Victorian economist William Forster Lloyd,
You do not even speak English? Blog in your own language, that of NigFag.....or should I say Nig Flag. What a phucken hypocrite! A look at your wallet shows your real self.......what a loser. Imma call you out, in public, real soon, if you merit my time.
My 2 cents on this is that only whales and orcas are capable to make impactful moves. For the planktons, minnows and even dolphins, it is unlikely to have any effect. Plus, it is hard to control such a big crowd. Thus, it is important that the top understands that too.
Just wrote about something about this as well: https://steemit.com/steem/@kimzwarch/why-is-steem-giving-out-free-money-my-steem-adventure-2
Perhaps you can share your view too :)
Dolphins can have an impact. If 100 dolphins went on a flag rampage on the haejin guy, his rewards will be zero.
You are right as well, but to gather 100 of them to attack is not an easy task. Seeing bernie sanders's posts for like a few times already highlighting that, yet there are no movements. Nonetheless, sooner or later there may be unexpected outcome too. I believe in your view, to be sustainable, we must be selfless from time to time, especially when we are the big whales.
I love exploring the social dilemma by describing it with the tools game theory has to offer. It is a vast and complex field, just like human psychology is.
For us, new users its very hard to spread a word about our posts. Some changes are needed
Meanwhile, @berniesanders is raping the reward pool:
https://steemworld.org/@berniesanders
@randowhale; owned by @berniesanders is scamming people their SBDs by using what he receives to downvote and carry out his personal vendetta rather than use to upvote! That's not a scam? Tell me what is?
Meanwhile, YOU want to attack the ones who received upvotes and NOT the upvoters. Your logic is twisted boy!
Whales upvoted my blogs...so you want to attack me? Why don't you go attack the whales? What? YOU afraid to be smashed down to -25? Isn't that what @berniesanders does?
Don't censor people with your flags or you'll learn the hard way.
Explanation for high upvote : https://steemit.com/steem/@transisto/temporarily-pausing-my-anti-abuse-efforts-while-sbd-is-off-the-chart
Did you read my post or what? Where exactly did I attack you not the whale?
You are lying. @randowhale is a paid bot, not a bid bot.
I hope I am not missing any of your posts now, Cmon People lets keep supporting Haejin!
Lets stop this ridiculous online bashing, if you like his posts then read and support if you dont then go elsewhere, shouldnt it be that simple.
When your success is being upvoted by one account with super high SP to rape the reward pool, this is not success. Look into how much money he gets from his followers and how much he gets from his friends. He's raping steem to cash out thousands of dollars daily and people like you let him do so by buying into his lies.
No hard feelings dude, I just feel really passionate about protecting the blockchain which is why I will always argument against people like him who are clearly exploiting the system for their personal gain.
On the topic of "lies", is the 6% figure a lie or not? If it is, why was it done, and should we just ignore it?
Bernie may be right, but the way he is going about this is fucked. Just down vote haejin and stop with the bullshit posts and the collective punishment of his supporters. Just fucking do it and don't carry on about it. It's childish.
I haven't researched the 6%, but my opinion wouldn't be affected either way. It's not okay to rape 0.1% of the pool either, because if 60 people do it then it suddenly does become 6%.
I do agree that Bernie is really childish in this drama though. He should be flagged and followed by every whale to flag in the future if he doesn't stop the rape. The daily posts are no use to anyone.
Yeah, I think both sides of this argument lost the plot a while ago.