Scott Adams@Dilbert
The intricacies of the modern state are all concerned with capital. It is literally true that we have the best justice system money can buy. The death of capital is not only the end of states, it is the end of markets themselves.
H. vulgaris (despite extant naming conventions, I consider H. sapiens an inaccurate name, as we aren't that wise. We are quite common, so I feel H. vulgaris a far more appropriate name), however, is designed to market. It is an integral biological function for our species to transact in goods and services. Simply not being necessary isn't going to stop us from being human (and I mean that in every sense).
We're going to continue to transact, but the transactions will be increasingly limited to those goods automation cannot replace, and the ultimate good that is ours and ours alone to create, is content.
The content of our characters is that which is born of us, what makes us a person. Automation may emulate the products of people, but is not people. AI cannot make our thoughts for us, and if it ever does, then it will be the last thing automation does for us, because we will no longer be us afterwards.
Steemit is the new kind of market that is destined to replace states, capital markets, and western civilization itself, and it is the ultimate form of market - built of human interaction itself, the very feature that makes us human, the one thing automation cannot replace.
Steem may very well be the last currency on Earth, or more likely, by then, the last currency in the galaxy, because Steem is going there with us, if Steemit can survive. Remember, Steemit is still in beta, and there's a reason for that. The rampant financial manipulation of it's curation scheme is an ongoing sybil attack, and that design feature potentiates catastrophic destruction of it's rewards system.
The rampant concentration of capital via Steemit's rewards system is a relic of capitalism that threatens Steemit's ability to replace capitalism itself - but it does not preclude another platform from doing so, should Steemit fail.
Given the response to my discussions with witnesses, devs, and authors that have been willing to reply at all, I suspect that this is not a bug, but a design feature, and that Steemit will not fix it. Even so, Steemit might yet not fail because of it, as the community may find even the crumbs that aren't sucked out of the rewards pool by collusion adequate to drive growth and account retention.
Given the competitive nature of the industry, I find that scenario unlikely. I think it's far more likely that when substantive competition arises, Steemit will undertake to repair the damage.
It's the real world, and things are messy.
But this is not the ideal scenario for Steemit, or society. Rather than delaying (or even preventing) Steemit's functional replacement of states, taxes, thugs, and jobs with a new socioeconomic infrastructure, it is far more beneficial to every account on Steemit for Steemit to do so as rapidly as it can do it well.
This does not mean as rapidly as possible. In every situation where something grows as rapidly as possible, native restraints on it's growth, rather than rational management, assume control of it. We don't want such native constraints to determine Steemit's growth, or destruction. We want to avoid destruction, or even lesser outcomes. We want to optimize Steemit for success, and the benefits to it's community.
HF20 is designed to make massive onboarding of new accounts possible. It is intended to drive appreciation in the price of Steem through increasing the base driver of Steem's value, Steemit.
However, HF19 reduced the number of votes available to minnows by 400%, and posts have increased by 1000% while HF19 was being developed. This has created a constant refrain in comments that peoples VP is depleted, and they cannot vote. And, since they get only 10 votes a day, they aren't lying.
Steemit is a vote desert, particularly for new accounts lost in the noise of trending posts, and curators piling on, desperate to gain curation rewards, because posts get so few votes now.
Others just self vote, despite the censure of the community. This is essentially futile, as for accounts without substantial holdings of SP the rewards for self votes are insubstantial, and for the largest holders of SP, are replacing the vibrant community (necessary to grow Steemit into the future) with a steady income - as long as Steemit lasts.
Since investors in Steem stand to achieve capital gains when Steemit creates price appreciation in Steem by growing, and the rewards mechanism, particularly with such a reduced ratio of votes to posts, concentrating rewards in a handful of accounts directly removes the motivation to create content on the platform, this mechanism is a threat to their capital gains, in the long run.
If HF20 is implemented, even with Steemit in it's present disarray, there will be significant capital gains, even if Steemit fails in the process. Savvy investors will be counting on getting their Steem sold at the right point in the growth process. It takes 3 months to get it all out, so they have to time it right.
We'll soon see if Steemit is going to die as a pump and dump, or if it might outgrow these pains, and thrive. Whether it does or not the technology that made it possible isn't going away, and the transformative potential of Steemit will be expressed by other platforms like Steemit. Their functionality and consilience with the laws governing the physical world itself, will be determining factors as to their relative success.
These forces are unavoidable, and they will act on society in their myriad. By planning to take advantage of these developments, we can best position ourselves, and Steemit, to optimize it's success, and ours.
I really like this take on Steemit and think it is pretty darned accurate. You nicely expressed the fact that sooner or later the only real capital an individual will have is their creativity, a position I recognized many years ago watching the QRIO choreography. I realized with a creeping sense of dread at the time (2006!) that it was inevitable that all physical tasks will ultimately be abe to be performed by robotics and advanced automated systems. In viewing QRIO it was clear that even ballerinas will have to compete with robots and unlike humans, they won't forget the choreography or have to spend hours learning it. Upload and perform, 100% perfectly every time. Humans were already relegated to back-up dancers for a robot in 2010, the conditioning for the transition is well under way.
I think you are right that Steemit has amazing potential but there are still a number of kinks to work out. Either Steemit will work it out in time or another decentralized platform with more equitable distribution channels that cannot be easily manipulated will. The first thing that occurs to me in this regards is a system that somehow measures actual productive time invested in a project and distributes crypto accordingly with upvotes, replies etc. functioning as some sort of gratuity above and beyond the base reward. With Zuck's statement promoting a basic income for everybody - and the active suppression of links to Steemit on FB - it is not much of a leap to imagine FB trying something like that. Hello David Eggers' "The Circle"!
It's almost funny how UBI is being dangled like a carrot to keep us in the corral. The actuality of physics that guides science, and thus ultimately, development, doesn't pay much heed to political agendas. It doesn't either care if we ontologically fail to predict it's impact, although we should, because such failures ensnare even those that do understand in the idealogical tangles intended to preclude the post market economy.
The desperate censorship of independent media isn't going to magically make Steemit go away, nor deflect the impact of the dispersal of means of production. Time and engineering will have their say, even if they manage to muzzle Steemit and every byte on the net.
Given the existential threat Steemit is to Gargle, Fakebook, and Twatter, it's present failure to optimize the rewards mechanisms to promote content, and thus growth, is a godsend to those outfits, giving them time to adopt competitive mechanisms and potentially resist replacement - but only until Steemit gets it's issues sorted, or a platform that does arises.
A worst case scenario (for me) is the dataharvesters aforementioned using Reddcoin or summat to emulate Steemit's rewards mechanism enough to keep their primacy, and the propaganda and censorship that promises. Of course, that can only happen insofar as they improve dispersal of wealth nominal to stave off Steemit, and thus is progress towards the inevitable anyway.
As to recognizing value of creativity, I am quite in favor of bots that suggest items to curators. However, I am presently sure that people are the ultimate test of content, and that bots voting is just like AI thinking for us, although still indirect, rather than providing those thoughts which produce the votes.
Every dance on the bleeding edge washes out the dancers that prance over the edge, eventually leaving only those that but push the envelope to keep dancing.
Had to laugh at the monikers Gargle and Twatter which I hadn't heard before. Hilarious. And while censorship won't make things magically go away, it does slow progress and allow the robber baron monopolists to keep people working and living for the company store. And the longer that happens, the greater the danger of a regulatory structure being brought to bear that will legally exclude free choice alternatives. Currently the collusion between the state and corporations is at an historical all-time-high and I think that is a very real danger. Look at how China regulates things and their "social credit score" approach where conformity to the party line and informing on non-conformists provides benefits to the "user". Together with Zuck the Cuck's throwing of freedom of speech under the bus, it is closer in the west than I think many realize. Time will tell.
You are quite correct that TPTB are trying to keep the cattle in the corral, but, as I pointed out in my posts, it is a futile effort - eventually.
One of that last kings of France, Louis XIV IIRC, famously said "Apres moi, le deluge." Loosely translated 'After I am dead, the SHTF, and I won't care.' Boy, did the SHTF on Bastille Day, as outraged peasantry beheaded every official in sight (which is where the term 'terrorism' comes from. It was coined to differentiate the nascent French revolutionary government, because it was so markedly bloody, and used the terror of the people to utterly control public dialogue).
Of some note, the present disparity in wealth between the 1% and the 99% in America is higher than that in France when the Monarchy was overthrown.
It is this attempt to simply stave off any correction until after they have died that further exacerbates the problems - and justifies outrage. I believe that the forces of history (as compel technological development) will make the present disgrace that is government obsolete, absent any political action whatsoever.
However, rubbing salt into the bleeding wounds of the victims of the current political farce is pissing people off, and I think we'll be lucky if the revolution coming doesn't make the bloody violence of the French revolution pale in comparison.
I'm agin' such violence. Ain't a damn thing I can do to prevent it, except to try to show it isn't necessary. Unfortunately, people that have been victimized by oppressors so cynical as to say "Let them eat cake" are gonna be after more than victory.
They are gonna want vengeance.
I think this is going to delay victory, by forcing those 'masters of the universe' that might be willing to give up their privilege to face the fact that, no matter what they do, they're gonna face the same mob vengeance as the worst of them.
The run-up to the American and French revolutions are definitely paralleled by developments in today's body politic. The difference being that in the redux versions bubbling up today, the politicians (and corporate overlords) have all been revealed to be the stooges of the private central banksters.
A sufficient portion of the population has awoken to the fact that democracies are a complete farce because the monetary system is controlled by non-elected sociopaths, and where the money flows so does power. That is why, I believe, the more people find out about cryptos - and it is still less than 10% of the population - the better.
A crypto revolution looks like the only chance to avoid a bloody revolution. Centralized authority based on a monopoly of violence can never possibly succeed in the long term, humanity is not meant to live in servitude. It is only a question of time until the giant awakes and asks itself why it is wearing chains instead of holding hands with its loved ones.
I completely agree, and I believe Steemit has exactly the potential you describe. The state does more than simply create a funding mechanism, and conversations and means of executing agreements based on the decisions of the people discussing, are necessary, and Steemit can do both.
That is why securing Steemit from Sybil attacks is so important to me. As long as Steemit can be easily captured by TPTB, it is not capable of creating an alternative to extant government.
Big accounts, like @freedom, @dan, etc..., simply cannot compete with REAL money, which is not measured in $MMs, but $TTs. There are people, or cabals, that would not spend more than petty cash to buy every Steem in existence.
Since those people are the threat we need to counter, we can only do that by preventing their money from controlling our weapon. Since that revolution is inevitable - we will be freed from coercion eventually - a weapon capable of defeating TPTB will effect that revolution.
If it isn't Steemit, it will be something like Steemit, but secure against Sybil attacks.
Amazing post! Worth much more than my paltry minnow vote, haha!
There are some real gems mixed in the flood of posts! I have wondered if perhaps making posts should perhaps cost some kind of steem, perhaps taken out of the voting pool or maybe something separate to make sure that the guys posting every twenty minutes something along the lines of "if u follw me, i can vote you up 10x. send sbd. frnd me i follw u bak" kind of crap. Though I would hate for that cost to stifle high quality contributing posts or further limit upvotes for quality content.
Anyway, Loved the article, and I find steemit much preferred over other social media and mass blog sites because of posts like yours!
I'm glad I have been able to be of benefit.
Regarding 'F4F' and similar types of posts, I expect as new accounts mature, they will learn that this is not only useless in building communities here on Steemit, which is different than other social media which measure the value of one's account by the number of followers, regardless of their actual engagement, or go away.
I'd rather not make posting harder permanently to solve what I think is a temporary problem that will solve itself.
Thanks for giving this issue thought!
It's posts like this, and the comments that come from it that make Steemit different, IMO.
I'm also glad that there seem to be more and more people willing to stand up and make the point that the community has to become more proactive and forward looking because you can't upvote yourself into infinity.
I hope TPTB at Steemit heed these warnings.
I like how steemit is self regulating in a way. And yes there are quirks but the important thing is that creativity is rewarded and I think we are on the right track.
Me too. I like Steemit. I would like to see it grow and enable many communities to take it where it enables them to go.