Most of my friends are likeminded individuals with similar values with respect to society as I do: we believe in protecting the environment, health care for all, free education, a minimum wage, and other aspects of governance looked at as a form of socialism. While most of my friends and I were not pro-Hillary, we were very anti-Trump, and because of the confirming opinions of those we talked to, thought it was nearly pre-determined that last November's presidential election would result in Hillary Clinton as president. We ignored our own echo chamber and never considered the opinions of many outside it.

Everyone on steem thinks Dan Larimer is a visionary, while many off it seem to think the exact opposite.

Examples:

Tone Vays particularly has been extremely outspoken against Steem. While some of his criticisms are unfounded and outdated (i.e. censorship and inflation issues), he raises many concerns about the initial month of mining and how large a stake the founders built before switching to witnesses.

Bitshares is older than steem, and many people view that as a scammy as well because of connections to Banx and the dev team working on new projects while bitshares platforms remained undeveloped. The infomerical-like presentation by Stan Larimer given a month ago (I can no longer find it on youtube, it was originally linked in this post) where he sounded more like a snake-oil salesman -- telling everyone in the crowd they could be millionaires if they owned bitshares -- than someone describing blockchain technology didn't help.

Now that EOS is being released, crypto people are not just throwing shade at Dan, but at EOS:

This blog isn't about discussing the merits and faults of the anti-Steem, anti-Bitshares, anti-EOS arguments, but it's about recognizing the echo chamber, and trying to avoid confirmation bias.

A blog post I read a while back on lesswrong discussed how politics is a mind-killer:

Politics is an extension of war by other means. Arguments are soldiers. Once you know which side you're on, you must support all arguments of that side, and attack all arguments that appear to favor the enemy side; otherwise it's like stabbing your soldiers in the back—providing aid and comfort to the enemy.

People who blog on steemit are generally pro steemit: we use the platform, understand how it works, invest time and energy into writing posts, and are rewarded for it. But being pro steemit leads to de facto being pro Dan Larimer and all other related projects because being against one of them is being against all of them: we are steemit's soldiers and we must defend it and related projects.

I remember when bitshares price rose suddenly from $0.06 USD to over $0.40 USD over the course of a couple days and there were many rejoicing blogposts of users basically writing "I told you so". I was curious as to why the price increased so rapidly: the HERO was announced over a month before and there was no new news, just a sudden increase in price for seemingly no reason. I speculated it was because of high lending rates, and while there was indeed a come down once the lending rates dropped, the entire crypto market shifted downwards as well, so my hypothesis was likely not the primary source of the uptick.

The best explanation I can come up with as to why bitshares rose from under a penny to over $0.40 a coin in such a short period of time is the echo chamber: people on steem, in the bitshares community, and in small crypto circles buying more because likeminded people tout it. The technology is undoubtedly fantastic, but that doesn't explain growth like this in a 3-year old coin over the course of 5 weeks:

The Meta Echo Chamber

Echo chambers, particularly ones with a reward system, can lead to a positive feedback loop.

During the YourBTCC polls determining what coin would be featured on their exchanges, there were many pro-steem blogs, urging people to vote.

Before I go further, I want to say how obviously passionate @Ehiboss is about steemit: he has posted more in 2 months here than I've posted in a year, and his enthusiasm is present in every post. I don't mean to call him out because I admire the genuine passion, but I want to look at this exchange I had with him without the benefit of hindsight on one of his steem cheerleading blogs:

Ehiboss joined the platform in April and at the time I remember him at the time having <30 steem in his account. I don't mean to disparage him for his lack of investment at the time, but he was so new here and so uninvested in it, was he actually steem all the way? Did he feel that passionately, or did he just think other people felt that passionately? Did he post stuff like that because he thought it's what other people want to hear? Or because he thinks it's what other people think he should think? Or did he simply post it because it would be rewarded?

Likewise, there have been many pro-EOS posts claiming bold things about its future and potential. Sure people writing blogs might think extremely highly of EOS potential, but pro-EOS posts are rewarded on this platform. Extreme pro-EOS posters may like the project, but post over the top complements because they think that's what their followers think, or they think that's what their followers want to hear and will reward with upvotes, or that they think this is what other people think they think about EOS.

It reminds me of the Keynesian Beauty Contest:

Keynes described the action of rational agents in a market using an analogy based on a fictional newspaper contest, in which entrants are asked to choose the six most attractive faces from a hundred photographs. Those who picked the most popular faces are then eligible for a prize.
A naive strategy would be to choose the face that, in the opinion of the entrant, is the most handsome. A more sophisticated contest entrant, wishing to maximize the chances of winning a prize, would think about what the majority perception of attractive is, and then make a selection based on some inference from his knowledge of public perceptions. This can be carried one step further to take into account the fact that other entrants would each have their own opinion of what public perceptions are. Thus the strategy can be extended to the next order and the next and so on, at each level attempting to predict the eventual outcome of the process based on the reasoning of other rational agents.

The meta echo chamber continues to spiral upwards into a frenzy, shaping markets, and providing positive reinforcement for the initial frenzy. Guided groupthink is powerful in markets, and we can be rewarded for it by rising investments, but it may not necessarily be a reflection of what is happening in the real world and the true valuation of things.

I want to reiterate that this blog is not taking a negative position on Dan Larimer or his projects.

I admire Dan, love and use steem, own bitshares, and will probably invest in the EOS at some point in the year long ICO. I am merely pointing out that people outside of this platform feel very differently, and this polarization only grows over time, and that we should all be very wary of it, not just here, but in all aspects of life. Again, why do you think Trump is president and his base continues to support him while his opposition grows more intense daily?

Good rules to live by:

• Don't tell people what you think they want to hear.
• Don't tell people what you think they think you think.
• Be straightforward, rational, and say what you actually think.

I want to close with a Charlie Munger quote that I find particularly vital in avoiding echo chambers and the resulting effects:

“I never allow myself to have an opinion on anything that I don't know the other side's argument better than they do.”

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My name is Ryan Daut and I'd love to have you as a follower. Click here to go to my page, then click in the upper right corner if you would like to see my blogs and articles regularly.

I am a professional gambler, and my interests include poker, fantasy sports, football, basketball, MMA, health and fitness, rock climbing, mathematics, astrophysics, cryptocurrency, and computer gaming.