My first ever post on Steemit was back in mid-June 2016.

It was sometime during the early stages of Ethereum's DAO hack incident. Came in here as a total stranger, and started writing about my thoughts about cryptocurrencies. Up to this day, I've covered just about everything from science, steemit, community-building, philosophy, music, guides, and creative-writing.

Plus, I've made plenty of genuine and helpful friends around here.

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Time for some re-introduction.

In good faith for all the hearty support that I've been getting in the network since I've joined, I wish to shed a little more light on my past, and what I'm working towards building. All in hopes of gaining better trust and my relevance as part of the rather late early-adopter crowd. I'm from an Electrical and Computing Systems background, but have largely not used that certification in my lifetime.

Those around here who know me well probably have already heard about my problems with the 9 to 5 regime. I've tried plenty of gigs. Here's a pretty good list of what I've been hustling around throughout the years:-

• Intern developer for children's games in Inspidea Animation.
• Intern developer for inventory systems in Texas Instruments.
• Free-form / Interpretive dance mentor (realised I suck at teaching here).
• Chlorophyll-based supplement branding & marketing for Juara.
• Fault analysis engineer in Freescale Semiconductors.
• Market analyst and product designer for Victor Company of Japan.
• Sales engineer for indoor transportation systems (Sigma / Otis).
• Sales manager for industrial hoisting equipment (ABUS).
• Disc Jockey. Curator. Party planner.
• Gigolo (joking).

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Why have I been trying out different things?

I've always been troubled, like there's a splinter lodged in my mind. I feel like there's a huge disparity between our collective aspirations and the way society is actually running. Our ways of living are so steeped in contradictions.

Image by Eric Drooker

And I know well enough that focused, tunnel visions will advance particular causes in great magnitudes. Flow is key. But what if personal competency doesn't match the rather difficult challenges ahead? There wasn't any choice. I had to diversify and experience as much as possible. But that doesn't do any good for securing livelihood in a world that's built around the stable, safety-nets of specialisation.

Perhaps what's happening right now is the cost of an overly-optimised, efficient economy. One that's rather parallel across all industries, but trapped within their own respective tunnel visions. Maybe a good thing, considering cost performance have improved dramatically. But perhaps long overdue. Simply put:-

• If I can feel the everyday grind, despite being in relatively cushy jobs, imagine what it's like for others?
• Have we, as a species, really made progress away from specialisation, country silos, and rent-seekers?
• Why are we still doing the same things that our ancestors are doing? What have they been toiling for?

Even the CEO of my previous company said I sounded like I'm from Generation-Y. Whatever that means. I guess it's entirely different if you're grinding for passion, working on projects that you think are meaningful. Truth is, most jobs out there do not give any real feedback that you're making the world a better place. Even worse, there's a total disconnect.

But that's not the case for everyone. I can also relate to being a researcher / creator / artisan / performer. Nothing beats being one with my craft, doing my own thing regardless of what's happening out there. However, it's no secret that the world's resources are shared. We're all living on a common heritage, and planet Earth is the biggest social platform out there. Projects are where we come together to achieve common goals. For self-actualisation.

And to build civilisation. Are we there yet?

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Figuring out (my) life's biggest problems.

Projects that affect positive changes are usually sealed off. The barrier to entry is too great - voluntarism is required, but we all have bills to pay, and fantasies to play out. We want, and we need. The world is simply not going to be better if everyone's too busy trying to make ends meet. But at the same time, we are conflicted to the core - we just want to be free, and do whatever the hell we want! Or at least, that's what I want.

Learning to grow one's own food is the first step, but I digress..

Using a cloudy set of first-principles, life's biggest problems are the following:-

• Scarcity.
• Violence.
• Deception.
• Winner-takes-all effect.
• Heavy centralisation of authority.
• Free-market with heavy search costs.
• Walled-off, institutionalised organisations.
• Work, learn, and play are mostly segregated.
• Rent-seekers (royalty, lineage, defaulted authority).

Using a condensed set of first-principles, without losing too much clarity, life's biggest problems are the following:-

• Inefficient free-market.
• Money (or slavery).
• Psychopathy.
• Uncertainty.

When I'd figured out what I'm dealing with, that was when I started my baby steps towards being part of the solution. The unfortunate thing is, like anyone else, I couldn't expect an overnight transformation. And I'm just one person. What kept me going - I bet there are many others, in their closet or not. And maybe there's some way to conveniently connect, someday - what better way, if not through some social network, in which we use to communicate on a daily basis?

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Preparing to solve (my) life's biggest problems.

I was so bored of dayjobs. And boredom led me into considering a course: Design-Thinking. It was some kind of Silicon Valley / Google-type methodology for effective innovation of products and services. Attracted me all because it's somewhat affiliated with Stanford and Singularity University. By the end of the rather special 9-weeks course, I played with the idea of solving my life's biggest problems (although the best way to solve it is a one-way ticket to Jupiter lol).

Image picked from the Internet - here

But first, I needed to prepare. I went on an erudition phase. Like @infovore, I devoured all kinds of information, selective to what I want to achieve. I was prepared just to pick out valuable insights, regardless of ideologies. Here are the materials which stood out:-

• Information and Influence Propagation in Social Networks by Wei Chen, Laks V.S. Lakshmanan, and Carlos Castillo.
• The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nicholas Nassim Taleb.
• Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder by Nicholas Nassim Taleb.
• Bold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth, and Impact the World by Peter Diamandis.
• Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel, and Blake Masters.
• Walden & Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau.
• Mark Passio Lectures.
• Foundation Series by Isaac Asimov.
• Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson.
• Monster Hunter International by Larry Correia.
• The Stranger by Albert Camus.
• Valve Corporation's Employee Handbook.
• The Century of the Self by Adam Curtis.
• The Venus Project - Beyond Politics, Poverty, and War by Jacque Fresco.
• The Art of Thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli - ironically, it's 380 pages long.
• Blockchain Revolution by Don & Alex Tapscott - this is much, much later, but included here as part of this blog entry.

With that, I spent a year synthesising all the information I've attained through the many notes I've made. It wasn't a very pleasant time as I couldn't focus on my dayjob. My mind was already elsewhere, and there wasn't any way I could make money out of doing what I was doing on my free time. So I held on to a job that I could no longer relate to.

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Solving (my) life's biggest problems.

So I went through a heavy design-thinking phase - always prototyping concepts, getting feedbacks, and reiterating to arrive at better versions. Cobbling up a massive amount of information and trying to make sense of things, I'd figured that the workplace needs to be innovated, updated. I came up with a series of presentations about designing the future, trying to appeal to the interests of everybody.

The first step: redefine system processes - it should be humanised, not mechanised (not in the sense that we should avoid enhancements by artificial intelligence and automatons). The three key aspects of humanisation are: Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose.

These considerations should be intrinsic in any next-gen social platform. Motivation and incentive make up a smooth-riding bicycle that everyone wants to ride on.

Without elaborating too much, I'd failed a number of times trying to secure funds from venture capitalists to crystallise the platform I had in mind. But there's no one to blame, only me. I failed for a good reason. I had the shape of an organisation planned out, but not its intricate details. Not entirely convincing. I did not even have enough experience running an organisation.

I did not go broke with my attempt, but I'd spent a great amount of time going around in circles, failing a few initiatives. When I was about to give up, settling for a life of 9-5, and maybe just write stuff on Medium.. I could not access the website due to my local government's disapproval. And that was when I found Steemit!

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Steemit & Curie - a serendipity.

It wasn't an instant epiphany. It was after spending time on Steemit and some backward rationalisation that I thought, maybe there's a way to use this platform for what I'm trying to achieve. But still, I'm just one man - without any real world status, leadership, and skills dealing with people - pretty much a nobody, except various work experience. But that's okay. It didn't stop me from reaching out to some of the top influencers of Steemit.

It's a good thing that everyone seems so genuine. And here I am, an operator in Curie, curating content and experiencing the rest of the community. A great first step towards building what I have in mind along with the other good folks of the community. I'd first hastily outlined in this article - Surfing the Singularity with Steemit. To cut to the chase, take a look at this organisational chart and see if things are starting to make sense:-

To add to that, today @paxmagus posted up something rather important to add to the mix - the blockchain conversion prism. Personally, I think this will be the reference point in which Steemit could play a major role in unifying on several fronts - blockchain, and offchain:-

All said, Curie is still a work-in-progress, and only halfway near what I (or we) have in mind. Please note that my thoughts here do not represent the other Curie members and benefactors. Personally (and I hope the others as well), Steemit, Curie, and other initiatives represent a few possible solutions:-

• Free, on-demand freelance platform.
• Problem-solving platform.
• Mutual-aid platform.
• Crowdfunding platform.
• Crowdsourcing platform.
• Community-building platform.
• Learning platform.
• Trading platform.
• Optional basic income platform.

And that all really means a true social platform.

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Carving out the future.

I'm just going to keep curating, and creating content on this platform. I wish I know what I should gear myself towards. The thing with Steemit now - we need to solve internal problems, promote community-building, and retain good honest accounts until platform maturity.

I should emphasise this: I think Curie (or any other manual curation / cognitive mining groups) are necessary to go through contents, comprehending them, and sometimes reaching out. More often than not, rather important posts are left unchecked in the wild. The best that we can do is to help others connect the dots. Diligent curators that actively screen the playing field would know better than casual curators.

Also, the winner-takes-all effect can be mitigated, once the winners themselves find value in contributing to curation works and other community initiatives. You will find this to be indicated as X in my organisational chart earlier. This is what Google calls moonshot, indicative of Google X. It could also be likened as social moonshots (if we're framing it to solve the winner-takes-all-effect). And it could represent celebrities and winners - which in Steemit's case, could mean accounts which are usually auto-upvoted (by bots, or by mere habit of support given to the same personalities).

My current and next initiatives include the following:-

• Applying Design-Thinking methodologies in creating low-barrier multi-skilled contests, workshops, and tutorials for public participation. This will generate ambassadors, generalists, and promote social awareness. I'm still looking out for more thinktankers. Please reach out on Steemit.chat if you're interested!
• Bringing other initiatives together, laying out the organisational structures that makes cross-disciplinary pollination and knowledge sharing much quicker, effectively reducing the search cost function.
• A plethora of write-ups for diversity, blockchain-related articles for the layman, and "unbiased" analysis pieces for Steemit and Curie for market speculators, outreach, and external media outlets.
• Developing an on-demand gig platform to augment Steemit.

I wish this post served its purpose - to shed more light to what I'm doing, thinking, and to gain more of your trust and support. Please check out my previous posts to get some insight into my thoughts. I know I'm quite full of myself sometimes, but I certainly put time and effort into expressing myself, for myself, and for the community. Now I have a few pounds to lose - I've been neglecting exercise for a good few months now! Thanks for reading.

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First image source - modified with base image here.

Final image source - here

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