Introduction

Whenever we’re reading, we’re allowing someone to put words in our consciousness. We’re suspending our own thoughts to let someone else generate words that goes in our mind and influence or inspire us.

We’re focusing all of our attention on that part of the universe to the exclusion of the rest. That’s quite a statement coming from the reader as well as the writer. People strive for what’s best and I make sure to keep this in mind when I’m writing.

Inspiring others and letting others inspire us is at the very heart of who we are. Everything we do has an impact, let it be a positive one.

Listened to this article on Youtube or ttsreader.

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For the last 8 years

I’ve been reading (using text-to-speech) through more than 95,000 pages of text or the equivalent of 74 bibles. (Disclaimer I’m not a Christian.) This is a rough estimate but it’s in the thousands of hours of listening. At some point I was reading /listening through more than 300 web articles a week.

I’ve also listened to more than 4000 hours of informative video, audiobooks and standup comedy. For the last couple of years I’ve been trying to reunite all of this in the most useful and revolutionary data bank/educational tool ever created.

This data bank contain more than 74,000 bookmarks and 2000 hours of video and audiobooks. The very best are rated in different categories. I’m pretty sure it will change the face of education if I ever get to publish it.

This is one of the reasons I have been absent from posting on Steem in the last weeks. Hopefully, my Steem projects and education project will meet in the future. I’m working on it. In the meantime everything I’ve read and listened too will be of great help for the Steemit community.

I’ve also been training a lot and I’ve finished 14th in Montreal half-marathon this past Sunday. There was more than 20,000 participants. (Results)

Jake Kotze

Money Creation

Let’s talk about the current monetary system and why it is one of the most fundamental challenge humanity has to face. The reasons why we need to face this challenge and why I’m sharing this in the introduction of this book will become clearer as we go along. The quote below, from Maurice Allais the 1988 winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, is a pretty good start to realizing the importance of who creates money.

"All money creation must be the prerogative of the state and the state alone: Any money creation other than that of the basic state-created currency should be prohibited in a way that eliminates the so-called 'rights' that have arisen around private bank creation of money.

In essence, the ex nihilo money creation practiced by the private banks is similar -- I do not hesitate to say this because it is important that people understand what is at stake here -- to the manufacture of currency by counterfeiters, who are justly punished by law. In practice both lead to the same result. The only difference is that those who benefit are not the same."

There lays a lot of humanity’s woes. Not many people realize money is created out of thin air by “private” entities for the benefits of their own and to the detriment of everyone else. To clarify, if Mr. Allais was alive today I bet he would be in favor of cryptocurrencies even though the quote above might seem to point otherwise at first. Cryptocurrencies didn’t exist in his time and the best alternative to private money creation was money created by states.

Oxfam

“The combined wealth of the richest 1 percent will overtake that of the other 99 percent of people next year unless the current trend of rising inequality is checked, Oxfam warned today ahead of the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos.” (2015)

I couldn't make this up if I wanted to and it keeps getting worst. The wealth is concentrating at the top of the pyramid at an accelerating pace. The phenomenon is called wealth concentration. There’s no way around these problems. We must face the money creation challenge we have before us.

(Source unknown, not Josiah Stamp as stated above)

Right now, I estimate, most Steem Power is own by people in the know about the current monetary system. I see this as crucially beneficial for the platform but also for humanity at large. I saw some people being rewarded handsomely for speaking the truth about the current monetary system. This is a very positive thing.

Let’s imagine if most of the Steem Power was held by the people who benefit from the current fiat monetary system. They would surely use Steem to spread disinformation in an effort to obscure the fact that they are benefiting from the current system and this to the detriment of everyone else but they would also spread disinformation regarding cryptocurrencies in an attempt to negatively influence their adoption.

They would also reward people who engage in such misinformation and disinformation. We need to prevent this from happening and do our best to let people know about the absurd system we live under.

It is with this in mind and the wellbeing of everyone at heart that I will do my best to inform people about money creation and the advantages and disadvantages cryptocurrencies like Steem and Bitcoin have over other form of money creation as well as how to benefit from them.

1,000$ of Bitcoin in January 2011 is now worth more than 1,000,000$

You read that right, 1 thousand to 1 million and I’ve quintuple checked that information. This price rise is the subject of an upcoming chapter. I will also share some reasons why will the market cap of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies will most probably continue to go up and thus why people should invest. In an another chapter I will explore the economics of Steem, why Steem prices could perform like Bitcoin did from 2011 to 2016 or even better and ponder on what would be the implications. I also plan on writing more thoroughly on money creation as well as my life in general.

I try to be the best version of myself. I’m not the best writer but I love writing so I plan on taking some basic writing courses in coming weeks as well as asking for someone to help with future editing and writing.

Everything we do has an impact and for me writing on Steem is one of the most impactful thing I do in my day to day life. This is one reason why I cherish writing and Steem so heartily and hold them both in such high esteem.

In the end we’re a group of individual trying to inspire and influence one another. If we aren’t inspiring one another then we remain isolated and the challenges we face as a group seem insurmountable. Steem and cryptocurrencies are uniting and inspire us in a more enjoyable future so it seems.

I don’t have the ultimate solution to anything. I don’t think there is such a thing. Reality is something in progress which is ever changing but I’m opposed to the wealth being concentrated into the hands of an ever diminishing group of people to the detriment of everyone else and hopefully I’m not the only one here.

Jake Kotze

My book’s goals

With my book and actions I aimed at helping those who can have the biggest impact on making this world a better place and hopefully create a virtuous cycle of such people. I want to help everyone and doing so involve having the biggest positive impact possible. There’s no lack of people in need.

To learn more about Steem and how cryptocurrencies can help achieving these goals I feel like there isn’t any better place to start than listening to this quote from Dan Larimer inventor of the technology powering Steem. This quote date from 2014, long before Steem even existed. I know I shared this quote a couple of times before but I felt like sharing it in the introduction of my book. I also wish to share this post from Dan which is also one of the best read to learn about who he is and some of the reasons why he created Steem.

I’ve been waiting for a blockchain based social network since mid-2011 when I first learn about Bitcoin and its basic’s functioning. I didn’t knew how much technological advancement would be needed or how revolutionary this platform would be but I always felt a censor less platform was a prerequisite to a better world. Information dissemination and money creation are central to our society and Steem combine both in a truly revolutionary way.

Steem our love story is just beginning

No matter what happen to Steem and other cryptocurrencies I’m taking a stand for a new system that will replace the unfair one we are currently under.

Like a lot of us here I want to leave my unfulfilling day job to work on Steem full time. This has been so from the very beginning of me learning about Steem in early May. I’ve now read more than 1500 Steem articles or 10 per day.

My witness

If you love what I did so far for the Steem community and want to help me achieve even more please consider voting for my witness. It only take 10 seconds top. Head here, type teamsteem at the bottom of the page and then click vote.

I set it up 1 month ago and this is the first time I ever announce it in a post. I didn’t want to post something without much substance that didn't represented me well and needed time to recenter, that’s one of the reason I didn't post about it earlier.

Future Project

From now on, no more video post unless I become better at them. I’ll be working on it. If I ever feel like posting video or something more unusual, then I'll post from another account.

Next week I hope to begin daily post with the best of everything I saw on the web that day. I surf so many websites every day and there’s so many good stuff I see that I feel like it’s going to be a winner. I’ll post this project from another account. I’ll also contact the people of which I shared their content and let them know about Steemit. I won’t violate any copyright and posting their content will be mutually beneficial.
I’ll also look at inviting all the great content creators I’ve come to learn in the last couple of years.

I’m not on Steem to gain influence and wealth for the sake of it but these are only tools for some more meaningful goals.

Thank you!

Thanks to @someguy123 for helping me with some initial problems setting up my witness. I’m very grateful to him. He’s also a witness. Take a look at his blog. He has done a lot of great work for Steem and his blog is a good place to learn about what witness do and why they're important. My price feed is adjusted and pegged at -10% as per @dan's guidelines.

I would also love to thank everyone who supported me so far. I would love to thank all of those who answered my barrage of question on the slack chat in the early days of Steem. I always felt welcomed and it is one of the reason I’m still here.

There’s so many other things I’ve learn through all of this frantic consumption of media I’ve been doing for the past years that I can’t wait to share. In the next chapter I plan on sharing more about me, joy, how I see the world and how indescribably beautiful it is.

Translation and book cover

If there is anyone interested in translating my book please contact me on the Steemit chat. I’m also looking for someone who would be interested to make me a book cover. I plan on publishing at least one chapter every week here on Steem.

I wish my texts were like a good song instantly enticing people to move in perfect harmony as well as learning and singing its lyrics from the very beginning, in the purest expression of joy. To compensate for it here is the song I’ve been listening to the most in the last couple of weeks. I find it very fitting.

• Put my money where my mouth is
• And laid my cards
• I'mma go out fighting
• And leave my scars
• I don't know about tomorrow
• But I know I've got heart

End note

Small text about life from Michael Josephson. (Text, Audio 2min)

• Ready or not, some day it will all come to an end.
• There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours or days. All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten will pass to someone else.
• Your wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance. It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed.
• Your grudges, resentments, frustrations and jealousies will finally disappear. So too, your hopes, ambitions, plans and to do lists will expire.

The rest is here. It has a positive twist and powerful lesson. The audio form is narrated by a human and is very beautiful. (Text, Audio)

Other post from me

• Best paid and beautiful post I've written
• Most useful post I've written (about Steem)

(I own the copyright to this first picture)