Community and Vision: going forward

in #community6 years ago (edited)


I'm going to put this out in Steemitland because it has been troubling me greatly as of late. I'm sure what I will say might not penetrate. Maybe it will be misunderstood or will just be scoffed at. I say this not to be a nay-sayer or grumbler, but to nudge people into thinking about where we are going as a community and why.

How do we, as a community, focus on what is truly important and what is a distraction from the goal?


I feel it's important to analyze what we value as a group, to discover if there is any consensus. Are we actually moving towards new goals and new thinking about how society should work, or merely recreating a slightly different world based on the fad of blockchain and the same values? Or are we merely a tangent of culture, a burst of economic creativity that is doomed to fall into stagnation?



When I first came to Steemit and Discord nine months ago (you can think of this as an anti milestone post), I was lost and disgusted with the culture I live in. The emphasis on wealth, fame, power and social preconceptions of success were antithetic to my beliefs and still are.

I was delighted to find some like minded people here in Steemitland and Discord who actually understood how I felt about the stale conundrum of deceitful politics and capitalism. But lately I've come to believe that while Steemians are playing with new designs for our economy and political system, our core values - the desire for wealth, fame and power -are still ingrained in our psyche, and we appear as the pompous fat old emperor in his new shiny see-through clothing.



For example, the power of whales in my mind is akin to the rich five percent controlling the wealth. Yes there are some good whales who are creative, generous and motivated working for good, but there are others who just seem like they're here for the money, with a struggle for power showing as flagging and down-voting.

Who gets to say how the platform works?


Are we libertarian where anything goes? Is porn ok, is gaming the system as equally valid as buying votes? Or do we hold ethical values where shit posting, plagiarism and multi accounts are unacceptable? Are they unacceptable for everyone, or do we let dolphins and whales slide because we need their money? This is a slippery slope of double standards which creates mistrust at the most basic level.

Don't get me wrong, I am just a silly egg thinking big thoughts. I am not here to call out anyone for any misdeeds. I am merely trying to start a conversation about our destination. Steemit seems like a moving vehicle dream, with too many drivers and no way to change course. It's even possible that Steemit is a prokaryote, a single cell thats about to replicate. But are we bacteria or archaea? Are we a disease or a cure?



Some people enter Steemit in order to work at a lazy mans get rich quick schemes - phishing, scamming, multi-account abuse, plagiarism, bidbot abuse - and value this path over creating good content and working towards creating an integrated community. The popularity of memes, steepshot, betting, shit-posting and other ways to get a huge upvote for next to little effort seem to be the path people follow. A quick in and out with no commitment, because maybe having lived in the real world for so long, they have no trust in the politics and generosity of a new country that could fall apart at any time.

I hear "good"people - those who seem to value love over greed - talking lambos and private islands. I see musicians promoting music and artists promoting art, writers voting writers.. Wonderful!

But what about the common man?


The people with dubious talent who speak a second language? Basically if you can't write well and have no talent for the arts, no burning interests which garner a following, and suck at social networking, you arent going to do all that well in this platform.



Maybe I'm jaded but I see this almost like perks of birth. If you were lucky enough to be well educated or have family and friends who encouraged your talents, advance to GO, collect $200. If you have no social skills, an emotional condition or mental impediment which affects your ability to focus or network successfully, pay a poor tax of 15 percent.

How do we end the game?


Currently I help out in a server which believes in upholding quality standards in posts. I help mute people from third world countries who lack reading and writing skills, yet I see whales shit post and make $100. What kind of message is this? How is this a good example to the community? In a culture where kids are brought up text messaging, and points are given for creating funny memes, writing and verbal communication have become a lost art.



How do we get people to care?


How do we get them to think beyond the rap video which shows success as fast cars, mansions, sexy women in bars with diamonds and wads of cash? How can we change that vision to one where people again value family, a piece of land and sustainable farming, or an integrated community that can give generously to the underpriveleged and show love freely without getting hung up on their social position, status, or dreams of the lambo life?

All of these questions are somewhat rhetorical, but I think that any chance of moving forward into a world that is different than the one we have must involve a discussion on how we change our core values of greed, power and privilege to those of love, trust, community and commitment. I believe the key is communication.

What are your thoughts?



all photos are courtesy of pixabay CCO images

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Girl I'm right there with you, I would have written something very like minded just not as intelligent as you, well said my darling puppers

ty love! :)

These are humanities questions. Where I have landed so far is this: we continuously make the same mistakes in history (chop off the kings head and burn the playing field back to even, only to repeat the same problems by building an almost identical hierarchy. Rinse and repeat. Its what we are good at! The only optimism I have as far as working out some kinks is that the time table from rinse to repeat is not 2k years like ancient civilizations, or 200 like the US but 2 year. So people are witnessing the whole process, not hearing stories from grandparents and doctored history books. Now we can start to see the cycle in its entirety, and like any good therapist will tell you, recognizing the pattern is the only way to change it. Keep digging, we need to be constantly discussing and being fluid in how we adapt (a small project that made me smile was @dustsweeper.) people are just quick on their feet to keep things balanced and that is going to make all the difference in our possible change :) Great post !

agree, I feel we need to think about that - do we create the same hierarchy and repeat the same mistake? we all know that power and money corrupt, and while we have created a system around rewarding good content, we still seem to focus our gaze on the same players. we need to widen our gaze.

My goal on this platform is not only to post things that I think are beneficial to others, but to try and drowned out the bad with the good. I cannot change the trending page on my own, but I can... through different initiatives, try to help lift that good content. I don’t believe that only artisits and musicians make good content, there are many amazing content creators who are neither of these. What I will say is that I will not vote for crap content just because I feel bad for the person or they seem nice, to me that just seems silly. I try to upvote things I like at 100% to show those authors that I really truly did enjoy it. My vote isn’t huge, but I’m trying... and if I upvoted your post, I reall read it, enjoyed it, and thought it added something positive to the platform.

I think the fact that whales and others are buying votes and upvoting themselves is just a shame, but there’s nothing I can do about that if I believe in a free system, which I do. They are allowed to do what they want, just as I am.

There are quite a few people who agree with both of us, it just seems like we can’t do anything about it alone. Joining forces though, we can. Making initiatives to help drowned out the bad and do things right to me is the way we solve it. Also, not to fall into those traps of doing these things we don’t like, well because everyone else it. But hey, I’m a bit of a purest here... not sure if it’s the smartest thing for my success on the platform, but it’s good for my moral compass anyways.

Great article, hopefully you get quite the discussion going ❤️

thank you for giving me some food for thought! joining forces is indeed what I envision, and also thinking about how to engage community at a wider level, not just the same people, but common people who are shy or modest but just might have something to say.

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There certainly are double standards here. I'm not sure I have the energy to do a detailed reply RN, tbh.

What I will say is I think that everyone is correct. Those who are purists, those who specifically come here to earn easily, those he are here for a creative or social outlook, investors, business people who approach bidbots as marketing for themselves, witnessing, curating, networking, content creation. At the same time, it's very much like the face to face world in the struggle, or ease, for success. It's the great microcosm conundrum. Not quite as free market utopian as people would like to think, yet free-er than all the real world restrictions.

It's a shame of all the double standards, but I think as long as people are true to themselves, they are doing the correct thing. Others will not agree with them. Sometimes often, sometimes less. I appreciate you raising these concerns and thoughts. I respect your opinion very much, as well as the opportunity to be part of the discussion with you and these other lovely people. And btw, you're not told often enough how appreciated or irreplaceable you are. Love u much!

Great thoughts. I think often about how non-English-speaking people are so disadvantaged on this platform. It's awful.

Sometimes I think that greedy whales and shitposters are just two sides of the same coin. The greed here seems to me like an unfortunate flow-on effect of the state of money out in the world. There's a lack mentality, either because people are scrabbling to get the basics, or because they live in expensive western countries and need to set themselves up, plus they still feel empty no matter how much they get. Plus they expect a return on their investment, which often seems to make people think very abstractly and thinly.

I don't mean to sound like a wet blanket. I think the communities are the beating heart of Steemit and will keep it going :)

the key is mindfulness and compassion. sometimes a heavy order...

hug! peace my friend!

These are all good questions, even if they're indeed rhetorical. This platform is ruled by whales and sharks with high SP, and if you follow the money you'll see that most of them self-upvote, upvote their allies and friends or they simply don't care about posting and upvoting, so they delegate to bots.

In the same time we have people with no social media skills, no fiat for investment and no education trying to make a buck, which is a plague... although in a way it's hilarious and you could make an account just to quote their comments, which would be a lot of fun!

But then you have to go around the back and understand they all came here lured by the promise of easy money. They didn't come here to found a new blockchain society or in search of enlightenment... which is basically the same motivation, that whales of today had 2 years ago!

Most of them joined, cause it looked like a good investment and NOTHING ELSE and they weren't wrong, cause it paid off big time!

Now if you wanna change basic human constitution, which is a very mixed bag, but greed is a big part of it, you can definitely try by fighting, educating, promoting initiatives, concepts blah blah blah... but eventually it's like shoving shit against the tide!

In the end of the day Steemit is a perfect mirror of a society, that decided to decentralise itself. And what happened? The same shit that always happens when power is left for grabs! It got swayed by struggles to get it, consolidate it and enforce it.

I'm afraid that there two ways to change it and they're both elusive. You either hard fork the blockchain to centralise it in hands of the few, which is back to square one basically... or you reprogram human DNA :)

hmmm possibly but i dont accept either of those choices. we have the capability to think, to communicate, to be aware and to consciously choose another path. one of non-violence, generosity, compassion and love. this doesnt mean we do hand outs. it just means that we self monitor ourselves and make better choices. we analyse where we shop and what foods we buy, and we can look at where we allocate our SP, how we vote and why.

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well poop.

I see the issues you discuss as I curate daily. I agree that Steemit has its hierarchy where anything goes if you have the proper clout. I'm nobody to listen to, but in my own corner I read and upvote content that speaks to me, I don't use upvote or bid bots personally and I try to post real content, or not at all. I wish everyone would engage more and I see many undervalued posts when this is what steemit needs to remain viable.

The difficulty for newbies gaining steem and navigating the platform continues to be a detriment and slows our growth. This tends to make newcomers head to steepshot. I have no problem with all the blockchain alts, but valuable content generally comes from more well thought out posts.

yes, and i think the one thing we can do here is help new people discover what they want to discuss. we have a lot of new voices that follow the herd and dont realize the potential. so we see 101 canned posts about the amazing health properties of ginger, how bitcoin is doing, or why Discord is better than FB. I see the power of radio and the cult of personality, and think if we could just funnel some of that energy into educating new steemians, where would it go?

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