Steemit intro-spective

A quick intro, personal reality check, overview of Steemit philosophy, blockchain technology and life since hopping on board Steemit a few months ago.

I am a writer, thinker, lover, wanderer, fool. I am a bodyworker (as in touching humans) an architectural, landscape and web designer, gardener and aspirant of the numinous and the divine - and I am always seeking community with progressive thinkers like You ;)

Because, if Steemit and related blockchain applications are rooted in the kind of integrity and visionary intent as intimated by originators like @dantheman in his courageously honest post Why do we fight to change the world - freely quoted from below - then I am all in. My tentative experience so far does beg some questions though, and my hope is that I will gather further inspiration, enthusiasm and connection from others here.

Namely, as current consumer, capitalistic and corporate business as usual will inevitably see the demise of “Western Civilisation” the only question being how fast. The evidence is plain as day so long as we are willing to raise our gaze beyond our own immediate interests. I would say more, but that would be another story, perhaps another audience. But we are talking imminent decades, not centuries according to the science. Accordingly Dan Larimer, the co-founder of Steemit says

"If we view man as a purely economic creature we assume all actions are in someway tied to profit seeking activities. We assume that profit is the motive force. It might be fair to say that most of economics is based upon the assumption of an unenlightened individual stuck in a capitalist rat race.”

Thus

"The economic and political enslavement of mankind will continue until Atlas is unable to carry the world on his shoulders and the whole world suffers an economic collapse. It is from the depth of this collapse that people have nothing left to lose and real change is possible…”

My sense after spending a little time here on Steemit is that there is an eclectic mix of visionaries and digital frontiersmen, along with an opportunistic gold-rush vibe, the gold diggers offering a plethora of vapid content hoping to make a few bucks, more often than the honest contribution of thoughtful content that might have inherent worth. Not that this is not also plentifully represented, but you gotta kinda wade through a lot of spurious tripe. This may be biased and judgemental on my part - nor am I without a need to “earn” currency to support myself, or immune from a desire to have my thoughts, feelings, art validated in tokens on a blockchain vs corporate FB/advertiser consumption… but, are “we” mature enough in terms of vision to make the implicit quantum paradigm shift is what I am asking either you, or myself, or all of us. 

Am “I” mature / enlightened / brave enough, I have to ask myself, because only then am I contributing to the implied cause and participating in a solution.

"All of economic calculation boils down to risk / reward or profit and loss. It is our desire for profit and our fear of loss that drive us to make the best decisions we can. An enlightened individual has no fear of loss nor need for more. Their actions are therefore much harder to predict and most economic models cannot fully account for them…" 

Personally, in order to use Steemit, I would like to see a manifesto on the sign-up page pertaining to the values espoused by @dantheman and others as a complicit understanding and mutual agreement. This is at least my own intention - not necessarily to become enlightened, though that would be nice (I'm working on it!) - but at the very least to strive for integrity in the blockchain or any evolving market place offering the potential for an evolutionary, distributed paradigm shift. To that end, I will strive to share offerings what I hope will be of some intrinsic value to a potential community member, as distinct from the age old $$ eyed desire to jump on some trending hopeful gravy train.
Dan goes on to say...

"my mission is to find free market solutions for securing life, liberty, and property. This mission is deeply rooted in the belief that initiation of violence is not necessary to live in a well ordered society and that everyone’s life would be better off if it could be achieved…” 

“Any economic system of voluntary rules and incentives I create will struggle to gain traction unless it is used and operated by enlightened individuals. Steem can be an incredibly powerful tool in the hands of aware individuals living in the moment, but it will utterly fail if it is overcome by unaware individuals trapped in their own ego.
"Jealously, greed, envy, malice, spitefulness, and vengeance will destroy any community. Enlightened individuals living in the moment without any resistance to what is right now experience none of these things. I will keep this in mind as we work to build and grow Steem." 

If you haven’t already, read Dan’s article here for his context, meaning and intent. I would also like to mention @maketingmonk for bringing Dan's piece to my attention via his narration of said post here.

Meanwhile, though the weighting and incidental hierarchy of voting power seems somewhat inscrutable and problematic - at least to this neophyte, I was elated to have figured out how to make my first token bitcoin and concomitant steempower purchase, and I will continue to explore and invest what resources are available to me, hoping to make connections with like minds on this platform, trusting in it's potential for an egalitarian mind shift via the imminent blockchain revolution.

I write this whilst on a mad and sensuous vacation in Goa, India, escaping winter in London, where I returned last year after 20 years in Big Sur, California in the good ol US of A, where the latest dumbfuck demagogue is now wreaking havoc…  So where is the next new Atlantis!? Hoping to create serious Steempower for a leap into the future!