RE: Reflections: Adding "Value" to our Steem Blockchain - Chapter 2
That's some beautiful dow-to-earth philosophy @roleerob! Evolution should have shown us that there's no reward without putting in the effort, and it did, far before we became farmers. When we did settle down and started cultivating our environment to reap ever more rewards with putting in ever less effort, the evolution began that brought us where we are now.
With farming we also developed better means to protect what's "ours"; before that life was all about cooperating and surviving in tribal communities and we had no individual possessions to speak of. Everything was about cooperating and sharing. With the farm began the ability to overproduce and egoism kicked in. "Survival of the fittest" for social animals means cooperating and sharing. Our greater cognitive abilities enabled us to produce more than we need and from that came the urge to protect what's ours on an individual basis. And that's were we went "wrong".
This sense of entitlement comes from modern individuals observing the humongous amounts of wealth we produce as a community when the spoils all go to the owners of the farms, so to speak. We all know instinctively that individuals are worthless in the material sense, yet a select few individuals have more material wealth than entire countries. This entitlement is a combination of the absurd focus on both individual achievements and individual responsibilities on one hand and our evolution as a group-beast.
All this doesn't take away from your wisdom here: no effort means no rewards. Period. But, we should all be able to make a living with minimal effort; that's just a natural consequence of our technological advancements. And we all know that. That's what was shown of in the big science fairs in the sixties and seventies: we would all have to work only 2 or three days a week, when automation would do the rest of the necessary work. Instead, a very small percentage have been getting richer all the time and the rest is only working more hours every year for ever more years.
This feeling of entitlement has something to do with this, that's my guess and two cents.
Thanks for some great posts again! :-) (I read the farmer post to ;-))
Thank you @zyx066 for stopping by and commenting. Always nice to "see" you and get your input. I really appreciate it! Different perspectives definitely add value to this post.
Clear to me, from what you write here, we come at this topic from very different philosophies in life. More precisely, I prefer systems of belief, but philosophies works.
Perhaps we can "meet in the middle" ...
... as we can agree on this fundamental point.
I would imagine we could also agree we live in an absolutely fascinating time. Here we are, working together in common cause to add value to our Steem blockchain. Blockchain? What's that? Only a few short years ago, there would have been no answer ...
Being the avid reader and researcher you are, you might enjoy my first exchange "in here" with an amazing AI bot named @trufflepig. It impressed me enough, that I am supporting it with some delegation. If you follow the trail through the links, I think you might really enjoy it.
What the future holds with all of this? Well, definitely not a young man anymore, but hope to be around to find out ...
All the best to you @zyx066, until next we "meet" again! 👍
P.S. Working full time and with a family, this is the first opportunity I've had to reply. Thank you for your understanding this delay in following up.