RE: The Steemian identity crisis - what a picture of you holding up a card really means...
I think you are making some really great points! I remember feeling real resentment to the idea that you should take a photo of yourself with a piece of paper in order to start posting to steemit and be accepted in the community. You would still not find me sharing my face or name on the blockchain and I think it's a failure of imagination to really demand that from people. If you look at my profile, that should really be enough to start getting to know me and to get some idea about my identity (or the identity I want to present to the community). The piece of paper is easy to fake and is something I'm really not comfortable with, so I skipped it despite seeing a lot of people acting as if it was not just advisable but mandatory. It's not and it shouldn't be.
I might have nearly lost the point I was trying to make in the process of writing the post :D It seemed interesting to me that the photo with a piece of paper was so important, but it made me think about WHY it was important and in the end I think identity to you can't be established the same way as identity to someone else. It makes me question the value of photo id in governments and institutions as well, and why the blockchain offers a much better way to verify identity because it would be a collection of all the information that is associated with your existence rather than one piece of document.
On the other hand, I think it does serve a purpose as a starting point, yet I think it does favour people who happen to be more attractive (I will probably cop some heat for this) because that seems to be how dating websites prey on our insecurities and need to see beauty in a visually aesthetic sense. Probably another reason why we should come up with a better way, perhaps through face-to-face contact with more than one Steemians?
I think the main reason people are so worried about this is because they want to prevent abusers with bot armies or spammers from taking over. It's a way for them feel that they are verifying which account is a real person and which isn't.
But I actually really like your point. The way an account handles themselves on the blockchain is public information that can be viewed and analyzed and is organically vetted by the community. It's a better system than a piece of paper.
And the selfies absolutely favor attractive people, no doubt.
Since we are not immune from the irrational ways that people think and make decisions, the next best thing is to be cognisant of these cognitive biases and try to make our thoughts and actions more consistent.
These introduceyourself posts certainly haven't prevented abusers, and in fact I have seen some quite sophisticated posts disguised very well which makes people believe their authenticity. But bots can't interact and comment the same way that people can (although people can interact and comment the same way that bots do), so maybe that's our only defence against the bot armies for now...
Not going to touch the issue with selfies and attractive people - I think that's just human nature too and I am also guilty of looking at profile images as much as post content :p