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RE: Our Corrupt Sense of Fairness
I don't think there is anything unfair about having amassed great power.
But with great power comes great responsibility.
Downvoting/flagging currently does two things at the same time.
- It expresses disagreement
- It damages a reputation
I've seen whales carelessly smash the precious hard-earned reputations of innocent minnows for merely taking the initiative to promote Steemit with a billboard or merely asking for community input on the inkling of an idea of a concept for how to help grow the system. No explanation. No warning. Just smash!
This is abuse of power, it is harmful to the community, it is de-facto censorship and it has nothing to do with fairness.
I agree with everything you said but it's not what I'd think of as censorship since the posts are all still on the blockchain. It's more deprioritization and a form of arbitrary punishment. In any case it's not how I would use my Steem Power because it takes away from the user experience but doesn't seem to add anything. If I vote to take something away from someone else then it damages the user experience not just for that someone else but also for everyone who witnessed me do it.
Imagine this: You publish a post which says only this: "I need money to buy a new car" and some people who know you personally upvote your post just because they like you. I see this happening and negate those upvotes. You, as the author of the post, are obviously not happy about it but does it really damage the user experience for everyone who witnessed me doing it? I guess not. For them I'm a hero who prevented some kind of abuse. And it was an abuse by those who upvoted, not by the author of the post.
I have argued this fact as well about it being in the blockchain. I am fairly technical and can determine how to get at it if I want. Likewise, if the government deems certain things are banned and locks them in a vault. They technically still exist it is just difficult to get to them.
So in effect the crushing hammer blow of a down vote can be very similar to shoving something in a vault. Many people will be unable to view it. Perhaps someone will make a reversesteemit.com or something where the trending page and popularity is 100% the opposite. You'd have to wade through a ton of spam but you might see these posts that were splattered. The problem is this shouldn't be being done for opinion.
Except it doesn't just affect that piece of text. It harms the author.
But that isn't how the downvotes are being used. Authors are being down voted because some people think their content didn't deserve that big of a reward. It's not like there are posts of people saying "I want a car, upvote me" and them getting huge $20,000 payouts. I haven't seen an example like that, have you?
But even in that case, it's not like you are a hero for blocking other people from receiving rewards. It's more you can use that as an example of an excessive payment to someone who doesn't really need it, but at the same time in other instances the person really could need it, and the same downvote should make you a villain like it would make you a hero right?
And if we are going to downvote based on who we think doesn't need any more money, well then what is the total amount in payouts that each author should be allowed to get before we collectively determine it's justified to start blocking them from getting any more money?
This is actually why I prefer no downvote (still think we need a report post function) as I see it as more of an attack, where I don't believe we really need attacks. I view it more like a market for content and ideas. If it is being approached like a stakeholder voting at a board of directors meetings that usually has other factors besides just market and yes/no might be needed. Yet even though we are stakeholders with our steem power (VESTS) I do think it could work without downvotes. There would still be problems with potentially people being unhappy someone was getting paid too much and FREE SPEECH would certainly allow them to be vocal about it, but they wouldn't be in a position to negatively attack someone other than with words. Currently this is very much not the case. A downvote can be used in a hostile attack method. We are counting on there being more good whales to offset this and that they will have time to commit to stay on top of this. Murphy's Law is screaming at me when I consider this.