RE: Will Flagging Ultimately End up Killing the Steemit Platform?
Hello @troglodactyl
Wow yeah, that sure is egregiously spamtacular!
Is that ultimatum game synonymous with -
game theory or just related?
@sneak got me again today in several comments.
It's unfortunate, I thought Steemit was better than this.
In fact that's why I joined to begin with, for zero-censorship.
Anywho, I'm pretty sure that dude is a snowflake.
At this point I'm strongly considering powering down
all of my steem and using it to fund contests that will
hopefully shed some light on Steemit's abusive Devs
and or how the mechanism itself can be abused.
I agree with you that spammy comments are a problem.
but they need a better solution, and the fact that their own
developers engage in soft-censorship just speaks volumes.
I can do a MEME contest, an article contest. Basically, they're
going to have to tweak the system in a positive way, because
when word gets out, and the word will get out. The truth of the
matter will result in catastrophic effects. At this point, I feel like
everything that I thought about Steem was just clever propaganda
and I should have been smarter than to have fallen for that.
The ultimatum is a game designed to study human economic decision making, so I guess it would fall under the broader meaning of game theory. It's not zero sum and it substantially involves psychic costs and benefits (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychic_cost), so it seems a bit more ambiguous and subjective than standard game theory concepts.
I still think the biggest problem is the centralized distribution and the economic ignorance and immaturity of some of the large stakeholders. There are problems with the economic design as it is now too, but competent and reasonable stakeholders can compensate for a lot. I'm still hoping that it will survive through a combination of large stakeholders learning and selling out, but only time will tell. I think it's worth sticking around and trying to keep it afloat as long as possible because of its value as an accessible gateway to blockchains for a wider audience.
I think you might be right @troglodactyl. I'm still going to try and push to expose the soft-censorship aspect as much as I can, in hope that TPTB will consider revamping the system. I came up with an idea earlier, it probably wouldn't solve all the problems but it's an interesting idea.
I like to think about game theory in the realm of psychology. I found a clever quote on the internet about it, I think it came from a TV show or something.
You might like it:
"See in game theory, it serves you to be two-faced. Be everyone's friend till the moment you're not. You make them love you so much, that when they're up against it their loyalty will make them act against their own best interests. That's game theory. A cold, rational focus on winning. Even if it's at everyone else's expense." - unknownSometimes I wonder if that might be what Trump is up to, some high level game theory, and nobody knows until the end which way the cookie is going to crumble.
It's a pretty sneaky perspective, but I suppose ultimately it depends on if the individual using a tactic like that is working towards negative, or positive results.
That quote is almost straight Machiavelli:
So far I think TPTB's economic revamps have been in the wrong direction, but I keep hoping they'll improve. On Steem and the internet in general it's already a lot harder to completely crush and permanently silence someone than it was in Machiavelli's day, but there's lots of room for improvement. Until we can fix the centralized distribution, fix the economic incentives, and better educate more of the large stakeholders, I think our best option is to increase the linkage density of the social mesh. It's hard to silence someone who has a lot of followers in a large network without people noticing.
Once crushing is off the table, the discipline of constant dealings takes hold and reciprocity gains traction as a strategy. In the real world almost nothing is zero sum. You can usually cooperate for positive sum or betray for a negative sum outcome. Eventually rational people will gravitate toward cooperation and stop wasting time destroying each other for short term selfish gain.
I need to read up on Niccolo one day, but I'd rather watch a movie. Or cliff notes. I like concentrated info.
I am sure both of you are aware, but as long as the economic abundance of one is directly dependent on the economic scarcity of another there will be ample motivation for people with ill intent to justify their behavior through dystopic quotes like listed above. And there will be little to no reward for those who come with good intentions until they have given up on their ideals because of the rigged game.
It's not human nature, it's not unchangeable and not hereditary from what I can see and have experienced. It simply is part of the debt based fiat money structure that most of Western people have made a religiously integrated part of their psyche. We could also go further which would take us off-topic here for the time being.
@thoughts-in-time
Make a pool! Having read your mind (uhm... as in your postings ahahah, not quite there yet) I will definitely help out with sponsorship of the meme idea. And reading many other freethinkers' comment I would bet many more would be willing to give a bit of their earned Steem just to help clear up these issues for the future. you do NOT have to take this on your own shoulders, are we a community or what?
Had a great payout that I wanted to power up. I have just decided though that I will do no such thing until we get some actual answers here. Answers that pass not only the solidity- and logic-test, but especially the energetic-test to give it some cheesy name.
Pooling would also create a sub community in and of itself, giving participants opportunity to exchange ideas and to further gauge what the issue is that we are facing. We might be smart but only if we find a way to learn from each other's experience and views, no matter how "outlandish". Freethinkers can suspend judgment in listening to new and even dangerously-sounding ideas, no problem. A quality that I am missing completely with the notorious dev in question.
I'll keep you in mind, I've got first place covered with 10sbd. If you want to chip in for 2nd or 3rd or 4th you certainly can. I'm thinking maybe:
1 = 10
2 = 05
3 = 03
4 = 01
If you want to sponsor any of those prizes you are certainly welcome to. I'm not holding the contest right away, but I'm thinking sometime in March.
We'll go in like a lion, maybe before March 7th.
yap, second. will keep that much in my wallet until I hear an update.
Awesome.