It's Not Game-Theoretically Correct To Be "Real" On Steemit
Anyone who has been around Steemit for awhile may have noticed a certain "veneer of fakeness" that goes around, particularly in the comments of posts. Sycophancy is a good word for it. You get the distinct impression that many users are walking on eggshells to avoid saying anything that might rock the boat.
It's just the way humans are wired. Nobody hears a bunch of criticism about themselves and then thinks "yeah, I'd like to help that person." Steemit, however, takes this phenomenon even further.
Unfortunately, this is a natural consequence of tying people's economic interests into their ability to express their opinions. Unlike Reddit, where an unpopular opinion can only cost you meaningless karma, on Steemit you can make an enemy who will follow you around and damage you financially for as long as you are using your account.
If you are a witness, you can lose critical support necessary to maintain your ranking, leaving you in an even more severe variant of the prisoner's dilemma.
This makes both real criticism and unpopular opinions rarely worth expressing, unless you don't care about your potential earnings. Why write a post or comment that could get you flagged, when you can simply do nothing?
Authors are often placed in the middle of confrontations between two whales, receiving flags over disagreements about rewards allocations they had nothing to do with.
I often find myself placed in the position of either having to remain silent on the many culture (flag) wars happening at Steemit, or risk drawing the kind of attention that nobody wants to their blog. Given the time and stress involved in wading into these issues, it's simply easier to ignore them.
I fear such silence may set a grim precedent, but hey - they haven't come for me yet, right? (Well, at least not recently.)
We also have a Radio Station! (click me)
...and a 5000+ active user Discord Chat Server! (click me)
Sources: Niemoller
Copyright: Chappelle's Show, Flickr
I am of the opinion that as long as we are stating facts, we can't really lose in the debate.
It's also important that we address behaviors when we criticize and not someone. If I was to say @soandso is an asshole, that says nothing about the behavior, and thus fixes or addresses nothing.
If we talk facts, and we catch flags, the real "loser" is the person/user who had to resort to flagging because he/she ran out of arguments.... and in that case, I would take the flag as an honor badge.
"I am of the opinion that as long as we are stating facts, we can't really lose in the debate."
Have you not been watching the course of culture and politics in this country? Facts are now borderline irrelevant to the average idiot.
"honor badge."
Not much of a badge, tbh, considering they already attacked your rewards.
@soandso is an asshole and @cantstandthatguy is a prick ! (-:
I hate that guy!
I am John Galt!!! Just waiting for the right time.
I've already passed my "gone Galt" moment, I'm afraid.
Haha Dave Chappelle, love and miss that guy. Anyways, you have solid point and you are probably one of the first people I have seen that talks about this and keeps it real.
On the bright side, we have a hater free environment that is not always the most objective but at least if anyone wants peace and quiet they can come over to Steemit where people are sensitive :)
"we have a hater free environment"
I'd love it if you could direct me there, as I haven't seen one.
Well you can never have a hater free environment. I was just using that as a figure of speech. I have seen many forums where people are just super toxic. Everything has it's ups and downs. While Steemit might have a lot of fake people at least they are encouraging a more positive environment. I am sure we could still find ways to disagree with each other without being toxic.
Thanks for this, Lexiconical. This phenomenon is something I have been pondering for months. Not sure of all the implications and I'm not sure what to do about it (if anything).
I don't think there's anything for us to do to collectively make changes. You can either pander and avoid flags, or say something real and receive them.
I've pretty much lost my patience for it, tbh.
Yeah, I get this. It's hard to have patience in situations like those. sigh I still hope something will shift to make a positive and effective solution possible
I love the expression: "veneer of fakeness." Nice thought-provoking post as usual.
I avoid conflict most of the time to stay in my lane and focus on having fun. I don't need abusive faceless people with excruciating ego disorders meddling in my "blogging experience." It's not healthy, and it's terrible that interacting with them can ruin peoples' accounts if you disagree loudly enough. Some flagging is necessary, but most is not.
Some people confuse abusive voting power as authority and righteousness. The irony of their own history of transparent rewards pool abuse is comical, and pushing a downvote to silence or hide conflict is extreme weakness. It's more than bullying. These people are simply toxic and harmful to the community, despite their opinion. Herding sheep to support their hysteria makes the problem even worse. Leading by a terrible example is not leadership.
While I feel terrible for unjust victims, at this stage, they know what they're getting into, and what's at risk. As more people adopt the platform, the abusive folk will become more absurd on a global basis, less relevant/popular, and likely have to remain faceless for their own safety.
"I don't need abusive faceless people with excruciating ego disorders meddling in my "blogging experience.""
As Colbert would say, this is hitting me right in the Truthiness.
"It's not healthy, "
Particularly psychologically...ever observe how an author new to getting flagged responds when getting dog-piled? It always escalates.
"These people are simply toxic and harmful to the community, despite their opinion."
I see no solutions other than forking these people off, which is really no solution at all.
Thank you for your dedicated and high-quality comments, and forgive the late replies.
Steemit is mostly the platform that fights against human nature. I hope in the future there are more limits to account for it. There probably needs to be something in place that prevents one person from just flagging one account on every single post.
"Steemit is mostly the platform that fights against human nature."
I call it ignorance of human psychology and game theory.
No idea how to implement your suggestion, unfortunately, without centralization.
Yea no one has time to get flagged. Steemit does need some changes. It's lost that 🔥
Unfortunately, I do not know what to suggest that would meet with stake-weighted approval.
so true i can find at this post...!!
This junk comment only barely lost to your buddy one comment down for "worst spam comment of day."
it is a steem steemit creacter.i like this post
This is one of the poorer-formed throwaway comments I've had to admonish today.
Yeah there is definitely something to this for sure. Its one of the reasons I find the content on steemit to be so boring. Not always, but fairly often. People are more willing to post pictures of birds, beaches and sunsets than they are to comment about the rising of the proletariat or fascism or something along those lines. lol
I have been VERY critical of Bitcoin lately and have experienced some drama but not quite as much as other places. Frankly I would be fucked if people started flagging my content because I am pretty dependent on my income from here right now.
The problem is, if your content is too watered down then nobody is going to really care about what you say anyway right? We are forced to balance on this razor edge whether we want to admit it or not...
" Its one of the reasons I find the content on steemit to be so boring. "
It's like every post is written by a politician. Most of it is lacking any real "edge", such that even boorish losers like Bernie can get "fans" for blurting out blunt nonsense.
"I have been VERY critical of Bitcoin lately and have experienced some drama but not quite as much as other places."
If you point out BTC's huge flaws, Steemit's SJW-abusers like Transisto will find you, and opinion flag you, in between upvoting themselves thousands.