RE-ANALYZING THE STEEM WHITEPAPER (1): How We May Be Deviating From The Original Course...

Hello Steemians,

How many of you have ever read the whitepaper? I guess few or none. Jeex! How do you hang out on a platform and you haven't bordered to look at what the principles of action are.

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Some steem-noobs have never even read the FAQ. That's why you see them asking crazy questions they could have found better answers themselves.

Anyway, @Nairadaddy is here as usual to add value to your mind today. I have taken my time to digest the steem whitepaper and I will be taking you on an interesting tour through it.

One striking observation is that alot of the original plan has not been kept to. This may be part of what our problems are. Are we too busy with SMTs that we do not look back to see how we are changing our course towards a much more unprofitable path?

"What does the whitepaper say?" you ask. Let's have a detailed look below...

INTRODUCTION

Right from the introduction, I began to see signs of straying from our original purpose. They gave 3 major principles guiding the steem blockchain as follows;

1- The most important principle is that "everyone" who contributes to a venture should receive pro-rata ownership, payment or debt from the venture.

Note the use of the strong terminology "everyone who contributes." So it means that this system was built on the framework that minnows and whales are all the same. They have equal opportunities to contribute and equal opportunities to receive ownership for their contributions.

2- The second principle is that all forms of capital are equally valuable. This means that those who contribute their scarce time and attention toward producing and curating content for others are just as valuable as those who contribute their scarce cash.

Look at that my friends. I didn't even know that we had such a delicate statement in our own W.P. I have always believed that whatever a person has to contribute on this platform is to be duely appreciated.

Some people usually bring up an annoying line of argument saying,

"you shouldn't complain because you haven't invested anything".

Lo! & Behold! our W.P says it boldly that all contributions are to be recognized. People put in their sweat and time on this platform to create ideas, produce quality content and bring value to others hence their works count too. Money cannot be the only principle guiding our economy or we would be the same with any other blockchain out there.

3- The third principle is that the community produces products to serve its members.

This is brilliant my friends. So this is where every dApp, every product and services that has ever been offered on this blockchain fall into. In addition there are some extremely important services offered by the blockchain itself like free transactions, free content market, optimized SEO etcz.

Among these principles, which ones do you think we are still obeying religiously? You see, greed and the quest for "more" has a way of blinding man from his purpose. Its distracting and unhealthy for the longterm. Do we still have more to learn in the W.P? Of course, let's proceed...

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Recognizing Contribution

Steem is designed from the ground up to address the major barriers to adoption and monetization of a social media based economy. Our thesis is that the same techniques used to grow major social media platforms can be used to bootstrap a successful cryptocurrency.

I love reading this to you because you can see that they have thought about alot of possibilities prior to the release of this blockchain. They have tried to learn from their predecessors that attempted such and imagined in advance the best possible ways to circumvent any challenges.

The next lines will show you something you may not expect to see in the whitepaper which takes us back to the origin. This platform is great because of the original context under which we began operation. Are things falling apart? Can the center still hold?

The challenge faced by Steem is deriving an algorithm for scoring individual contributions that most community members consider to be a fair assessment of the subjective value of each contribution.

Ever heard the statement that code is law? Perhaps all we needed to govern this system is a set of codes/algorithm that aligns with the principles already stated. An algorithm that will give everyone an equal opportunity to be great and be themselves. on this network. An algo that is generally acceptable. An algo that's not easily gamed.

In a perfect world, community members would cooperate to rate each other's contribution and derive a fair compensation. In the real world, algorithms must be designed in such a manner that they are resistant to intentional manipulation for profit. Any widespread abuse of the scoring system could cause community members to lose faith in the perceived fairness of the economic system.

I like the fact that they examined the perfect world versus the real world. In the real world, if you allow people the freedom, they begin to derive means to game the system.

I'm also glad that the original makers of the W.P understood the fact that any widespread abuse... could have dire consequences on the entire economic system. DO we see what's happening here?

The rise of bots are pushing the economy away from being content-driven to greed-driven. When people are driven by greed, they will rather delegate their SP to upvote bots than to viable projects.

Why? Of course they are going to get a higher payout.

Have you ever wondered why they get a higher payout? Its simple economics. They are funnelling the finances of the poor into their wallets to give them a service which was ordinarily supposed to happen for free. The richer they get the more god-like they begin to feel. And thus the cycle of greed expands as other agnostics begin to tilt towards bots.

The owners of steem power begin to see themselves as superior entities while content creators are supplicants who have to beg for curation. But the whitepaper specifically said that every form of contribution is equal.

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WHAT DOES ALL THESE MEAN?

I have heard many people reason along the lines of

Nobody owes you anything!

Theoretically, yes!

But practically, I think we all owe ourselves on this network.

Yes! This system is working on the assumption and belief that quality content will be found and curated by those who care about that sort of content.

Of course there are other factors like friendships & followship. Your circle of influence are going to more likely consider you for what you have done in the past and yada yada yada...

I owe you. You owe me. We all owe it to each other to ensure that steem survives.

I understand that the desire for self-preservation is very intense. Man could go to any length to survive. But this is not a platform for fight or flight. This is a platform that was built on the idea that things could be done differently.

Our basic tenets are that of inclusivity not exclusivity. Everyone matters. Our voices count. From the smallest minnow to the largest whale...we are all important for the success of steemiverse.

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Stay On Course Brethren!

Before we began this journey, we had a vision of our destination. This is the guiding principle that determines our purpose and our goals. Like every other system built on earth to be used by man, our inadequacies always get in the way. I perfectly understand that.

WHen that sort of situation presents itself, what are we supposed to do? Sit back and watch. No! The leaders must take charge of the deck lest we hit ice and sink into the deep like the ill-fated titanic mega ship.

What do we need to change in our algorithm that will help us sideline the gamers? I seriously dunno. Perhaps the Communities/HIVEMIND will have an answer for us. Maybe SMTs will be the answer? Maybe killing the bots will be the answer? I dunno.

Perhaps someday, an entity that's strong enough to #KillTheBots may arise. Who knows? Or perhaps the bots need to have their own platform where they can trend. Someone please build us a DBots.ai specifically for those that use bots to trend. Lolx!

Yesterday, I was highlighting the shit on our trending page. It left me wondering whether that was the image we wanted to present to outsiders landing on our page.

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That said, all I want is a viable strong steem platform that can last all of us ~long time~ Life time. Infact forever is my target. I want a system that will give us all an opportunity to steem till eternity.

YOUR VOICE IS WORTH SOMETHING is the popular line on the signup page. Do you believe it? I do!

Stay on course brethren. The journey is still too far for us to deviate. The destination is forever... if we play our games correctly. I'm playing mine already. Play yours!

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SEE SOME OF MY LAST POSTS;

• The Cracks In Steem Paradise
• Which Way Steem?
• SHIT TRENDING NOW!

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I deserve better. You deserve better. We deserve better!

_{I like my Steemiverse round and perfect!}