Ah, nice comment to respond to!

I haven't been to any government houses. However, I do follow the United Kingdom's PMQs on TV. Oh, how I wish Steem was like that :) Not relevant at all, so I'll move on. I have been on bulletin-board style forums since the late 90s, and on Reddit off-and-on for nearly a decade now. Must say, I have never seen the same level of butthurt anywhere before. I'm sure it's there, but I have somehow evaded it all this while. Of course, I understand well that people take money seriously, so Steem is a different ballgame. That said, when self-proclaimed anarchists who are raving about anarchy all the time have a meltdown because someone downvoted their post, I'm sure you'll see the farce in that.

we're not making any decisions here about how we are to live.

Blogging has potential to be a powerful medium - a bonafide artform such as investigative journalism, literature, cinema etc. Obviously, it goes without saying that most people are here to banter, but fundamentally, blogging absolutely has the potential to change how we lead our lives. It can be very direct - e.g. theshadowbrokers can publish a Snowden-style revelation that could change things at many levels. It could also be more subtle, such as George Orwell's works influencing politics throughout Western Europe. Or going further back, about the Renaissance artists that deeply inspired the Age of Enlightenment. On that note, there are plenty of people who want to change the world with their posts. Of course, none of them will succeed :) But the potential is there.

I've been here nearly a year, pretty engaged for most of that time, and what I think the platform has really tested in people is the acceptance of economic critique, which is to say flags. A flag is a critique of someone's speech which has a value, hence is economic. Maybe there's a better term, I just coined that 😅

Ha, well, it's just critique. It's like any opinion poll, really. That money is attached to it does make things complicated. But it has happened to all of us - we have an agreement on a deal, but falls through at the last moment. There's a simple rule - it's not done till all of the money is credited to my bank account. It's very much the same here. Don't count your chickens before they hatch.

Last thing, you say that "a vast majority of Steemians seem to be sensible people with no such delusions". Why then are you bothered? There's more to this. Is this minority just vocal? Or are they the one's who actually have the majority of tokens (i.e. are the rich)? You said you're tired of irrationality, well one thing I'm tired of is #notallpeople type arguments. It must be enough people to have bothered you. So I'd like to hear more about that.

There's not much more to it, really. Like I mentioned, I avoid drama, and generally I enjoy Steem. I rant about something like this maybe two or three times a year, but that's about it. It's fun finding interesting content and curating them. (Yes, there's actually a lot of good stuff on Steem now) Yes, I'm bothered by the irrational posts, of course, so I'll downvote any I find. Nothing more to report, I have mentioned everything relevant above :)