We have a difference of opinion about what cryptocurrencies are trying to solve.

That seems obvious to me as well. But your opinion about what cryptocurrencies are trying to solve is not grounded in the actual stated reasons for creating these blockchains and what problems these particular blockchains are trying to solve. You may not like the solutions or the reasons, but it doesn't change the nature of any of this.

With respect, this is a personal opinion supported by neither evidence nor argument.

You're correct. I did not give an argument about why it would be impossible or impractical to implement many of the proposals you offered. I didn't do this because these things have been discussed at length for over two years. I also didn't do it because...

If Steemit's Central Premise is not...

...a lot of people think Steemit's Central Premise is...

Thousands of Steemit articles, and every off-blockchain publication discussing Steemit, all have the same observations: Steemit is corrupt to the core.

...have first-hand experience of trying to interest Fortune 1,000 companies in Steemit.

There is nothing sacrosanct about Steemit's design...

Steemit is not the Steem blockchain. Steemit is just one shitty interface that presents blockchain data to end users. You have demonstrated repeatedly in your posts and comments that you don't have a firm grasp of this crucial difference. You have also demonstrated a lack of knowledge regarding how the blockchain works and what is or is not possible/practical to implement via blockchain protocols.

You just make assumptions about behavior, make assumptions about "rules of conduct," make assumptions about policing content, make assumptions about what investors really want, make assumptions about what may or may not be legal in the future, etc.

We can make some decisions and implement some common sense reforms to fix what's broken.

Yes, we certainly can and many of us offer plenty of suggestions about how to do that...at the protocol level. What you're asking for with your sheriff and jury system and your revealing of identities is not something that 1) could/should be something handled by the blockchain and 2) would be a valuable contribution to the blockchain. Banning bots is something that simply can't be done because the blockchain and its protocols are open for anyone to see...and therefore can, has, and will lead to a variety of automated interaction with it. And preventing self-voting isn't possible either because users can create any number of accounts (by interacting directly with the blockchain and circumventing any front-end personal identity demands from users) and vote themselves from those accounts.

This IS NOT an "economic motivation" ... it is an ideological one.

Offering economic incentives for contributing to the growth of the platform and distributing its currency is what? Ideological? There may be ideological reasons for wanting to create the platform, but the incentives on that platform are purely economic, which is why we don't have "rules of conduct" and is precisely why the general behavior is not aligning with our desired goals for a social media platform/community.

You can't expect people to act outside of their rational self-interest. So the best way to achieve your desired goals is to align your goals with their self-interests. We know that people are motivated by money. There's no getting around that. If you want a specific job done, and you know that people are willing to do jobs for pay, then the practical solution is to pay people to do that job that you need done...not to ask them to pretty please do this thing that might benefit all of us, but will most likely just have you working for free while others find ways to make the money anyway.

The purpose of Steem's economic incentives was to pay people to do the job of creating and curating content - to have a curated platform that would be valuable to people looking for their desired content preferences. To have a platform that would rank high in search engines because of the work being done. And to do the job of ensuring that the created currency is actually being distributed as widely as it can be, within the realm of social media content and concepts such as popularity, or "going viral." (The point here being that the currency shouldn't be forced to be spread widely among content creators simply to spread it widely. Contribution value would be ranked according to stakeholder/voter consensus when it comes to reward allocation.)

What over-arching principle ought to determine the distribution of the Reward Pool ... if not a post's quality, relative to all others?

This really isn't something that needs to be beaten to death every day on the platform. The specific content that is rewarded on a daily basis is practically irrelevant. The amount of rewards only matters to those people who care about the amount of rewards, but it has little to nothing at all to do with blockchain functionality, performance, and use, and it has very little if anything at all to do with STEEM prices.

I think we're all forgetting that Steem's purpose was to be a gateway to cryptocurrency for people who are intimidated by the very concept of cryptos, for those who are curious about it, and for those who want to earn something that can help them acquire other cryptos. Perhaps we need to stop looking at STEEM to be an appreciating asset and start treating it as it was intended to be. If you're hoping for this to be a get-rich-quick scheme, then I understand why everyone is so frustrated. But maybe we need to come to terms with the fact that STEEM will never be Bitcoin, or Ethereum, or Litecoin, or any of the other tokens that people apparently want to hold.

That being said, I do think the Steem blockchain offers much more utility than most other cryptos and we ought to find ways to attract actual investors...by making investment an attractive economic decision for monied interests.

...we need Rules of Conduct with a practical method for their enforcement.

"We" don't need that. You may want it, but your solutions for achieving what you believe is proper behavior would be far more detrimental than the amount of "cheating" that is occurring here today. You want to bring far more policing to this platform than currently exists on the social media sites that many of our active users here have explicitly rejected. So, while it may make you feel better about the platform's morality, it would simply push those active users away...active users who have essentially gone "all-in" with Steem precisely because it isn't policed to death by people in positions of authority who think they know better or think that you shouldn't be allowed to share certain things.

Pushing away some of the strongest supporters of a platform while claiming that you want better supporters for that platform just isn't smart.

If by "other commenters" you're referring to sircork et al, then my estimation of your sincerity is substantially diminished ... and I PROMISE YOU ... I would not be alone in my assessment.

Well, I guess it's a good thing that I don't care much for people's opinions about me then. While you may not like how these other people are speaking to you, they certainly are not ignorant of blockchain protocols and the history of this platform - what has been tried, what has been argued to death, what has been proposed and rejected - so dismissing their insights simply because of the words they have used about/toward you would be a mistake.

And I am not them. So trying to dismiss me simply for the fact that I have acknowledged their arguments in opposition to your proposals/desires kind of rubs me the wrong way. If this is going to turn into days of arguments about anarchism and guilt-by-association, then I'm not interested in continuing.