The Danger Of Being A Smart Guy - Instead Of A Pragmatic One
When you're smart, you're compelled to talk out loud. To share your opinion. And you do this from the genuine place of someone who's willing to help. "I know I'm smart and I just want you to be better of, and that's why I keep opening my piehole and that's why I keep churning words."
But there's a real danger here.
The danger of missing out.
I'm going to give you a very familiar example: the Steemit whining syndrome. I know you know it. There's so much bandwidth and so much time and so many keystrokes wasted on topics like: inequality, whales collusion, unfairness of rewards and so on, that I really think we could build an elevator to the Moon with that amount of energy.
And most of the time, the people involved in these controversies are smart guys. Like really smart. They have skills, they have experience, they have opinions. And they feel compelled to talk out loud, to help.
Alas, while they're doing that, a whole different bunch of people just keep a steady posting strategy, a steady commenting strategy and a steady curation strategy and they take the money. Not the potential money the smart guys are arguing about, but the money that is available right here, right now.
These are the pragmatic ones. And I honestly and wholeheartedly salute them.
Because there will never be a perfect playground. There will never be a perfect system. There will never be equality, there will always be whales having more money than you, there will always be features of the platform that will not suit you and so on and so forth. So what you're gonna do about it?
Are you gonna be "smart" about it? Or pragmatic?
I'm going to end with a clip in Romanian (actually, the band is Moldavian, but they sing in Romanian) which is translated, approximately, like that: "We keep enjoying life in spite of them / in spite of problems".
I find it very appropriate for the current state of Steemit: there's too much whining about the problems, instead of enjoying our time here in spite of them...
I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.
https://steemit.com/~witnesses
If you're new to Steemit, you may find these articles relevant (that's also part of my witness activity to support new members of the platform):
I actually disagree slightly on this. I posted a few days ago and my post got bitch slapped by a couple whales and some bots. Now, it was over a controversial financial subject but I used many cautionary words and warnings in the post. Regardless, if this is going to be a safe haven then we should be able to post about anything that is not pure evil - such as a positive perspective in pedophilia. If someone wants to come on here and make a rant about racism, religion or any other sensitive subject then it should be allowed. The mute button exists for a reason. If whales and bots take it upon themselves to censor people then they are no better than facebook, google or twitter.
In conclusion, my rant is about censorship. If whales want to get into an upvote circle-jerk or any other common whine you see on here I couldn't care less. Start taking away freedom of speech and that's when I am going to go off the rails.
Interesting topic, thanks for you thoughts :)
I was about to make a post about whiners and you have just killed the purpose really :) But i agree with you 100%. There never will be a perfect system. But it is much more advanced what we used to have before. For some reason people do not whine when they post something to fb and get totally nothing out of it. But If he gets paid $1000 and somebody gets paid $5000 the whining goes to the moon. It's just what people are.
I think there's a difference between entitled whining over 'fairness' and constructive input on possible directions for the platform, particularly considering we're in beta.
I'd like to see a lot more of the latter, though.
On issues like mass bot creation, I agree. But there are a lot of people whining about which whales vote for who and what, whales not curating enough, whales hogging the payouts, etc. Honestly, I have visited a lot of these profiles and their posts are similar to a crayon stick-figure drawing, but they expect the payout of a Monet.
Precisely :)
i just like to blog. this is my new blogging home ;) it's the place where me and my partner live penpal style messages to each other each night and each morning so we always wake up to something ;)
Nice :)
Being smart with a Can do attitude only help us change the system. Together we all can change a lot.
Nice Post buddy.
Boom! Spot on, sir. Winners find success, losers make excuses. I used to be like this, IRL. I was never well off, mainly staying a few steps ahead of poverty. I used to complain and whine about how unfair life is. Life is a game of survival. Only a few fortunate souls live on trust funds, the rest of us have to succeed with in the rules of the game to get the life we want. Success shouldn't be a measure of how much money we have, but rather how much we are able to obtain the life we want.
Yep, but you've got to be who you truly are. There will never be a perfect system. However, to be oriented in the correct direction, I think that matters. You can find a balance and also enjoy the trip.
Couldn't agree more :)
LOL, were you talking about me? ;)
Not really :)
Well said, I couldn't agree more, hard work and perseverence anyways pays off.