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RE: Steemit As Direct Projection of Delusion of "American Dream"
It sounds exactly like wealthy elite in power, in our society, is talking about economics and trickling down from the perspective of privilege, offering "solutions" which actually never change the status quo.
I have just checked steemstats, and I have to admit that it seems that about half of your upvotes have actually been for regular users, not whales which is uncommon practice between whales.
Sounds similar but there is one crucial difference: the responsibility factor.
In "real" world power comes without much responsibility - e.g. you can trigger a war and reap the benefits without bearing the consequences.
Whereas in Steem power is combined with taking responsibility. The more power you have, the more you lose when things go wrong. If you start acting selfishly, in the long run, you have much more to lose than acting for the benefit of the whole system.
That's why we start to see behaviors like this. Try to put yourself in the whales' shoes. Steem's incentive structure makes them need to address the very problems that you raise, as otherwise they will be the biggest losers.
We cannot remove unfairness. The world is pretty unfair and has always been like that. But what we can do is attach responsibility to power. And for me this is what Steem is all about.
There is no responsibility if you are in whale fellowship of mutual admiration.
I have not heard about a single whale being punished, lost their power and forced to leave.
Maybe some got a bit of slap once for their greed (just like bankster elite does) but then they go back to their greed.
Just, becasue we have created cultures which have been unfair and rewarded and conditioned unfair behaviour, does not mean that we still have to be stuck in this obsolete social concepts and this way of thinking. It is time to start thinking out of the box.
If they behave as you imply (I don't know anything about it), they will be punished quite severely - their Steem shares will lose value. It's hard to imagine a more appropriate punishment.
What would you suggest instead? Some sort of committee trusted to make fair choices?
If such a committee does not have skin in the game, sooner or later it will start abusing its power - we know this for sure, that's the human nature.
If it does have skin in the game (by owning Steem shares) - we end up with what we have now: whales having decisive upvote power.
Steem is not perfect and it's not meant to be 100% fair. But it's the best incentive structure we can come up with, at least on this planet.
If you really have some out-of-the-box ideas which can improve Steem, that's a perfect topic for a post.
Please note that I've been able to do this only because earlier in the game some whales voted on my input. I'm the very product of whales actions.
This is very honest answer to admit that you have been simply very lucky. Not many would admit that. They tend to think that they are something special and that's why they got upvoted.
"If you really have some out-of-the-box ideas which can improve Steem, that's a perfect topic for a post."
I have posted many within last 2 weeks. Many about Resource Based Economy, for example, but have not got any attention. Anyway I don't care about profit, I would be just happy if people got interested in important scientific and social info I post, especially my posts about The Venus Project.
I have posted few silly posts out of experiment but I try to pick majority of my posts to have some intellectual and social value.
I think it works like this: if you do nothing you get nothing. If you make an effort you have a chance to get rewards. But making an effort does not guarantee rewards - in this respect Steem is not fair and never will be. Here your effort only buys you a lottery ticket. And this is how life on this planet works.
So I was not just lucky. I also made an effort. Just as you did.
The american dream does not guarantee you a success. It only opens up the possibility. Thus Steem is not a delusion of the american dream, as your OP suggests. It's actually the very essence of american dream.