FLAG WARS - Where "might makes right" continues to rule
"How we live our lives has significant spiritual implications." - White Walking Feather
"right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must." - Thucydides
I am deeply saddened by the escalation of the flag war. More and more friends are going where I refuse to go. I declared peace because my goal is very different than most other people. I stayed in the hopes of influencing others to declare peace as well. I've been unable to accomplish that goal and I am experiencing deep, profound sadness and pain as I witness the foundational shift that has taken place today. I do not share peoples excitement about the escalation that has taken place.
To stand on peace also demands that I not steal, covet, murder, commit adultery, give false testimony, and love my neighbour as myself. This Flag War may not result in murder like most other wars in the physical realm, but it does result in stealing and that has significant spiritual consequences.
Steal: The act of stealing; a theft; the thing stolen. - Oxford Unabridged Dictionary (1958)
When somebody upvotes a post, they give that individual a gift from the reward pool. Whether that gift is worth $0.01 or $500.00 is irrelevant. When somebody downvotes a post, they then take away that gift. To take away that which was given by somebody else is theft. I don't care how you choose to justified the act, we have no right to engage in violence in order to make our point.
When we do, we exercise the 'might makes right' idea and as a result only the strong dictates what is right or wrong.
Right is not the offspring of doctrine, but of power. All laws, commandments, or doctrines as to not doing to another what you do not wish done to you, have no inherent authority whatever, but receive it only from the club, the gallows, and the sword. A man truly free is under no obligation to obey any injunction, human or divine. Obedience is the sign of the degenerate. Disobedience is the stamp of the hero. - Leo Tolstoy
You heard Leo Tolstoy correctly: Right is the offspring of power! When we gain power it is amazing how that influences people. Lots of steem = lots of power and influence. How we choose to exercise that influence and power says a lot about the individual. Some choose to engage in greed, while others choose to swing it like a sword. Others choose to help others. I've seen it here and we have all seen it in the world around us.
It is up to each of us to self-govern if we want to make this common resource work for the benefit of all users. If we surrender to greed, violence, theft and abuse, that will destroy the spirit and intent of this platform and impact our own spiritual growth.
And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. - Matthew 19:24
By building strong community we limit or even eliminate the influence of the greedy and powerful. The pay-it-forward program to give steem away to others is exactly what would allow a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. @taskmaster4450 has written about the shift within the steem community several times as he is noticing that the whales influence on the system is dropping by up to 1% a week now. What that means is that the community is growing quickly and over time it will be so large that the whales will not have the influence they do now. When that happens I care not what the greedy do. That is what we were doing with the Stewards of Gondor and Stewards of Terra Mater.
What is required is that we work hard to build a strong community and when it grows big enough, it will take care of the greedy individuals within the community. But when we get distracted by the greedy and focus on them, we weaken our community.
I rebuke those who engage in this war. This is not the solution to the problem and only tarnishes the reputation and health of this community even more.
Our focus should be on those who need help. That was the spirit of the Stewards of Gondor. That is the spirit of the pay it forward program and it was doing spectacular work. I now must walk away from the Stewards of Gondor with sadness and much pain in my heart. I cannot participate with those who engage in violence like this.
Much like I did when I declared peace and left 'Canada', I too must declare peace and leave 'Stewards of Gondor'. I will go on alone as the world continues what it knows best; war. Might continues to be justified to make it right. I will stand against violence once again as I say good bye and walk my own path.
I love you all and that will never change. But I cannot go where you are headed. I cherish the gifts that were given me and I am grateful. I will never forget the generosity, which brings even more sadness to my heart as the world goes to war and I stand as a witness to the foundational shift that has taken place.
I care not about the steem. I do care about each and every beautiful spiritual being and that is what I concern myself with the most. Declare peace! End the violence! Don't get sucked into the war! UNGRIP!
I have read several of the war rallying posts today and found them convincing.
I have just read your slant and also find that convincing!
Personally, throughout my life, I have avoided conflict whenever possible but through doing this issues grew to larger, more damaging, proportions.
My spiritual team have schooled me not to be wishy washy and advise that at times folks must confront darkness.
As far as the egalitarian nature of Steemit : the founding principles are pure and solid but there are always those who, sadly, strive to manipulate the backroom infastructure for personal gain upvoting their own work ~ this is not acceptable.
Rather than call this initiative war perhaps we should call it something less negative? Mother Teresa always refused to attend anti war rallies but participated in those events named peace rallies if I remember correctly. That said nothing snappy comes to mind.
I appreciate your thoughts and find myself conflicted.
:)
xox
I'm not going to sugar coat it my friend. War is war. What Mother Teresa spoke about was in regards to having a 'Peace Rally' instead of an 'Anti-War' rally. If you don't like the war word, then I have no qualms about using other words like theft, violence and the sort.
Sometimes you've got to fight.
There is a difference between self defense and being an aggressor.
Well being an aggressor in this instance is akin to a community sharing resources such as food and one member consistently looting the cupboards and breaking into the cellar.
I fail to see how STEEM is akin to food.
To me, they are not quite on the same level to merit the analogy.
It doesn't matter what it is, I was saying that there's only so much to go around, when someone is taking more than their share everyone else has less.
But I do respect your viewpoint.
Steemit is a great place to form solid and positive communities. This aspect attracts great minds, spirits and souls together in sharing and growing. There is a monetary portion to this platform however. Monetary gains will drive groups of people for sure. I think the answer has to come from the question of what the user perceives the platform to be. Some will think relationship, love, peace, inspiration and some will move to money, power, greed and dominance. When it all boils down in the end and all the flags have stopped flying ask why are you here. Will you be a beat down whale that has fallen on downtrodden income or an individual who has made connections that are worth more than money? The users here for growth and connection will still be here when the dust settles and there will always be those who pursue money first. It doesn't matter which side you are on as long as you stand on your principles. In the end there will always be disparity in material object because the amount that they are coveted by people varies through the population. Some have more because they want the most and some have less cause they are not interested in the material things.
All that matters is who you are and if you remain true to your principles. In the end that is all that counts.
yesssss
Disagreement with rewards is the first reason given for flagging a post. There is nothing inherently wrong with that if you legitimately disagree with the rewards for a given post (like a $500 post for a picture of someone's cat for instance). This is not stealing. It is voting on how rewards are distributed. There is a certain amount of steem power/dollars distributed daily. By flagging a post you are saying that you think the reward for that post is too high and that some of that reward should go elsewhere. If you upvote a post you are also taking away someone else's reward. Everybody you didn't upvote would have received an ever so slightly higher reward had you not upvoted. Is this also stealing?
The system can , of course, be abused in either direction.
Awe man, you guys have got me all tied up in knots now. I'm just a reminder here, and got a bit caught up in FTGs post, so may have resteemed a couple of things I am second guessing now. @wwf I really respect your stand. And of course @taskmaster and @mountainjewel, you guys have been my main go to for reading so far and you seem to be the people I most click with on here. I can't help being impressed at a community coming together to try and tackle something like this. On other platforms it's hard to fight hatred and abuse of the system, but you have big brother to report to. Here, it's just us. The war rhetoric is not great, even if it's a little tongue in cheek (I must admit it was the geeky humour that got me caught up). I am not experienced enough yet to know how to resolve this. I do know that the idea of what has been happening in terms of non engagement while reaping massive rewards doesn't sit well with me. It's really late and I need to sleep. Maybe come back with a fresh head
We are on the same page I think haha. The geeky humor, however war like, was the catching point. Put it any other way, it would not be so convincing. The whole dungeons and dragons like quest thing, was on point.
This is all lame though lol, fuck it.
I wrestled with this and find it not to be true. I read the comments last night, all laced with war analogies. The forces are getting riled up. To me, since everything is energy, it is creating the same murderous energy.
The SOG were created out of love with an absence of fear. With what is taking place, I fail to see the love in any of these comments. There is no intention of love, no speaking of love, and no acts of love.
Humans are terrific at rationalization and justification. Unfortunately, justified anger is something we can ill afford. There are all kinds of rationalizations being thrown about yet none of them hold water. Yes I wrote how things are changing not only with the power structure of the Whales declining but also with this place being different and people wanting to uplift humanity. Like you it is with a heavy heart that I realize most on here want to deal with trolls the same way as they do on Facebook.
War is often romanticized, justified, and those who come back are esteemed. However, it is important to note that a conquering hero is still a killer.
And killing most certainly is the absence of love.
This is untrue...one never walks alone when he is in the company of principle.
you inspire me to think more of kindness and love being the winners! Haha, I wish we could upvote everyone into fairness, maybe we can?
There appears to be love or fear...which one is in operation.
It usually is easy to see which is in control at any given moment.
When we have to ask "where is the love" we know that fear is reigning supreme.
I totally agree, why are we all afraid anyways? haha, no good reasons.
Are people just so in love with Steemit or are they afraid of it being taken away and crumbling? Maybe both?
Because we were trained in that. Fear was used on us our entire lives in the bankster scarcity world. Steemit is no different. As much as people profess to be about spirit and love, they actually are scared. Their inner child is still wounded and they refuse to acknowledge that. This causes them to lash out much in the same way a child does when he is upset with his sister.
Same behavior...bigger bodies.
eh your points make so much sense its ridiculous. I wont deny I might be a little afraid, Steemit feeds me for real at this point. Its also a lovely community where I can spread joy and love with a few clicks! It must be hardwired to want to defend what you love.
I (try to) trust the universe to provide for me however, really there is nothing to be afraid of, really the community on here and the love will prevail.
Dont fret....the actions of a few, even with a lot of power, will not destroy the blockchain. This is part of the growing pains. In fact, the outside world will not even be aware of it.
The price of STEEM is not reflective of what is going on here.
And besides, with all the downvoting, your vote might be worth more while this take place the many are going to have their posts sacrificed over this.
Yeah unless your really part of the ecosystem it wont be visable. We hope, lol.
All more opportunities to spread the love!
the mob thing is happening I suppose
yep.....
damn Dionysus. He is a good ally but not particularily peaceful or sober minded lol.
These are words!
How do YOU deal with trolls?
"So He made a whip out of cords and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle. He poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables"
#WWJD
What do you suppose would have happened if He had whipped the money-changers, instead of just the innocent sheep and cattle? Trust me, the animals didn't want to be there knowing WHY they were there.
Might it not have been more effective to whip those doing the selling rather than those being sold? Just a thought ;-)
And we could certainly include the moneychangers too!
He did, I posted the part right before the whipping where he drove all.
The Scripture doesn't say that He ever hit the people! Only that he whipped the animals and turned over the tables.
I am with you. I was saddened when I saw the 'call to arms' made.. to me it is the difference between supporting good people vs. fighting the bad. I don't see how 'fighting the bad' can win.
but I did see how supporting the good was bringing quality content, I felt it is how you win, you drown the bad with good.
the light doesn't ask the darkness to leave. it simply disappears in the presence of light.
So well said.
You are one beautiful spirit @wwf.
When any post is in flag or downvoted by any one really we will fall in uninspiring. Even I can't actual reason of downvoting by anyone. I think many steemians will do hard working in the steemit. So it is really painful for us when we are losing our inspiration.
As usual I am on no side of this haha. I do not agree with violence of course, and try to root it out of my life best I can. I will not participate with the 'flag war' but I also see that there is a major issue here and the flag was designed to combat the reward pool rape that is going on. So I am a little on both sides, I wish there was a better way to stop the abuse!
Mostly, however, I am glad that there are no 'steemit police' per say and that the community has to mobalize themselves in order to solve these issues.
Is there a better way? I dont agree with violence against violence, because that concept is pretty absurd, but the reward pool rape is nearly stealing from all of the other users as well, and I think that is violent too.
Then, how can we peacefully get rid of this abuse so that Steemit is fair, when the abuser wont listen since his scheme is working so well?
How do you stop a rapist?
thats the question! How do we stop these things peacefully? We cannot force them to stop doing what they are doing, but it hurts everyone. So, what is the solution if it is not flags? We cannot kick them out or anything like that. We could try to convince the whale supporting them to stop doing that I suppose. Usually, I say kill em with kindness, but how on earth to do that I wonder....
One thing I trust in, is that the community of ingenous people on here will figure something out. And soon, I hope.
The thing is that you don't force them. You are voicing your opinion. Curation is both way. If this was a star system like amazon people would see almost anything less than 5 full stars as negative. I don't agree that you are Stealing because you don't have their rewards, and they are still being voted on. Essentially a vote for the other team is a negative for the home team because voting is a zero sum game, curating for stars would yield similar problems but we have to recognize what stealing is and what curation can look like.
I spent my vote power in good faith, someone came along and de-valued my vote without my consent. It is theft from me, the upvoter.
No, you spent your vote power to vote on a share of the rewards. Someone voted against your vote because they didn't agree with you taking that much of the rewards, which was their choice. It's not about good faith or return on investment, it's about Curating. Curating involves marking things five stars and marking things no stars. Voting is a zero sum game, your Vote devalued every other vote on the platform, without anyone's "consent". Each time a whale votes with a hefty % they devalue everyone else's vote.
The value of our vote is fluid until payout. You are implying that if I leave my waitress a $20 tip because I thought the service was good, you have a right to come take $10 of it because you thought the service was not that good? Now, if the markets tank and her $20 tip only buys her $10 worth of stuff tomorrow, that is not the same as taking part or all of my tip off the table.
Why do you equate something that works as an infinite tap to a finite resource?
You didn't get serviced personally,if you want to TIP the author you can. Everyone got "serviced" and everyone benefits from the flags equally. Nobody is stealing what is nobody to claim. Once the rewards are paid out that's it, but calling Voting on rewards theft when someone votes against rewards doesn't make it theft.
This is not about the market, the very fact is that voting IS a zero sum game, it is intended to work like that, and every time a person votes they take rewards from everyone else, albeit how small, so yes your vote devalues others votes in a demonstrable way, and a flag devalues certain votes while making the rest worth more.
hmmmm that makes a little more sense then it being theft from the poster.
the technical stuff makes my head spin
After what I saw 2 days ago I'm not certain that I believe that curation works. I accidentally came upon a rant post against a person misusing steemit for his own gain (I try to avoid these rant posts). The first reply was the person being ranted against. You can guess that his reply was an extreme howl about how his posts and replies were being flagged and how it wasn't going to work, he would prevail. He then upvoted his reply which was flagged. Even with the flag from the poster who had a 60-something reputation he still had a value of a nearly $25 payout on that one reply. I checked his stats. A generous 3/4 of his upvotes were for himself. I didn't have the stomach to see who his 'friends' were.
There's a lot of posters here on steemit who feel pretty good when we see our posts hit $20.
Yeah, who would think that it's fair he made a mockery out of that person's concern/outrage over his behavior, you cannot approach that kind of situation with passivity. it needs someone who isn't afraid to scrape some knuckles and elbows.
You claim the pool is being raped, but I've yet to see anybody provide evidence that it is indeed being raped or that people are being harmed as a result.
hmmm, well, on steem.supply we can see the percent of the reward pool he is claiming is pretty high, over 1 percent http://steem.supply/@haejin . Considering the amount of users on here, I think even small percentages count for a lot. nearly a million users, I am horrible at math so i am not going to try to figure out how much he is taking from each person. It seems to stand that if that percent was distributed more equally more people would get better rewards, since by what I understand there is a fixed number of rewards each day, hence the voting power.
I mean like its not really directly hurting anyone (though a lot of things dont directly hurt people but are still violent irl) but it definitely cannot be fair. Its not majority rule either that gives him such high rewards, there is a clear bias with his supporters. I suppose this isnt entirely violent either but again, not fair.
Do you believe that having a monopoly on the reward pool, (even since 1 percent seems like a pretty small number I think it proportionally pretty large) is unfair? Is this unfairness violence? I dont know.
Unfairness is NOT violence! Force is violence. Coercion is the non-physical manifestation. Is anyone coercing votes for haejin? THAT would be violence.
I am glad you have an opinion on that, I havent thought about it hard or long enough to figure it all out yet. Everything in life is a little unfair so yeah that makes sense. Thank you!
There is a whole philosophy based upon it, the Non-Aggression Principle. It is lovely, and helps sort a LOT of stuff out.
ehh I have heard a lot about that principle but I have not studied it yet. Too many things to study! Only so much time and brain space!
Its an important one, sorta like non violent communication I suppose?
Ahhhh, so now you want the system to distribute the rewards pool based on what is 'fair'? Who gets to determine that? You? Me? And if that determination then identifies one individual who violates that determination, does that then justify attacking him?
That is not evidence of harm. That is evidence of envy.
I suppose it might be envy, but im not envious. If a majority of stakeholders on Steemit deem it is unfair isnt that who determines it? Because there is no central ruling people body on here its up to the majority isnt it?
I suppose there is a spiritual level behind this too, but at that point im not sure about anything
I know that it does not justify being violent against violence, of course, thats rediculous. I want a different solution, because I do see a problem, and I am not the only one who sees it. I dont know what that peaceful solution is though, at this point.
I must commend your unpopular and poorly understood position. I mostly agree with you. I just stumbled into an old internet friend when I joined steemit. He has a long history with me of being kind, caring, and very intelligent. He is one who is upvoting haejin. He does it because he follows the advice and it has made him a lot of money. My friend earned his power here, like everybody else. For people to come in and demand that he NOT be allowed to upvote who he wants to whatever level he wants does NOT sit well with me.
Here is where I get a little fuzzy... If haejin is making all that money trading, why not "pay it forward" to his steemit family and voluntarily combine things into one or two posts a day. I am not recommending clamping down on HIS free speech either, I am just saying if he cares so much about making us all rich with his advice, why can't he care enough to stop tapping the reward pool so hard?
But yeah, nothing haejin ever posted cost me anything. EVERYTHING earned here is like Vegas, you make your post and you get what you get. There is no guaranteed minimum payment... or maximum.
End mini-rant... lol!
Everything that hajin has posted has directly cost everyone, not only you something. Despite no guarantees of minimum you're o with one entity making obscene amounts of wealth, week in and week out, directly taking away rewards from everyone else, because that's not aggressive as fuck.
i agree with you fishyculture, it doesn't sit well with me that people want to limit rancho's upvoting. that's his to do with what he will. it also doesn't sit well with me that haejin doesn't upvote people, doesn't engage with the community, and makes many small posts a day. he is not receptive to community pressuring him. if people were like mountainjewel, you need to consolidate your posts and put so much pressure on me, and in the end i realized that it's kosher to post 1-3 times a day, i would back down. the fact that he isn't here to be a part of the community doesn't sit well with me and will not bend to consolidating posts. in the end though, even though i may not like what he is doing- i'm not sure it's fair to wage war on him. who decides who can post what-- if flagging is used like that- it's not a very safe community to be a part of.
@mountainjewel thats the sorta issues I am having too, im morally confused about this all lol. there are so many different viewpoints on the whole thing.
I havent been around for too long. probably just four months or less, but i do know that what Haejin is doing is wrong. let's call a spade a spade. sure, he's a good TA, peple follow his investment advices and make for themselves a fortune. They definitely would love him. who wouldnt? However, everyone knows Haejin has capitalized on this "love and support" shown to him, and despite knowing how the reward pool works, it hasn't stopped him from taking too much for a few lines he posts.
For Pete's sake take a look at those numbers, we can call it envy or whatnot, He just might have easily combined a few of these posts into a single one and no one would bother him, but no. he's decided to ignore the consequences and implications of his actions, and if this "war" is the only way to make haejin listen, then so be it.
It's the blockchain, let the users decide.
The users would have decided LONG ago that this is wrong and immoral and not fair and fucking greedy and nothing to debate about, the only thing is that here people are incentivized to find good content and couple that with the low chance of effecting meaningful change in those obscene payouts at one's loss and possible retaliatory action, it only makes sense for one or two or max three top account to come down harder than jebus on the bankers because if it was up to "the users", he would have gotten the boot like a scum licking plagiarizing spammer does, swift and hard without apology.
aha @fishyculture thank you for making some sense! I do agree with you. I dont want people to force anything on anyone, and maybe haejin does give good advice (I know fuck all about crypto so I have no clue). Maybe we should send him little memos asking for him to change his ways a bit to make it more fair, that way everyone wins a little more. He can keep making rewards and so can everyone else.
I think Steemit is like luck that way, who knows what your gunna get!
Yes we have to invite a conversation about fair, and not about technically it's not objective. Fair is a consensus and not extremes, animals understand what's fair and hardly worth discussing what is fair. I know that it's not fair that someone makes more in a week than 98% of the world does in a year at the expense of everyone else, week in and week out.
I think people who want to use that term ought to go volunteer for 100 hours at facilities that work with and counsel those who are raped. What is happening on here is not rape and each time I see it referred as such, I am appalled. How inconsiderate to those who really suffered that horrific act.
This is nothing more than fear taking over @wwf.
People are scared....the banksters in all its forms took a toll on people.
No, this is fairness taking over. This is a sense of fairness that even animals display. Rape or not, what is happening is condemned and rightly so as there is no sense to the greed or excuse of greed when everyone can see that there's barely enough rewards to go around.
Incorrect. This is about greed...the greed of one person meeting up with the greed of others.
This statement proves it...
Oh really. How many SP are created a week? 700K SP. What is the cap on that SP? There isnt one.
So how is there barely enough to go around?
No it's not about greed, this is about fairness, need I link videos of dogs, and other animals exemplifying how unfair treatment and greed is not ok?
1sp/user per week.
What's the point about a cap? The point is that there's not enough.
I am sorry but all I see is a masterful job of justifying.
You want to believe that consensus is fairness.
The Nazis overwhelming believed that it was fair to send the Jews to the gas chamber.
As I mentioned in another comment, in the US, there was an entire region of the country who believed it was just to have blacks in separate schools, restaurants and the back of the bus. It was an overwhelming consensus for decades.
Right now, today, the majority of Israelis support the genocide the Palestinians on the west bank.
All these are examples of millions of people who agree as a consensus to atrocities. Yet you use it to justify fairness. I think human history is littered with examples how it is not true.
Hell even the majority of Americans believed OJ was guilty and would have put him away for life. The consensus was fry him. The journey who was tasked with that duty and watched all the evidence decided against it.
I will ignore the fact that most of the 700K on here are not active, it is about 1/10th.
Anyway, what are you going to do with your SP? If you want anything material at this point, you need to convert it to fiat. You ask the point about a cap (actually the lack of one)? What is STEEM was $10,000? Is that enough then? Or is it still not enough? How about $50K? Is that enough for you? Or do you need $100K?
And you claim it isnt about greed (which is fear)?
By the way, are you starving right now? Living on the street? Where do you not have enough?
I want to change my wording as well, its like, reward pool misuse rather then rape.
Abuse or call it what it is,,pure greed.
It is greed! Its hard not to be a little selfish sometimes, but not to the point of fucking over other people. Can you beat greed with kindness?
Well I can tell you that greed will not be beaten with more greed.
It is sad what is happening...few learn from wars yet we still glorify them.
Look at any country after a war, look at the destruction.
That is what STEEM will look like....nothing like pooping in your own living room.
haha pooping in your own living room? yes it is obvious that violence will not solve violence, war will not solve war, and greed will not solve greed. We must do something crazy and out of the box and solve with love. How the fuck thats going to solve our issues on planet Steem, I have no idea atm!
It's not combating greed with greed, it actually makes for more rewards to go around from what I've gathered. I think STEEM will be better off and disagree with your analogy. Whilst I agree passionately that war causes only destruction that's not how I view this mission. Isn't it somewhat contradictory to use that analogy after judging the 'rewardpoolrape' analogy?
THANK YOU. It pisses me off every time I see it.
This is by default though.
There are only so many shares to be voted on. One user capitalizing upwards of 2% of the reward pool for everyone is akin to taking tens of thousands more shares than the next user, and self voting and circle voting is harmful to the platform because they are litereally taking away the rewards from everyone. When you flag someone you are giving those rewards back to the pool to be redistributed, in turn in the past it has been a selfless endeavor where the whales would flag post that were vote by whales, in turn it made everyone elses voting power go up 10-50x, #whaleexperiement days.
ehh interesting things to think about. I am not so much into the technical workings of these things, but I am interested in researching it. Its really a sort of moral issue at this point I suppose. Are people trying to be like robin hood around here?
No, it's simply the principle of self policing. I see nothing commendable about not confronting abuse. Sometimes we have to fight fire with fire and in this instance we have a oil well fire that can only be put out by the blunt force trauma of a explosion. An ocean of water will not quench that, everyone can keep on voting like "flags" hurt but nothing short of taking away the RIDICULOUS payouts for ZILCH effort will stop it, and why not, that is prime parasitical behavior, you don't play nice with parasites.
I dont really agree with fighting fire with fire. I dont get that analogy at all. I dont understand self policing very well either, since there are few examples in real life.
You are taking away the fuel of the fire before it burns, by burning it. This is done in real life in forest fires by controlled burns and this is how they stop petroleum well fires, by blowing the fire away with explosives. Here you are basically invalidating a few votes and in turn making all others votes worth more. The point in self policing is that we, the community has to make a stand. When the community (aka 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and so many people) stand up with their voice saying "this shit is fucked" then pressure mounts as solidarity is unified against the abuse. This is not a debate about fairness, everyone and the dog knows what is fair, what this is about is the greed of a few which costs everyone directly and indirectly in numerous ways as people are clearly faced with the appalling abuse of steem by these actors. Some people don't understand that yes indeed one vote could be worth 10000 or 100000 other votes and this is what is happening here. Nobody sees this as fair, unless they have deluded themselves that such bullshit tea leaf nonsense is actually worth more than $10. Go tell some poor folk that live on $5 a day that that asshole deserves to make numbers that they cannot even fathom, he makes more a week than a village in a year. Fuck this shit. This is not what steem is for.
I commend you for remaining true to your values. People seem to forget that Steemit is simply a microcosm of the rest of the world we live in. It contains all the good and evil in pretty much the same proportions, sadly.
As we've discussed before the responsibility lies with the individual to take responsibility for their own being. Few do this, again sadly.
The whole concept of "raping the reward pool" is simply WRONG, meaning that what folks are doing is EXACTLY what the blockchain has been programmed to do. Haijin and all the rest are doing nothing illegal as defined by the code underlying the blockchain. In fact ned and many others behave the same way; just less offensively. Just like in the "real" world the more money and power you have the more money and power you can accumulate from others.
Haha but instead of taking ourselves out of an abusive system in real life we gotta figure out how to deal with this kind of stuff on here since we are all so in love with the platform!
The problem is that our beloved platform is owned by robber barons!
(Some of whom are really nice)
I'm sure you and I could figure out a solution but my concern is that the truly wealthy STEEM owners are not as interested as we might be.
So, like in "real" life we pick our battles. If we're smart we only pick the ones we can win. I'm still looking for ANY related to STEEM that "insignificants" like us have any hope of simply influencing, much less winning.
More specifically, around 100 folks own like 90% of all STEEM. (My stats are from memory so I might be off a bit). It's like me trying to influence Jeff Bezos, Jack Ma, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Elon Musk, etc.
Oh, by the way, I'm an optimist, really! ;-)
More specifically, these stakeholders along with the top witnesses can literally write code to stop haijin from doing what he's doing; but the problem is the stake holders don't want to impose that kind of control because it would also stop them from doing what they're doing. Theses stakeholders are here because they expect to make money, a lot of money. Why would they want to jeopardize their investments?
PS - After reading more of the comments there seems to be a very naive notion concerning how crypto currencies actually work and how a very few profit by them. Understand that making money from cryptos have NOTHING to do with a social media platform like steemit.com. It is just one of many "services" sitting on top of the blockchain with the SOLE purpose of building "credibility" (i.e acceptance) in the underlying crypto. Think SilkRoad and BitCoin.