Meet our Witnesses - @aggroed

If you have been following along with my witness interview series, by now you should have grasped the importance of voting, but if not, I will try and break it down in as simple terms as possible.

Witnesses are the leaders of our community, they produce the blocks that the platform runs on. Moreover, a lot of these witnesses are also developers, project leaders, organizers, volunteers, and/or doing everything they can to help make steemit an enjoyable place for all of us.

Everyone has 30 witness votes, you can see the up to date top 50 witnesses here. For a full list of witnesses go check out Steemd. For more questions you may have about what witnesses do, check out the FAQ Page

Today's Witness - @aggroed

If you have been on the platform for any length of time then you have probably seen his name floating around. If you haven't perhaps its time you started venturing outside your own posts. @agrroed has been a huge part of the steem community for about a year and a half now and plays a big role in several different areas. One of his biggest endeavors looks to be the PAL project, (Peace, Abundance, Liberty). If you look through any of his posts, you will see this common theme that he strives for. Home to one of the biggest discord communities, the PAL network has over 7000 members, you can join the community by clicking the link. As the name infers, the goal of the Peace, Abundance, Liberty community is three folds. Firstly, peace; - working together on the steem platform and building a community in harmony where everyone prospers. Abundance; - through the collective efforts, everyone is taken care of and those who have put in the effort do not get left behind. Liberty; - as the Steem block chain is decentralized, you don't need to worry about your voice being silenced by corrupt officials or large corporations.

Following this trend @aggroed himself has donated a large amount of his SP to smaller minnows. He is currently donating over 90% of his holdings, which shows that he not only cares about the little people out there, but that he believes in the long term success of Steem. By delegating such a large percentage of his holdings he is investing in the future of Steem. That is one thing that makes the Steem community unlike any other crypto community out there, we have the ability to monetarily help each other, without financially disabling ourselves, a truly unique concept.

Besides the PAL community promoting Peace, Abundance and Liberty, with @aggroed at the helm, another main focus is in helping every minnow on the steem blockchain succeed. The Minnow Support Project, does exactly what the name suggests, it helps minnows grow. The #MSP group is designed to help the average minnow not get swallowed up by the big huge ocean that is the steem platform. Through delegations to several Minnow Support Projects @aggroed has set this community up to thrive. All minnows should be very thankful for these efforts. Go check out the @minnowsupport page or join the Minnow Support Discord group.

Now, I have been meaning to post this interview I recently did with @aggroed, but had to delay it a few days because there was a very similar interview done by fellow steemian @jerrybanfield. Jerry did an awesome job covering a lot of different areas and was very thorough in getting to know @aggroed a bit better. I highly recommend that you go check out @jerrybanfield's two part interview and you can learn a hell of a lot more about @aggroed than I am able to provide here. Check out both Part 1 and Part 2. Big props to Jerry for his very thorough interview.

So, seeing what Jerry had to say, I am humbled to offer you my own interview, the full transcript of the recent conversation I had with @aggroed follows below. It is clear that he is a busy man. It is also clear that he loves being here on the platform and finally, it is clear that he is here for the long haul. With that in mind, I hope you enjoy the interview.

• When you first signed up for steem, did you have any goals or were you just intrigued at the idea of making money through posting?

I started on here because I'd been kicked off of Facebook 5 times for a having an activist account. I got censored over and over. People find that hard to believe, but by the fifth time I was done. I also caught a @stellabelle post and decided to give it a try. I went back and noticed the first thing I did on the platform was give her a follow. I just wanted to tell my story and what I was learning about the world. The money was a bonus

• As you have risen to a position where you are more visible in the community and more people look up to you have your goals changed?

When I started their wasn't much of a goal other than to post and have a place people couldn't take it down or keep others from seeing it. It took me a while to figure this place out, but after a @kaylinart resteem I learned what this place can do and how it works. From then on I realized Steem can play an amazing role in spreading the values I hold dear of Peace, Abundance, and Liberty and have done everything I can to support this place for supporting those values.

• You are a huge part of the PAL community, what made you undertake such a big project and where do you see this community a year from now?

The Minnow Support Project was born from gratitude to @kaylinart and @frystikken for resteeming a post I made about how to write like @kaylinart. I realized the power of resteems and started holding a contest. That's weekly resteem contest is still running and bigger than ever. We're growing pretty massively. We're over 8k folks in Discord. I think we'll continue to find new ways to fulfill the charter of spreading the values of Peace, Abundance, and Liberty, help the Steem ecosystem grow, and train and retain new users on the platform.
We'll build programs, communities, delegations, and I'm personally working on a video production studio to help make easily digestible content for this.

• It seems the more and more you get involved with the steemit community, the less and less time you have for yourself, how do you keep a balance?

I don't. My life is a little broken. Steem takes up almost all of my time. Posting, managing projects, radio shows, DMs, and talking about crypto. It's more than full time. It's non-stop. The trick is I enjoy nearly every minute of this and I have a solid work ethic. Just dig into the next project and have fun with it, and take breaks when my family needs me.

• Steem is a revolutionary idea and could be a top 10 coin if things go right, but there are lots of problems that need to be addressed first. What do you see as the biggest obstacle for steem right now?

Honestly we're doing great. People have some concerned over abuse and what not, but we're accelerating. I've thought and wrote since I got here distribution on the platform is pretty effed. A ninja mine combined with a handful of people mining combined with stake weighted inflation really fucked up distribution. This platform is amazing, but I'm pretty shocked Dan let it get that fucked up. So, I think it's distribution, and the best fix I know for that which would also help accelerate the growth of the platform is to increase annual inflation to 10% and leave it there.

• When you are disconnected from the Matrix (not on Steem) what does the human version of Aggroed enjoy doing?

I'm here cause I love this stuff. I do this. I spend hours scrolling through news feeds and trying to figure out how the world works. So, it wasn't a big shift to go from FB to here. What I also try to do is work out. I'm fat and don't want to be. So, that's a project for me.

• You are obviously heavily invested in steem, what, if any other coins do you consider good investments?

I think there are plenty, but I'm really starting to come to terms with how undervalued I think Steem is. I can place bets on other coins and hope that some pop faster than Steem, but most of them don't have the capacity, audience, or reach that Steem does. I think we're gonna be a top 10 coin possibly this year. So I may put some in other coins like BTS or EOS, but I think in 2018 I'm going to have more eggs in the Steem basket.

• In the past month and a half we saw crypto absolutely explode, reaching $800 billion market cap but then yesterday back down in the $400 million range, the volatility is huge and can be scary for new users. Do you see crypto as being similar to the internet 2.0, or is this more of a fad that will fizzle out over time?

Teamsteem showed me a video of some rich hedge fund guy talking about the dot com bubble. It was localized to America and worth 7 Trillion. Crypto is global, there's been an enormous amount of inflation then, and these tools are incredibly powerful. I'm betting we go to at least 10-14 Trillion as a market which means roughly 20X more money is going to pour into this space. We're in the infancy and it's only going to grow crazy big.

• If you had to choose just one witness to represent the steem community, who would it be and why?

I'm not sure this is a healthy question for a witness to answer. There's a lot of really wonderful witnesses with good skills, projects, and communities they are building. You can see the 30 people I support on Steemdb.com. I also don't think that any one of the witnesses brings everything we need to the table.

• When the price of steem hits $100 per coin and you start reaping the rewards, how will you spend your money?

The plan isn't gonna change. Spread the values of Peace, Abundance, and Liberty. Only thing that will change is the scope. We'll start making full length feature films to share.

• Since you have a huge platform to be heard to you feel any added responsibility? The big issue currently at hand is reward pool abuse. There are arguments on both sides and criticisms about the leaders just talking and not taking action. How do you respond?

I think the system is roughly working the way it's supposed to. People purchased stake. They get to use it how they want. That includes upvoting 1 person over and over. It also includes down voting 1 user over and over. This is how we find a price the market agrees on.

The part I don't like about all of this is the racist ignorant comments getting put on posts. Those people are real douche bags. Make a sound argument as to why it's bad rather than sitting around trolling. I like that Steem has a nice dialog and a few people can't be civil. Seriously, fuck them.

The other part I don't like is retaliation flagging, but there's gonna be damage and learning from this. I think the world is a better place when someone can say this post is overvalued and not fear getting 7 days of post rewards nuked as a result. Hopefully people that aren't behaving maturely will elevate themselves over time. This platform will provide more corrective incentive as time goes on to encourage good behavior.

To get to the root cause- When we moved from exponential rewards to linear rewards we lost some of how consensus operates on the communal pool. To get it back we need more negative reward votes. I suggest two changes. 1. Create a separate voting pool for down votes so it doesn't cost anyone money to counter overly rewarded posts. 2. Make a total of 3 voting types. upvote, downvote (only effects post rewards), and flag (effects post rewards and rep). I think these changes would give the community more tools to decentrally stop abuse and find consensus on post rewards rather than try to have centralized policing. If you think a centralized solution is the answer you might be missing a major point of why we have the Steem ecosystem.

I don't think @Ned and Steemit should do anything or the witnesses collectively for that matter. I think people get to use their stake. It's an awkward position to say to an investor buy steem, but don't use it like that. Getting flagged can be a challenge, but it can also be one of the highest attention grabbing things on the community. Properly dealing with this can elevate the discussion, debate, and create new outcomes. I think that it's hard for newer members to grasp some of the larger picture, but I think in time people will see a lot (not all) of what's happening is actually fairly healthy.

I also don't agree that it's a problem to have someone so rewarded like @haejin. Where else have you heard about a blogging millionaire. Tell a friend that a guy on Steem is making millions from blogging. See if that peeks their interest. If you do that 10 times and actually get people to hop on the platform than it's a type of advertising that's powerful. Yes, he's getting a lot of rewards, but I also think it's entirely possible that's he is also having an impact on the price of Steem because of how much he's earning. It'll also breed content competition and that will effect this too. Maybe soon we'll have 10 or 100 other price forecasters blogging on here. The market will fix this.

Some very interesting insights he shares here. It's great being able to see both sides of the argument for such a hot topic right now. I can't say I fully agree with everything that he has to say, but that is the beauty of being in a global community and having different opinions, we are able to discuss our difference in opinions and work towards a solution. If you have been following along in the current reward pool abuse situation, @aggroed had a sit down with several other witnesses last week to discuss the situation. That is one thing I admire about him is that he is willing and wants to have a discussion about this issue and organize the event. You can go check out the post that @aggroed made about the discussion Witness Forum or listen to the whole two hour conversation on @dtube ---------->>> Witness Recording

Once again I would like to give a huge thanks to @aggroed for taking the time to have a chat with me. It's steemians like you who make our platform the amazing place it is. Don't forget to show @aggroed some support in his witness campaign.

This is part 14 of the series "Meet Our Witnesses", You can read the interviews with @rival, @good-karma, @someguy123, @liondani, @patrice, @jerrybanfield, @kyle, @pharesim @reggaemuffin, @timcliff, @gtg, @netuoso and @curie by clicking the links:

Rival	Good-Karma	Someguy123
Liondani	Patrice	Jerry Banfield
Kyle	Pharesim	ReggaeMuffin
Tim Cliff	GTG	Netuoso
Curie

Make sure you follow along to this series as we get to know many of the leaders in the Steemit community and show some appreciation for everything they do. Thanks for reading and check back soon.