Imagine a society that rewards you for sharing everything that you learn

In a cut throat world you need to keep every competitive edge you can find. Sharing too much could tip off your adversary and lead them to take credit for your discovery or your creation.

It’s been said that a few household names didn’t actually even create what they were famous for creating, that they stole their ideas from others.

Just imagine you had developed a new technology that could change the world. If Google got ahold of your discovery and had a chance to develop it first, do you think you’d get any credit?

It’s possible that they’d hire you or honor you in some way, but in most cases, it’s been more common that no one would ever hear your name and you wouldn’t see a single dollar of the profits made from your innovation.

Patenting ideas could be an expensive and complicated process and just because you had an idea didn’t mean that you would have the funds to build that project or the know how to find investment. This whole startup culture is fairly new after all. If you go back a few decades, investments were made much more conservatively.

How many ideas does with the people who thought of them? How many waited decades before becoming realized?

If only we had some kind of irrefutable proof that you were the one who came up with the idea. If only we were socially organized in a way that you could gain some kind of social currency for your ideas, even the ones that you yourself didn’t have the means to build upon….

Do you see where I’m going with this?

We now have the means already to totally change the incentive structures of society. You are looking right at them. We slowly getting accustomed with a combination of technologies that could totally restructure our society.

Do you really think that Apple were the only ones who thought of the iPhone? It’s likely that thousands of people came up with similar ideas and would have found ways to make it feasible if they had the resources. They didn’t share those ideas because they wouldn’t have been recognized or rewarded for them.

You might think it’s selfish to hold onto ideas for yourself, but imagine being the one to transform society and not being recognized for it if you are struggling to get by. People want to monetize their ideas because they need money to pay for housing and food and things that excite them. But ideas have been very difficult to monetize.

The process of monetizing an idea has been something like this: build a product, make a business plan, find a way to distribute and market, try to prevent others from outdoing you, make the product better, push out the competition when possible, corner the market, set the price because you control the supply. It doesn’t always go that far , but it’s not a simple or pretty process.

This may not be every companies intentions but the market can be a brutal place. It does not care about your good deeds unless you’ve found a way to monetize those as well.

Yesterday I started making a website for the business I’m trying to build. It was so much easier than I anticipated. I thought about sharing a post about how I did it, and my first thought was “if I show them just how easy a website is, then the potential competition has a one up on me”. You may feel I’m overreacting, stuck in a scarcity mindset, or you may totally understand.

We are living in a confusing time, caught between two different paradigms. This has only happened a few times in history. Scarcity mentality won’t disappear overnight, even in those who preach abundance. It will take generations for us to trust each other better.

It’s coming though.

For now, we have to be mindful of both paradigms and how to navigate between them. The truth is, there are still many people who would take all your ideas and skills for their own and profit off them. We have to be aware of who is who and support the new technologies and new cultures and people that promote abundance mentality and an open source society. We need to build trust.

Why do you think I’m here?

Even if sharing this idea could give a little extra fuel to those who could become competitors, monetized social media allows people to reward me for those ideas so I can benefit from them even if someone else ends up benefiting much more than me.

Proof of brain, A patreon-like system or borderless tipping can allow people to support me JUST for my ideas, even if I don’t create anything. Bitcoin allows them to do it without a middle man. Blockchain will likely create a way to patent ideas instantly without any complicated processes or middle men.

We will no longer see any value in hoarding our ideas and inspirations to ourselves in order to keep a competitive edge. Even before blockchain, developers have been building the open-source culture.

Things are changing.

What happens when you can be rewarded for your ideas that allow others to build their businesses or create new technologies?

That’s when we start holding nothing back and we get to see what we are really capable of.

What happens when you are no longer challenged to compete with others but instead you are challenged and rewarded upon your ability to outdo yourself?

Suddenly we all start working hard to do the things we really want to do. We all find our own unique voice and sharpen it as best we can because that’s what we are incentivized to do.

You may not have the knowledge to build a website, but you have your own unique voice. In the future you will be become able to sustain yourself according to your effort to sculpt that voice and evolve in a way that is entirely your own. The knowledge about the website is supplementary. It’s just the flavor of the day. YOU are your own calling, whatever you come up with, that is your bread and butter, and you can change it or improve it in whatever way you like.

People don’t pay streamers because they beat the game. They pay them because they are being themselves while playing the games and it’s interesting.

The world is going to see a massive explosion of ideas and innovation based around this free flow, and people will be able to sustain themselves by just improving themselves, learning and sharing.

This is the new economy which is now just beginning to open its eyes.

“I learned how to make a website quickly and easily, I won’t hold any information behind a pay wall, here”. “I can explain it in half the time and more to the point than anyone else, here”. It doesn’t matter that I’m just a beginner at making websites. I can still earn money through a hive blog post and tips and patreon-like monthly support system because people know that I’m always offering valuable information.

Our entire learning process can be monetized and our unique insights can be shared freely.

When everything is shared freely, I will feel no reason to hide that it was actually @kendewitt who, in a private conversation, answered all my questions and made me realize how easy it was (true story).

Then when I make the post sharing my experience building a website in 20 minutes, I can split the rewards with him easily and also invite you to follow him and send him some upvote love (good idea…do it!).

We may have already had the technology to do all this with patreon, Facebook, and YouTube, but it was fragmented. Taking out the middlemen, having more control of our feeds and adding immutability will incentivize a culture that is built around the free flowing of ideas and resources.

That is why I put my energy into this platform and this community, because I want to see that culture thrive, and share what I have to offer with those who will be predisposed to pay it forward.

I never got around to making a post about how to build a website in 20 minutes. I invite @kendewitt to do that if he is interested, and if not than whoever is inspired to can do so. I’d rather talk about the changing culture and make stuff, at least today (and most days).

I will keep doing what I’m inspired to do and as we move into an age of abundance, I will learn to hold nothing back.

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My work:

📕 Confessions of the Damaged psychedelic spiritual fiction

🎸I + Everything - ambient folky music

🎬Self Help For Trolls - vlog

Confessions of the Damaged 1.1 - Out now!

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