On Boiling Frogs & Being Sloppy

Just turn the heat up very, very slowly and the frog won't flinch, won't jump.

I live & work in Northern Thailand - 17 years now - and a big part of my work involves Karen indigenous refugees along the Thai-Burma border. I came to steem predominantly because of them - the unbankable ones who live between countries and worlds without papers, without official identity, without work, without opportunity. I wanted to learn the blockchain for them. I did not come to steem for the upvotes, nor the actifit.

We know about boiling frogs and frog soup over here. Apart from frogs being a fairly staple diet in the rainy season since the UN stopped refugee food aid, I'm referring more to that feeling of sitting in the rising heat, without flinching and without reacting. Slowly dying. Without people noticing.

Last 2 weeks there has been more shelling and bombing of Karen villages just a few hours west of touristville Chiang Mai, as the crow flies, over the border. Some 2,000+ Karen indigenous people fled into the land-mined Burmese jungle, with no food and no water.

Not one mainstream Thai news article, no CNN, no uproar or outrage. Nothing, really. Just a news report on an obscure NGO website and a message from my Karen colleague that they urgently need clothes & bedding. After 64 years of civil war, what more is there to say?

The temperature rose, the frog felt comfortable in the warming water and didn't flinch.

Next week I will travel overland to the town of Hpa-an in South Eastern Burma, to meet with a senior adviser to the Karen National Union about expanding my herbal social enterprise into other parts of Karen State and into active military conflict zones. I was worried about not getting a visa to go, since I am a former registered journalist and often outspoken about the atrocities of the military junta. I got my visa today. Surprised me! And while I celebrated over coffee and skimmed twitter, I saw people on steem bitching about proof of stake and reward pools and crypto exchanges; I couldn't help but feel the temperature of the water rising as they all seemed to forget about the sanctity of free speech and what that still means in some parts of this world.

Tonight in a discord channel I politely shared about steem witness voting and shared the link to #justinsunsteem's witness requirements post. I (again) invited people to vote for their 30 witnesses. I was accused of propaganda. The comfortable discord channel doesn't really welcome much beyond touchy-feelies.

As a frog who knows how quickly freedom is eroded when people don't speak out and don't vote, I suddenly felt the water become uncomfortably warm.

I LOVE the messy, awkward and clumsy dissent I see these past days on steem. I'm OK with argument and difference. I LOVE that people are passionate, occasionally abrasive and thoughtless, and sometimes appear rude. They are welcome to sit on my bench!

It means the frogs are jumping!!

We don't all jump eloquently, or kindly, or with much sensitivity to those around us. We don't all utter the word "community" under every second breath, nor hold hands while we jump.

But. We. Are. Jumping.

Together.

For every person I heard tonight complaining about the tension and aggression in this steem governance battle, I also saw in my mind's eye the silent group of refugees sleeping rough, trying not to make noise in case they get shot. People with no voice, no platform.

Give me a little messy, thoughtless passion anyday.

We HAVE an amazing tool - steem - where I am not censored when I post about my work or the needs of my indigenous friends. Maintaining decentralization on steem MATTERS more to me than most people appreciate, because Justin Sun's China with its dams, its political censorship, mineral exploitation and SHOCKING human rights track record is one of the biggest threats my Karen people face. Other than malaria and starvation.

I want tonight to simply celebrate this messy, jumping bunch of steem frogs, hopping all over the place. @tarazkp said it so beautifully today: we are SLOPPY. Uncontained, awkward, sometimes offensive, bumping into the ideas and feelings of others.

But can we please celebrate the collective jumping?

In a frustrated moment in the heat of the steem-twitter battles of the past days, I flicked back over to facebook-land and had to chuckle, after I cringed.

THIS, my friends, is what a REAL boiling frog looks like. LOL. Tepid water, brain cells disengaged, and no clue about free speech or my friends in the jungle.

The image that soooo offended my discord friend this evening?

I thought it simple, clear and containing the information a person might need in order to be able to exercise their witness vote well.

In the days to come when we are no-doubt going to see conflict and vigorous discussion, please don't try to quell that or smooth it over. Dissent is a privilege denied to many! As is free speech.

And if you see me carping on about witness voting, believe me when I say that free speech matters.

I personally LOATHE frog soup, and refuse to sit still and silent as the waters grow hot. If I offend you with my passion, get over it. Recognize your privilege and please help to protect this decentralized and uncensored steem platform.

It matters. So very much more than you can imagine.

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