My Newsteem Economic Philosophy Freewrite

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(Edited)

Introduction

It's been a while since I've made a post about STEEM. The last thing I want to read or write at this point is another justification or explanation of downvotes and why they are a good thing. I did however want to explore the economic principles I feel apply to the reward pool to help myself and other people better understand the system as a whole. There is some discussion of downvotes, but I'm trying to set a larger stage for the discussion. I'm not an economist by any stretch, and would love someone in that field such as @spectrumecons to chime in.


Libertarianism, Minarchism, And STEEM

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First off, I am politically both a libertarian and a minarchist. Simply put, a libertarian puts personal liberty and freedom above all else. It is a philosophy of voluntary association, property rights, and non-aggression. A minarchist basically believes that the state should be the minimum size necessary to provide a very limited set of functions to ensure liberty and provide for a common defense.

When I first joined STEEM with my libertarian bias, I thought that if a person owned STEEM and powered it up, it gave them license to do whatever they wanted within the constraints of the resources afforded by that STEEM power. I primarily arrived at this conclusion because I did not understand the reward pool or how it functioned. I assumed, my vote, my money. But that was my libertarian mind thinking that people should be able to do whatever they want with their stake, but I was wrong. I learned that the STEEM reward pool is a form of socialism, and it has to be that way. Yes I said it, the dreaded 'S' word!


What Is Socialism?

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Let's start off by defining socialism for the purpose of this blog. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines socialism as:

"any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods."


But Socialism Is Bad Right?

Not always. Socialism is bad when it's imposed by governments and implemented by force. When a group of people (a collective), come together to share resources (a reward pool) voluntarily, that's about as libertarian you can get. Yes libertarian socialism is a thing! It's also referred to as anarcho-socialism. I came to the conclusion that STEEM is an anarcho-socialist platform, and participating fits just fine with my political views. Everybody here is participating voluntarily.

But we were taught that socialism is the root of all evil! What you were taught about was political socialism, not the voluntary type. Where political socialism is concerned, who am I to argue with history? It's a shitty political system that eventually devolves into communism and has resulted in millions of deaths. But I digress, this isn't a political post. So what is the resource that we are socializing here? Simply put, it's the reward pool, a collective resource that is not only collected by the community, but also controlled by it.


Tragedy Of The Commons-- The Reward Pool

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The reward pool can be referred to as a commons, meaning it is a commonly available shared resource that can be used or claimed by any one at any time. The 'tragedy of the commons' is an economic concept that explains how a shared resource can be depleted by multiple individuals acting in their own interest. For example, the rhinoceros grazing on public land was once considered a shared resource. The demand for rhinoceros horn by the Arab and Chinese markets quickly caused demand to outstrip supply, now the rhinoceros faces extinction. Like the rhinoceros, the reward pool is a resource anyone with stake can potentially claim. What has prevented the rhinoceros from going extinct in the short term? The answer is active management. As a commons, does the reward pool for STEEM also require active management?


Active Management Of The Reward Pool

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While the reward pool is renewable and will not go extinct, it could be diluted by exploits to a level where it might as well be extinct. This is why active management by the community is essential to controlling this commons. During the 7-day voting period, upvotes and downvotes are applied to posts in a constant tug-of-war (at least that's the way it was designed). When the timer ends, voila, you have consensus and payout. Prior to the actual payout, a post only tracks the potential payout should the timer end when it's viewed at that specific time.


Downvotes Post HF21

Prior to HF21, the opportunity cost of downvoting something was giving up potential curation rewards on upvoting something else. Opportunity cost, is simply that thing you give up when making an economic decision like downvoting. When you downvoted, you gave up a potential upvote and the curation rewards that came along with it. HF21 turned that on its head by removing a significant amount of that cost. Now people can both upvote and downvote based upon their personal values.

We went so long with downvotes having such a high cost, very few people actual used them. People got used to not seeing them very much. Now that HF21 is here, the opposite is true, and it's going to take some time for them to be viewed as a normal function of curation.


What I Learned From Helping To Fight Abuse On STEEM

I have been actively involved in the anti-abuse community for over a year now, and I have discovered what an essential function it is to keep the reward pool humming. Abuse can come in many forms, and it's not always black and white. I learned that without the unsung heroes fighting abuse on this blockchain, the reward pool for honest authors and curators here would be complete shit, because the exploiters would take over. They would suck as many rewards out of the pool as they could, and they would dump them onto exchanges with no regard to the token price. Most people here have no clue what lengths people will go through to milk every last fraction of STEEM they can so they can dump it. The only way to fight this is with downvotes and a dedicated community using them.

While you might not always agree with the reasoning behind a specific downvote, you can take comfort that the result of a downvote is the return of those potential rewards to the commons where they may be claimed again. Hopefully by a deserving under-rewarded content creator. For those of you who make blanket statements about downvotes being immoral, or a form of stealing, you are just plain wrong.


Finding Equilibrium

So what happens when a bunch of different philosophies about what is good behavior or bad behavior clash, and you have a low opportunity cost for downvotes? Well, you get lots downvotes along with the upvotes. That is a bunch of sovereign individuals on STEEM signaling to you how they feel about you, your post, or your behavior--good and bad. There are no official centralized STEEM blockchain rules, though some DApps have them, there are only signals on the blockchain itself. It is your job, to interpret those signals and act accordingly. If you wish to minimize your downvotes, figure out why you are being downvoted and adjust. If you wish to entrench yourself in your behavior and ignore those signals, you can do that too, though your reward potential will probably suffer.

Various STEEM influencers will try to tell you what's good for you and what's good for STEEM, and sure you can listen to them if you want. But despite the reward pool being socialized, your vote is absolutely sovereign. I support the notion that you should decide as an individual what is good and bad, and vote accordingly. Use whatever criteria you want. If someone has an issue with your vote one way or the other, that's their problem.


Retaliation

If you chose to ignore the downvote signals, that's your prerogative. If you choose to retaliate with a downvote of your own, you too are generating a signal that is easily interpreted. That signal is an open attempt to shut down others signaling you by creating fear, especially when there is a large disparity between the stake of the two individuals. Over the long term, this is toxic behavior. After all, your blog/steem profile is like a business. Normally when a customer signals a business that they disagree with something that business is doing, the business doesn't go on the offensive against their customer. The community is doing a better and better job at both healing victims of retaliation, and dealing with the actual retaliators, and I applaud that.


Thanks for reading, and I welcome your comments and input.



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Very nice post! :) I enjoyed reading it

Funny that you say things like "But Socialism Is Bad Right?" or "But we were taught that socialism is the root of all evil!" while in germany it's the exact opposite.
We're all taught that our socialism is awesome and we need more and more and more even though we already pay 70% taxes :)

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Thanks!
YOUR socialism is awesome, but I'm glad it's yours. Keep on trucking Germany... GULP

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lol wut

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That's my way of saying:

Deutschland ist großartig, aber Gott sei Dank bin ich Amerikaner! :-P

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Great article, that concludes the topic for me and I won't have to write anything about it any more :) thanks for writing it out so well!

Let me dive a bit into the political stuff about the socialism/communism definition, because you started and it's kind of a hobby of mine :D
First off, there are countless socialist schools. Their former main organ, the international, split up several times because everyone thinks he is right and the others are counterrevolutionaries.

According to Marxists, socialism is the phase of the so called "dictatorship of the proletariat". Communism means that socialism has advanced so much that the state disappears. Wikipedia
This is why communists today say that there has never been real communism, and by pure theoretical definitions they are right. They fail to see that every attempt to get there in the ways Marx described led to terror and suffering.

Libertarian socialism has lots of different branches itself and actually is a synonym for anarchism (except in the view of ancaps, a bit more on them later).
It all started with Proudhon's Mutualism (Property is theft. Property is freedom). Around the same time American small business owners developed a concept of left-market anarchism in opposition to the growing corporations which used the state to suppress their competition. That stayed a mostly American phenomenon though, in Europe the thinkers started to play with ideas which would base on abolition of wage labour and markets together with the state, mostly in favour of a distribution of goods not involving currency.
Based on Proudhon, Bakunin formulated anarcho-collectivism and Kropotkin anarcho-communism. The main difference between the two is that in collectivism people would get their share of goods depending on the work they submitted, thus involving some kind of currency at least in the beginning, while communism means that it's distributed completely freely according to needs (same as Marx:
"from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs").
Both had big issues with Marx and basically foresaw that his ideas of a socialist dictatorship will lead to power structures which won't just disappear, but do everything necessary to stay in power and suppress everyone else.
Later in history, anarcho-syndicalism became very popular, which is the idea that trade unions and collectives can overthrow the state and capitalism, again building on the previous thinkers. Around the 1920s/1930s they were very successful in certain regions for a while (Ukraine, Spain before/during the Civil War - Orwell fought on their side and wrote the autobiographic Homage to Catalonia about his experiences), but in the end always brutally suppressed by Leninists/Stalinists, Capitalists and Fascists, often working together.
Their organizations still exist, but are very small in numbers. A famous proponent of their ideas today is Noah Chomsky.

There are countless further categories which can be taken more or less serious (A-feminism, green A, Christian A, A-pacifism, Egoist A, Primitive A, Insurrectionary A, Post-left A, Transhumanist A), as well as the "non-anarchisms" which also want to abolish the state, but keep certain power structures intact or even extend them and are not based on voluntarism, like National-A (National Autonomous Zones, natural hierarchies), A-fascism (similar to the previous, but less thought out and basically just a rant by a racist and misogynist kid against the Swedish state) and A-capitalism (money rules, greed is good).

Most info collected from Rationalwiki, because I'm really bad with remembering names and stuff and didn't want to leave anything out. It's generally a great site if you're interested in political theories, philosophies, religions and more.

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Thanks, that was very informative! I only have a superficial understanding of most of these topics.

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(Edited)

This is my first time commenting on your posts. Actually first time visiting your post. I am not much of a writer, but hopefully that's alright, we all have our roles to play.

When I discovered steem nearly 2 years back, my first impression was; well not everyone is a content creator! So how does this thing will work? After nearly 2 years I can't really call myself a noob anymore can I? However, my first observation remains valid.

In a social network that is build on a blockchain, which actually pays the users, the most important thing is governance. Yes, we all love our freedom, we all have our freedom but not at the expense of others. Just like in real life you can't shoot someone because you are free, you go to jail if you do that (hopefully!)

So, NO, you circle-voters, you know who you are. NO you do not have freedom to do CRIME. We will come after you and we will hunt you down. So, who gave us this job? Well we took it upon ourselves. You say you don't like it? Fine, go where ever you like to go, or feel free to stay. But there WILL BE GOVERNANCE.

I don't like to comment much, but often silence is taken as weakness. Also the stage never remains empty, so if I don't speak, someone else will, and that someone else can be a criminal, a manipulator, a person who doesn't think anything else other than personal gain.

I am fortunate that I do not need income from Steem. But my privilege is not my fault and not my weakness either. Let us focus on content, social interaction, innovation on this blockchain. Price will follow. If you are a spammer, deep down you know that you produce spam, and we don't want you here. Who decides what is spam you ask? Crowd decides, collective up-vote and down-vote decides what is spam. It least it should. That is the intent.

Thank you @joshman for this thought provoking article. Got me to write this long! :)

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(Edited)

You're welcome, and thanks for the comments! For the record, your writing seems fine to me! You're right about governance. I think one of the fundamental issues is that people are not used to decentralized governance, which is messy. That's why we see so many appeals to Steemit Inc. for guidance regarding 'official STEEM rules'.

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Those so called dust downvote accounts are a form of serious abuse of the Steem network. When this thing continues I gotta propose that there should be no free accounts or at least free accounts for personal data and a MAC address.

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When you mention "serious abuse" do you mean the amount of STEEM power they control on the aggregate, or the aesthetics they create? I have never seen stats on how many of the free 15SP accounts there are, or how much they are actually downvoting and what the the financial impact of that is. Anecdotally it doesn't seem like a serious problem to me in terms of real damage, and it's more of a question of aesthetics. I could be wrong. Either way I don't think anyone really wants free accounts doing nasty shit on the blockchain, so I agree that it should be mitigated.

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Okay, if you agree on that then there is hope that something will be done. It just has to be proposed to the right people.

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I've seen it mentioned before as an issue in other forums.

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Hi @joshman!

Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation!
Your UA account score is currently 3.728 which ranks you at #5509 across all Steem accounts.
Your rank has not changed in the last three days.

In our last Algorithmic Curation Round, consisting of 85 contributions, your post is ranked at #14.

Evaluation of your UA score:
  • You're on the right track, try to gather more followers.
  • The readers appreciate your great work!
  • Try to work on user engagement: the more people that interact with you via the comments, the higher your UA score!

Feel free to join our @steem-ua Discord server

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During the 7-day voting period, upvotes and downvotes are applied to posts in a constant tug-of-war (at least that's the way it was designed).

If that were the sole case of then there why are down voted post and comments greyed out?

When the timer ends, voila, you have consensus and payout.

So why are post greyed out prior to the end of the timer? If it is only about payout, why the greying out of content?

The down vote system has been broken since inception, if down votes were only about the pay out, then your statements would be acceptable. But down votes are not only about pay-outs. They are about plagiarism and abuse, and a couple of other things that pop up when the down vote button is clicked.

Normalizing bad behavior is a bad idea, it has always been a bad idea, and always will be a bad idea to normalize bad behavior. I have seen the results prior to HF 21/22 of down vote abuse of individuals on steemit, and of various dApps.

I down vote for one reason and one reason only and that is plagiarism. After down voting the person, I leave a comment why I down voted, I give it a few days, and then I mute that individual. Do they still stay and plagiarize? most likely, but I am not going to go out of my way to play steem sheriff. (SS).

I would look at all the greyed out comments, yes some of them were troll comments from ticked off people, a lot of them were from people who left REAL MEANINGFUL comments on post, but they were on the down vote stasi hit parade list. Abused by the so called abuse fighters. Bad behavior is bad behavior and normalizing bad behavior is wrong.

So how do we make it not be bad behavior normalization? we fix the down vote system, put a check mark next to the listed reasons for down voting, and then add an auto comment that is tied to the account of the person down voting, so that the recipient, and or community can agree or disagree by likewise down voting their down vote. Also this would make it a little bit more difficult on the bot runners that randomly down vote post for no reason other than troll type activity.

It's late for me and I did not take the time to read any other comments.

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(Edited)

...why are down voted post and comments greyed out?

This is not a blockchain problem. You are describing problems/solutions with a particular condenser. When I used Busy, I frequently saw posts and comments that were hidden on Steemit.com. I think a better argument to make would be a configuration setting that disabled the greying out of posts/comments. @Steempeak has been very agile in adding features, and would probably add that if there was enough interest.

I down vote for one reason and one reason only and that is plagiarism.

As I said, you can downvote based on any criteria you want. What you can't do, is dictate to other sovereign voters what their own individual criteria is. Sure, a particular condenser could force a voter into categorical downvoting if they wanted to, but I don't think that would be widely supported. I would not support that.

Your arguments seem to be an appeal for centralized governance. That kind of defeats the purpose of a blockchain. Decentralized governance can be messy at times, there's no denying that.

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Hi @joshman, I think you are just about the only fair person i have seen, when it comes to flags.
I do admit to bristling a little while reading some of what you said. But its a great post. The bristling is only due to seeing so many people have their accounts trashed just for sport, which is why i call out abuse when i experience it and see it.
That may be a great role for you to play, intervening when people are being abused without justification.
I just lost close to 20 steem from a post the other day and it wasnt a case of plagiarism, bit bots, self voting and i was not even being disrespectful lol
that makes a change I guess

One thing that does disturb me is the increased visibility of a functional Chain of Command here.

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(Edited)

Sorry man, I think the history is just too long. I tried.

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(Edited)

Very interesting

"I have noticed that most of downvote people are not posting.

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If you think I'm going to have anything to say to you after you come to my blog and downvote my commenters, you're wrong.

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''That is proof that they are using downvote as form of abuse and spamming to innocent bloggers.''

Yea it is @xboxguru and that is why i will not be silenced : )

''You can see votes are regulated to a point but who is policing negative votes.''

nobody is because when you call out the big abusers, for their abuse you, end up on auto flag.
It would require some intestinal fortitude, and the vast majority of those within the military style chain of command do not actually have any. Josh is not too bad at least he had the balls to broach the subject on my behalf.

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(Edited)

Nice work on this post @joshman. Of all the various posts I have read on our post HF 21 / 22 "Steem world," this one was the most clearly written. At least, that is my perspective.

"In here" myself for nearly 1-½ years, if we accept the basic premise of your argument re: downvoting is great, here is what I extracted that stands out to me about the "rest of the story" ...

"... the result of a downvote is the return of those potential rewards to the commons where they may be claimed again. Hopefully by a deserving under-rewarded content creator."

... as perhaps something you may wish to write about in future posts. Why? I believe addressing the "hopefully" requires you (us) to address the other two features of our recent EIP changes. And how they "are working out" for us.

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Wow, thanks! That's a glowing review if I've ever seen one. And I thought I was rambling!

Why? I believe addressing the "hopefully" requires you (us) to address the other two features of our recent EIP changes. And how they "are working out" for us.

Can you elaborate?

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(Edited)

"Can you elaborate?"

Sure @joshman. You've written about downvoting. That is 1 of the 3 EIP changes. What about the impact of the other 2?

While I read that these changes have been very positive, the number of Steemians with which I was regularly engaging has dropped. Many of them the "deserving under-rewarded content creators" to whom you were referring.

I have neither the time nor the data access to determine how widely the reward pool has been distributed, both pre- and post HF 21 / 22. Given how well thought out this post I was, I thought you might want to consider tackling writing about it.


P.S. If interested in investing the time, here is a link to a post (look at some of the comments, as well) which I would cite as support for my statement about declining numbers ...

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That's a good question about the actual distribution. I can say anecdotally, there are more eyeballs out there hunting for new content because of the financial incentive to do so. Seems like a data scientist would be able to measure reward flows over time. For example, the percentage of the pool that flows to certain rep or SP level users over a period of time, versus the flow of rewards being exchanged between high rep orcas and whales. Speaking for myself, I want to see less people with large wallets off in the corner exchanging votes, and more rewards going to smaller users. Unfortunately many of these people are so set in their ways, they cannot be reasoned with, so the only option is to send their rewards back to the pool through downvoting. This is of course controversial, as you can see from the downvoting of this particular post (all retaliation). Everything is of course on the blockchain, and you can see for yourself who out there is really trying to support the community versus enrich themselves. Steemworld and Steamocean both have tools to evaluate voting patterns.

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Thank you for investing your time in this response @joshman. On this …

”Speaking for myself, I want to see less people with large wallets off in the corner exchanging votes, and more rewards going to smaller users.”

… we are in agreement. But …

” I can say anecdotally, there are more eyeballs out there hunting for new content because of the financial incentive to do so.”

… not sure I can agree with this, as in the “circles” in which I have always engaged the rewards seem to have dropped. In some “circles,” of course, this does not appear to be the case. Although, it leads to an impression the word “circles” has now taken on a different meaning …

It would sure be nice if there were a simple method, for anyone interested, to obtain global (blockchain wide …) “hard facts,” about the reward pool distribution. Then we would no longer just be speculating … I know @steemchiller is working on a “data mining” feature in SteemWorld. It will be very nice to see what that will be capable of providing, once available.

#sbi-skip

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I didn't say there was enough eyeballs, I just meant there were more than before.

Some of those eyeballs are former bid bots and have serious steem power behind them. I have voted several posts from small blogs who later got a 'lottery vote' from one of these accounts. I am hoping that trend continues.

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Simply put, it's the reward pool, a collective resource that is not only collected by the community, but also controlled by it.

Yep! and never forget what's exactly the main activity that fills the collective rewards pool every day in our Steemconomy Echosystem. };)

Though, I'm now too old and not much into play that role of Active Management SJW 'Curators' stuff anymore. At least, not in the useless fashion style it's being expressed & executed lately in this place. I suspect there are already plenty of them here with more energy than me who still likes play that role to fight the good fight.

I guess, now I just kind of enjoy way more, let these reapers & rapists 'celebrities' kill themselves in slow motion by being left naked in the open and in evidence of their not life lasting maneuvers fueled by their ridiculous army of automated brainless & blind trails/guilds and crony autovoters.

Anyway, I have now some kinda Dejavu of have already told you this same thing before somewhere else with other similar but different words. :)

Over the long term, this is toxic behavior. After all, your blog/steem profile is like a business.

Cheers!!

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I guess, now I just kind of enjoy way more, let these reapers & rapists 'celebrities' kill themselves in slow motion by being left naked in the open and in evidence of their not life lasting maneuvers fueled by their ridiculous army of automated brainless & blind trails/guilds and crony autovoters.

Haha, well said! Thanks for dropping by and sharing your thoughts. I scanned your post and it looks like it's going to be good. I'll read it and comment when I get a chance.

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I'll read it and comment when I get a chance.

Oh! eagerly looking forward for your nutritious way to try rescue me from my scatterbrained habitual soliloquies. :)

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I agree with some things you said, but in many cases, you jump to conclusions that I would not have, and in others you simply declare something to be true, and then use that "truth" to build your case.

"without the unsung heroes fighting abuse on this blockchain, the reward pool for honest authors and curators here would be complete shit, because the exploiters would take over"

If that is true (you say it as though it is), then that shows how fragile this blockchain's code really is. If it takes a secret team of "heroes" fighting bad guys and spammers behind the scenes, just to keep the place from falling to complete shit, is it really decentralized? Sounds to me like there's a small group of people deciding what's acceptable and what's not. A bit like vigilantes. Let me guess, most of these people have massive amounts of STEEM, in other words, are untouchable whales and insiders?

Like I said, you say many things I agree with. It's just the stuff that clearly comes from out of nowhere and you just say it like it's a foregone conclusion, like "The only way to fight this is..." That's dangerous talk. I hope you recognize that.

Lastly, if all that you say here is true, why is it not mentioned anywhere in the official descriptions of this site/chain? Not mentioned in the white paper, not mentioned in any rules, or guidelines, or anything official? Why are these unspoken but extremely important new rules, laws even, coming to us from random members of the community? If this is true, it needs to be codified and posted for all to see, not dragged out by vigilantes looking to justify their NewSteem behaviours.

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(Edited)

just to keep the place from falling to complete shit, is it really decentralized?

Yes, that's the point. There's game theory at play here. That's called decentralized governance.

Sounds to me like there's a small group of people deciding what's acceptable and what's not. A bit like vigilantes.

It's small because most people don't get involved with governance and fighting abuse.

Let me guess, most of these people have massive amounts of STEEM, in other words, are untouchable whales and insiders?

Nobody is untouchable, ask haejin.

It's just the stuff that clearly comes from out of nowhere and you just say it like it's a foregone conclusion, like "The only way to fight this is...

I am one stakeholder getting involved with governance stating my opinion, as is my right. You can disagree, and have your own opinion that's fine.

why is it not mentioned anywhere in the official descriptions of this site/chain? Not mentioned in the white paper, not mentioned in any rules, or guidelines, or anything official?

Here we again, another person appealing for centralized governance. Do I need to explain again that the governance is decentralized? People will disagree and express it with votes. If that is too messy for you, too bad, downvotes are a central feature of this blockchain.

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Lastly, if all that you say here is true, why is it not mentioned anywhere in the official descriptions of this site/chain? Not mentioned in the white paper, not mentioned in any rules, or guidelines, or anything official?

Did you read the whitepaper? It makes it pretty clear how the voting is intended to work to distribute the reward pool, why downvotes are necessary in this concept, and what's considered abuse.

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Of course I have, several times over the years, not that it was ever updated.
The issue is that "rules" are appearing in places they shouldn't, like this post, and the NewSteem vigilantes are all quick to back each other up and enforce these rules with their huge stakes... but I'm saying that if these truly are rules/laws, they MUST be written down somewhere official. Much of what is being said here in this post is NOT in the official source of rules/laws/guidelines for this blockchain. (Otherwise, this post would be spam, and definitely not worth $20+, if it's just restating what is already common knowledge!)
If these concepts really are laws of the land, let's write them down, and live under rule of law. Making up new rules as they (mainly unelected insiders and whales) go along is NOT acceptable to me and shouldn't be to anyone who values decentralization.

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(Edited)

Not sure what you refer to. He's not talking about a secret team of vigilantes, but generally of people who use their downvotes against colluding groups and defective voters, who don't use their stake to evaluate content but to maximize their own rewards. That aligns completely with the whitepaper, which explains that downvotes are the only way to fight these behaviours.
It's obviously not common knowledge that the reward pool is not thought to provide a maximum apr to investors. I recently had a discussion where one of them told me that voting is a form of tipping.
If these people would have read and understood the whitepaper, and would act according to it, all of this wouldn't be necessary. Unfortunately it is.

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(Edited)

Otherwise, this post would be spam, and definitely not worth $20+, if it's just restating what is already common knowledge!

The governance of the reward pool is decentralized. You can disagree, but my opinion isn't spam. I have been supportive of you and your initiatives, but now you're just insulting me. I value dissenting opinions, but you are just behaving like a jackass now. Downvote it if you don't like the rewards. It has already been nuked by $20 in downvotes and low and behold, the calvary came. Why do you suppose that is?

And you wonder and whine about why your support and engagement here is like pissing up a tree. We're done.

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@joshman, In my opinion God itself didn't stopped Negative Forces effectively because this Force have Free Will, so we human beings cannot stop it. No matter about which aspect we are talking we will going to deal with Good Force and Evil Force we cannot reach to Highly Perfect Equilibrium Point when it comes to Emotions. Stay blessed.

Posted using Partiko Android

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Thanks for your comment. I don't believe 99.99% of the disagreement is a battle between good and evil. It's people who just disagree about various things.

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Nicely written @joshman,

I think you did a fantastic job explaining how the reward pool works, and the essential need for "equilibrium" as you termed it.

While you might not always agree with the reasoning behind a specific downvote, you can take comfort that the result of a downvote is the return of those potential rewards to the commons where they may be claimed again.

I've been pretty hesitant to fight abuse on the blockchain. It took me the better part of a year to fully understand the dynamics, and then an entire extra year to delve into attempting to fight abuse.

What I discovered in no time at all, is that there seem to be varying opinions with what I thought was clear cut abuse. For example, joining SFR, I reported a post, and then was criticized in regards to reporting, when the user was clearly abusing the system with bid bots.

The result of this lead me to stop fighting abuse. I've not downvoted a single time since, because I really thought that bid bot abuse was agreed to be a negative impact, akin to stealing from the reward pool.

I really hope people can start agreeing on things in this respect, because it's a deterrent, at least for me it is.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on the economics here.

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Thanks! I hear you man. You're never going to agree 100% with people. You can still find areas where you do agree and form alliances. Where I don't agree with people I still vote my conscience, and that has happened a fair amount.

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A lot of good points. As you know I am on your downvote trail as well as a few others.

As a minnow, newbie and someone focused on content creation more than anything else with my time on STEEM, I haven't ever retaliated a downvote with another downvote. I have engaged the user on the rare occasions where an actual posting account had downvoted me, but never tried to instigate things or start a downvote war.

I think I'm in a lucky position, as a lot of curators have taken a liking to my content, and I know my posts will well enough that a string of downvotes still won't hurt me much. I worry more about new users who are still working on perfecting their posting, and are being blackmailed by powerful accounts who offer to remove a downvote which basically consumes all their potential payouts.

I'm sure this is very discouraging to a new user.

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I worry more about new users who are still working on perfecting their posting, and are being blackmailed by powerful accounts who offer to remove a downvote which basically consumes all their potential payouts.

I hope these people will raise their hand instead of capitulating to that. As in your case, there are many here that don't take kindly to bullies.

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"For those of you who make blanket statements about downvotes being immoral, or a form of stealing, you are just plain wrong."

If downvotes are not immoral or a form of stealing, then the "abuse" you claim to be fighting is not immoral or a form of stealing.

"The community is doing a better and better job at both healing victims of retaliation, and dealing with the actual retaliators, and I applaud that."

How can there be a victim of retaliation (an act which generally comes in the form of downvotes) if downvotes are not immoral, or a form of stealing? So if a cop pulls me over and takes all the money from my wallet, calling it civil asset forfeiture, that is okay. But if I take money out of his safe while he is away and then redistribute it to the poor, that is theft?

"When the timer ends, voila, you have consensus and payout."

Consensus is a lie. It assumes that Steemians are equal and that they've all considered and weighed in on something. The truth is that, all Steemians are equal, but some Steemians are more equal than others. This is reflected in Vote Power. With unequal downvotes and upvotes the best you can get is a consensus of the oligarchs and the big assumption there is that they've all read the post in question. In the case of every single post ever made in the history of Steem never has their been a consensus on a single post.

Reward disputes were added to the GUI as a reason for flags after smooth made a subjective interpretation about the whitepaper. His interpretation was that: excessive payouts is a valid reason for downvoting/flagging". However, when the whitepaper speaks to negative voting, it only says that it is possible, it does not say that it is "VALID." So with that one minor tweak, five months and nine days after it's launch, he took something that was presented for the most part as Laissez Faire on the GUI and turned it into what you are calling anarcho-socialism.

Do you think that by promoting socialism as opposed to a Laissez Faire approach to Steem will draw in more investors? At any point in the history of the world has socialism sold itself to a group of investors that didn't aim to profit off of their investment? When/if BTC moons again how many people do you think will be sold on purchasing Steem when they read the word socialism? Investors Mind: Okay, so I'm volunteering to buy steem so that I can share with people? BUZZER! Wrong answer, that's not how people tick. People want deals where they will win too. This is why we need to respect the upvote autonomy of large stakeholders if we want to retain them.

The "commons" as you call it isn't going anywhere, and regardless of distribution, which will always be unequal and unfair, it will distribute tokens until 2035. There is no tragedy, the die is cast and the map is laid out. Regardless of what happens the inflation pool shrinks to 1.51% in 2035 and this is how it's designed. Presumably, this is to steadily induce artificial scarcity and thus bolster it's value over the long run.

I think the downvote reavers, if you will, should be more concerned about not creating an environment so toxic and undesirable that content creators end up wanting nothing to do with it. Everybody wants socialism until they actually get socialism. When they get it, they have that realization that ends up hitting them like a tonne of bricks.

I disagree with your conclusion that it's anarcho-socialism. I think what it is depends on how you behave. I've had my car stereo and sound system stolen before, and according to the laws of the jungle it is an entirely possible thing that people can do to each other. The question is, is it a valid thing to do? That's debatable. The validly of anything is debatable and entirely subjective. What I did not do was come to the conclusion that I live in an anarcho-socialist society.

I wonder about the guy who stole my stereo. I wonder if he felt that what he did was just because he did it. Then I also wonder, if it happened to him, would he feel as if though some sort of injustice occurred. If your going to go around flagging people and pretending that it's not immoral. Then for god's sake don't cloak yourself in the cape of an "abuse" fighter and then say that revenge downvotes are harmful. Those downvotes can't be any more harmful than your downvotes can they?

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Thanks for your comments.

There are interpretations of how things should be, how things used to be, and there are interpretations of how they actually are at present. Hence the title of my blog.

I wouldn't want to "live in an anarcho-socialist" society either, and I'm not arguing that you should. This is a blockchain platform, a microcosm, not a society in which you live.

This is why we need to respect the upvote autonomy of large stakeholders if we want to retain them.

Let people who buy a bunch of steem do whatever they want in relation to the reward pool? We've been there and done that. I have zero interest in retaining those who exploit the reward pool at the expense of everyone else, no matter how much steem they decide to buy or hold.

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(Edited)

"Let people who buy a bunch of steem do whatever they want in relation to the reward pool? We've been there and done that. I have zero interest in retaining those who exploit the reward pool at the expense of everyone else, no matter how much steem they decide to buy or hold."

Buying Steem is a service to the blockchain. The very act props up the value of the token in the marketplace. I think this is why the code allows those with a larger stake to draw more from the pool. They want the coin to have a market value, thus they need an incentive for people to buy it. If you are all too eager to attack this incentive with downvotes, then how would you sell people on why they should invest in Steem?

Additionally, the powering-up or HODLING of Steem prevents selling, and selling pushes the market value of the token down. Stakeholders are entitled to move what they can from the reward pool. How can doing so be exploitation if the code allows it? Additionally, the code does not entitle everyone to anything at all. People are only entitled to take what they can move from the pool or that of which others convey to them, and this is relative to the investment.

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There are two sides to that coin. In buying steem and hodling steem, I also have downvote autonomy. As you described in your initial reply, the defined reasons for downvotes are somewhat vague. How could the definition be anything but vague? They are a technical feature of the blockchain, just like upvotes. They represent a choice just like upvoting. No amount of code or AI at this stage could define heuristics needed to support enforcing proscribed downvotes.

Consider this very post. Over half of its value was diminished by downvoters, but other sovereign upvoters decided to restore most of those rewards through upvotes. The two different sides coalesced on my post and it's still valued within $3 of it's prior high. Until the 7 days is over, who knows what will happen from here?

You can make written appeals to sovereign voters in either direction to better use their upvotes or downvotes, as you are doing now with me. But at the end of the day, those opinions are ultimately expressed by their very use.

I think we have a fundamental disagreement in regard to the long term value of large steem holders with specific voting behaviors.

The majority of large holders are actually responding with surprising agility. For everyone else, being obstinate is their right, and perhaps they can remain successful doing so. If so, more power to them. To put a capitalistic spin on it, they can either adjust to the market forces they are presented with and thrive, or they can swim against the current.

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"There are two sides to that coin. In buying steem and hodling steem, I also have downvote autonomy."

Well, I can't imagine that anyone of sound mind would purchase more of the token for the added benefit of larger downvotes. Downvotes are not beneficial, and they do not appeal to anyone's immediate self-interest. With #newsteem, someone may want to purchase more SP for the larger stake to counter flags with revenge votes, but that would just be pure masochism and not quite a logical or sound investment strategy.

The first model that the GUI presented fell more in line with how people behave, and now because of a GUI change along with the addition of free downvotes, people are encouraged to act differently. It is a radical shift to get people to act in a prescribed way based solely on the instructions of an authority figure. The closest I have to compare this nonsense to is the Milgram experiment, and there are so many people failing right now and with flying colors at that.

If this isn't someone's idea of a sick and twisted social psychology experiment, then at the very least, some entity may as well read, examine, and use the data for that very purpose. I guess you'll have what you get with the so-called "consensus." If Democracy, as described by Benjamin Franklin, is "two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch." Then how can we illustrate a consensus of a Steem oligarchy as it pertains to free daily downvotes?

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(Edited)

I certainly don't purchase steem for the purpose of having a larger downvote, but my downvote is larger to be sure. I just choose to use it.

There's no denying we are undergoing a transition. But it's not like I have no skin in the game myself, though I do have less than many. It will certainly be interesting to see how this shakes out. You have a cogent argument, and I certainly appreciate the exchange.

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"I certainly don't purchase steem for the purpose of having a larger downvote, but my downvote is larger to be sure. I just choose to use it.

There's no denying we are undergoing a transition. But it's not like I have no skin in the game myself, though I do have less than many. It will certainly be interesting to see how this shakes out. You have a cogent argument, and I certainly appreciate the exchange."

No doubt. I guess we'll see what it does. I hope a larger number of people will reject the socialism mentality. This, in favor of a more laissez-faire approach. Not out of fear of retaliation but rather based on principle, or the general desire for a harmonious atmosphere. I did love the old steem way. However, the #newsteem carries with it a very low and negative spirit. I can feel it, even without being on the receiving end of the caustic downvotes.

I think therealwolf said it well with:

"On the other hand, downvotes are gamified actions with negative feedback loops, resulting in possible higher toxic behaviour than on any other social media.

The only example that I know of, where downvotes exist is Reddit. However, on reddit you're only "losing" visibility & possible karma, which in comparison to the real currency STEEM is more than worthless.

And there is most likely a good reason why nearly every social network only allows the user to like/upvote other content. It's simply a positive feedback loop, which is important in attracting millions of users. However, none of those social networks is actually handing out real money."

I too appreciate the open exchange of ideas, thanks!

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(Edited)

He @joshman
Yesterday I made a post to @themarkymark regarding an account that desperately needs to be looked at. So if I am saying this needs to be sorted out it must be bad right?
https://steemit.com/@indicate
This is the kind of thing that we really have flags for. You can follow your nose and find a nest. Let me know what you think
Cheer

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(Edited)

I flagged him to the point he stopped upvoting but he still posts the spam.

Nothing can be done about that but hide him from the UI. Flagging 500+ $0.000 comments a day solves nothing.

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(Edited)

There were a few flags three days ago.
He is still in business, many votes pouring in unimpeded yesterday and today
Edit:
It is a nest of socks not just one account

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Show me a single comment of his over $0.000...
I have a check on him if he ever upvotes a comment above $0.02.

I have been flagging him for months and has stopped upvoting. The comments used to be $0.30 to $3.

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I've looked at that account previously. The vast majority are zero with a few pennies scattered about. Too much work for a human to mitigate for the benefit to the reward pool.

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Yes I see your point @joshman. We would not want to harm the reputation scores of such valuable steemian's accounts would we.

But turning a blind eye when we see gratuitous abuse against minnows like myself is perfectly acceptable ?

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We would not want to harm the reputation scores of such valuable steemian's accounts would we.

I'm not even sure what you are trying to imply here.

turning a blind eye

This is your interpretation of my actions? I went to bat for you to see if @themarkymark was willing to hit the reset button, you can ask him yourself. But acting like you are simply a hapless victim here is a bit disingenuous don't you think? I can view blockchain history too. You went on a conspiratorial harassment campaign against him for some perceived wrong that he did to you. Perhaps your initial claim of his wrong was correct, but that really doesn't matter now. You could have just moved on and taken the high road and let it die off, which I believe I had suggested at some point to you. You've been reasonable to converse with in the past, but now you've turned yourself into a pariah. Believe me if you were just a hapless victim here, I'd have zero issue being more aggressive about your case. I'd like to think that I have demonstrated I believe in doing the right thing, and I'm not here just to seek rent from anyone. But come on man, in the grand scheme of things, how much have you made yourself worth fighting for?

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@joshman i have been thinking about how the chain of command actually work.
I saw some more mass flagging again.
So how do you get the alert to flag something ?
Who creates the list of who to flag?
and what is the deal that you guys get for complying with the chain of command?
what happens if you refuse to flag?

I am guessing that a growing number of you receive a monthly pay check like any normal job, but who pays that? And do you get to keep the steem you generate or does it all go back to the house?

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We actually get paid in rare Pokémon cards.
It's pretty sweet, I have four 1995 Charmander cards.

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I actually do not believe that you are intelligent enough to get be accepted into the fold very deeply at all.
You have to many psychological issues that cloud your ability to reason.
You are just a wanna be

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"I've never seen anyone leave such a long trail of blazing dumpster fires. I now believe the wreckless downvoting and blacklisting of thousands of accounts by themarkymark et al is the SOLE reason the price of Steem continues to fall. I didn't even make the photo for this post. That's right, I found it online. Fucking amazing."

Look at all these complaints from people all over the Internet

Most of these are written OFF of Steemit so as to avoid being downvoted and hidden. Amazing. So much for this "censorship-free blockchain".

themarkymark Hey. Sorry about your shit coin...

Groups of people and a top witness (themarkymark) are trying to dive me off of steem/steemit by harassing me

Getting blacklisted (by themarkymark) becomes expensive on Steem

themarkymark & Berniesanders Responsible For Altcoin Collapse?

Is TheMarkyMark Abusing The Steemit Blockchain?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3gnH8lxxFQM

Listen as themarkymark evades questions about his identity and gives up his real motives

The Arrogant "themarkymark"

Dedicated to that unknown mystery douche: themarkymark

@themarkymark Stole Thousands Of $$ From Me

My Letter to @themarkymark - in response to his continual flagging of my account

Harassment and Censorship by themarkymark continues. Now flagging everything I post for no reason

Crooket @themarkymark

@themarkymark, another fake account that flags without reason, like the berniesanders whales circle jerk

Another example of censorhsip on steemit. Witness (themarkymark) downvotes truth about his actions.

Big Thanks For ThemarkyMark, Anyx, Patrice and Others Who Helped Ruin Steemit

Open letter to those who provide Red Flag with downvotes

My Post About Asian Countries Being the Largest Ocean Polluters Was Downvoted By Badcontent. WHY?

I Got Downvoted!?! It's Not Fair! Can You Help Me???

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That is strange.

I have been looking at the account witnesses and you are an outlier.
You will make the perfect sacrificial lamb. You are just what is required.


enjoy the widdershins

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"I've never seen anyone leave such a long trail of blazing dumpster fires. I now believe the wreckless downvoting and blacklisting of thousands of accounts by themarkymark et al is the SOLE reason the price of Steem continues to fall. I didn't even make the photo for this post. That's right, I found it online. Fucking amazing."

Look at all these complaints from people all over the Internet

Most of these are written OFF of Steemit so as to avoid being downvoted and hidden. Amazing. So much for this "censorship-free blockchain".

themarkymark Hey. Sorry about your shit coin...

Groups of people and a top witness (themarkymark) are trying to dive me off of steem/steemit by harassing me

Getting blacklisted (by themarkymark) becomes expensive on Steem

themarkymark & Berniesanders Responsible For Altcoin Collapse?

Is TheMarkyMark Abusing The Steemit Blockchain?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3gnH8lxxFQM

Listen as themarkymark evades questions about his identity and gives up his real motives

The Arrogant "themarkymark"

Dedicated to that unknown mystery douche: themarkymark

@themarkymark Stole Thousands Of $$ From Me

My Letter to @themarkymark - in response to his continual flagging of my account

Harassment and Censorship by themarkymark continues. Now flagging everything I post for no reason

Crooket @themarkymark

@themarkymark, another fake account that flags without reason, like the berniesanders whales circle jerk

Another example of censorhsip on steemit. Witness (themarkymark) downvotes truth about his actions.

Big Thanks For ThemarkyMark, Anyx, Patrice and Others Who Helped Ruin Steemit

Open letter to those who provide Red Flag with downvotes

My Post About Asian Countries Being the Largest Ocean Polluters Was Downvoted By Badcontent. WHY?

I Got Downvoted!?! It's Not Fair! Can You Help Me???

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"I've never seen anyone leave such a long trail of blazing dumpster fires. I now believe the wreckless downvoting and blacklisting of thousands of accounts by themarkymark et al is the SOLE reason the price of Steem continues to fall. I didn't even make the photo for this post. That's right, I found it online. Fucking amazing."

Look at all these complaints from people all over the Internet

Most of these are written OFF of Steemit so as to avoid being downvoted and hidden. Amazing. So much for this "censorship-free blockchain".

themarkymark Hey. Sorry about your shit coin...

Groups of people and a top witness (themarkymark) are trying to dive me off of steem/steemit by harassing me

Getting blacklisted (by themarkymark) becomes expensive on Steem

themarkymark & Berniesanders Responsible For Altcoin Collapse?

Is TheMarkyMark Abusing The Steemit Blockchain?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3gnH8lxxFQM

Listen as themarkymark evades questions about his identity and gives up his real motives

The Arrogant "themarkymark"

Dedicated to that unknown mystery douche: themarkymark

@themarkymark Stole Thousands Of $$ From Me

My Letter to @themarkymark - in response to his continual flagging of my account

Harassment and Censorship by themarkymark continues. Now flagging everything I post for no reason

Crooket @themarkymark

@themarkymark, another fake account that flags without reason, like the berniesanders whales circle jerk

Another example of censorhsip on steemit. Witness (themarkymark) downvotes truth about his actions.

Big Thanks For ThemarkyMark, Anyx, Patrice and Others Who Helped Ruin Steemit

Open letter to those who provide Red Flag with downvotes

My Post About Asian Countries Being the Largest Ocean Polluters Was Downvoted By Badcontent. WHY?

I Got Downvoted!?! It's Not Fair! Can You Help Me???

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"I've never seen anyone leave such a long trail of blazing dumpster fires. I now believe the wreckless downvoting and blacklisting of thousands of accounts by themarkymark et al is the SOLE reason the price of Steem continues to fall. I didn't even make the photo for this post. That's right, I found it online. Fucking amazing."

Look at all these complaints from people all over the Internet

Most of these are written OFF of Steemit so as to avoid being downvoted and hidden. Amazing. So much for this "censorship-free blockchain".

themarkymark Hey. Sorry about your shit coin...

Groups of people and a top witness (themarkymark) are trying to dive me off of steem/steemit by harassing me

Getting blacklisted (by themarkymark) becomes expensive on Steem

themarkymark & Berniesanders Responsible For Altcoin Collapse?

Is TheMarkyMark Abusing The Steemit Blockchain?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3gnH8lxxFQM

Listen as themarkymark evades questions about his identity and gives up his real motives

The Arrogant "themarkymark"

Dedicated to that unknown mystery douche: themarkymark

@themarkymark Stole Thousands Of $$ From Me

My Letter to @themarkymark - in response to his continual flagging of my account

Harassment and Censorship by themarkymark continues. Now flagging everything I post for no reason

Crooket @themarkymark

@themarkymark, another fake account that flags without reason, like the berniesanders whales circle jerk

Another example of censorhsip on steemit. Witness (themarkymark) downvotes truth about his actions.

Big Thanks For ThemarkyMark, Anyx, Patrice and Others Who Helped Ruin Steemit

Open letter to those who provide Red Flag with downvotes

My Post About Asian Countries Being the Largest Ocean Polluters Was Downvoted By Badcontent. WHY?

I Got Downvoted!?! It's Not Fair! Can You Help Me???

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Very good article, and I'm especially happy about your definition & positiv mention of socialism; I find it sad that it has gotten such a bad reputation!

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(Edited)

Thanks! Don't get me wrong, as the basis for a political system governing a large population I think it's shit. As a voluntary endeavour there is nothing wrong with it. It's a question of micro versus macro. My main focus was to point out that the reward pool as a construct seems very socialistic me. Simply because it is a community owned and governed resource.

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(Edited)

I'm far beyond romantisizing about socialism; actually beyond believe in any 'big & one-fits-all' system. I like your idea of minarchism (even though I'd lean towards minanarchism), and I know that commons like the reward pool can be governed by the many.

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''a libertarian puts personal liberty and freedom above all else.''
Interesting

''It is a philosophy of voluntary association, property rights, and non-aggression'' Again Interesting

''I primarily arrived at this conclusion because I did not understand the reward pool or how it functioned.'' It would appear that you still do not understand how it works or why we have free flags.

The one who holds the largest powered up Stake gets the most reward. Small accounts get NOTHING from it.

Please tell us how the Chain of command operates and who creates the 'list'

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