Still Awaiting a Response...

This is a response to this post.

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A community’s ability to self-govern can be judged by the safety of its members. When you can leave your doors unlocked and not worry about breaking and entering, then you know you live in a solid community. When you can leave your wallet unattended in a public place and not have it stolen, when you can leave your bike unlocked, then you know you have good governance.

The impossibility of theft you allude to in this closing sentence is, based on my observations, the intended future. The security of all property will be facilitated through the union of blockchain technology and "the internet of things." Add a unique identifier that grants one control over "the internet of their things," and all of a sudden we live in a society where no one can steal anything.

I may not know how to read or write code, but I can conceptualize distributed ledger technology through what I have seen and what I have read. When doing so, it seems nothing short of obvious that the digitizing of the world's assets and the protection of property rights was an intended function for the technology.

But such a security-based society would not be a shining declaration of good self-governance as you claim. It would be an example of the governance of property alone. I could not say it would be self-governance, because when 90%+ of the users of a technology do not understand how it works, they must then place trust in a third party(the developers of the tech), which would make said third-party(or whomever they serve) the true governing body. I could not say it was a good example of governance either for the following reason.

Governance, in its simplest terms, is the managing of people. It is one of the most easily observed facts that humans are highly suggestible creatures, and far too often victims to conditioning from our environment. I would suggest that any type of governance worthy of being described as "good," ought not to be a form that conditions the governed to believe that humans are innate thieves and that every piece of property needs bio-metric encryption just so that your neighbour won't steal your kid's bike. A belief in the capacity for others to act negatively will ultimately lead us to our own capacity to act negatively-- and all too often that will manifest as genuine actions that perpetuate the cycle of suffering we continue to plague ourselves with.

Good governance ought to be about eliminating aspects of society that lead to adversarial or perverse mindsets, and replacing them with productive mechanisms that are conducive towards evolving the human consciousness to a point where we can see one another as being on the same side. Then there'd be no desire to steal from your neigbour, for you would understand it to be the same as you stealing from yourself.

Some people worry that absent anonymity, people would self-censor out of fear of community reprisal. There is a legitimate need for anonymous publishing, but it has no place in a community that is distributing financial rewards from the public purse. Steem is an exercise in massively decentralized community governance over community funds. Transparency and accountability is the only disinfectant that can prevent abuse.

There is no reward curve or solution to abuse of community funds until a proper dispute resolution system and identity system is put in place.

Only is an incredibly strong word, and in this case, I believe it to be an erroneous one. I have multiple working ideas that have popped into my head since opening this paragraph, and I expect there are a trillion more that remain to be thought of by others. In the case of Steemit, and in the case of society as a whole, the security measures you propose do not address the root problem.

Steemit was destined to suffer abuse given the way it is set up. From the SP to the rep, to the trending and hot page, the gamification of this site leads the user to see everyone else as opponents that they need to do better than. Sure, this might encourage people to post more and increase activity on the blockchain, which is great for steem(and for large STEEM holders), but it is not great for creating a shared mentality of cooperation. Such a shared sentiment would empower relationships between community members and the passion people feel for STEEM and Steemit would be directed towards the community as a whole, rather than our individual wallets, achievements and pending payouts.

The case is no different for society. The economy is dependent on our belief that its survival of the fittest. The resulting culture will always want more, and will be willing to use abusive means to get it, for they are measuring their success against everyone else's. If either Steemit, or society, or any micro-economy decided to structure their environment in a way that promotes the idea of succeeding together, joining, merging, and expanding teams to better ends, and community bonding, I suspect that the number of members within the resulting community who would want to swindle the others would be considerably lower, and because there will be a stronger connection and better means of communication between the remaining members, they will be in a better position to deal with the few who are unable to adhere to a cooperative society.

Also, I really do not like the sound of a dispute resolution. I suppose I am yet to investigate what you mean exactly, but in this context it sounds like yet another middle man, and middle-men will forever be susceptible to coercion of one kind of another, or by "hacks."

I will be moving toward transparent blockchains with strong identity, good governance, and a commitment to protect property rights while disempowering those who would launder profits from digital kidnapping. We must take responsibility and hold others accountable for indirect acts of aggression. Hiring someone else to steal for you (knowingly buying stolen goods) is just as bad as stealing yourself.

I am happy to walk into this future with you, that is, as long we first establish what rightfully belongs to who before implementing such secure and seemingly irreversible measures. This thing you propose is helpful only for those who have spent the last century or more acquiring every piece of land and property on this planet. They have used deeply immoral means to impoverish billions of people in their quest to own the world, and now, thanks to your proposal, they will have an honest system of commerce which can guarantee that no one will ever use the methods they used to retake what they have accumulated.

Now this might sound radical to some, but bitcoin and STEEM are as worthless as paper money when you truly think about it. Even gold and silver only have value because we believe they do, but they are just rocks... that's all. Bitcoins are just numbers. I have nothing, so this doesn't really effect me, but I could have 1000 bitcoin in a secure wallet right now and I would still not approve of this idea. Because while it may protect my bitcoins, it couldn't protect their perceived value, which could disappear at any time. But, what won't disappear is land, homes, buildings, parks, etc. And what about the rights to the water supply, energy grid or internet? That is not perceived value, that is value. And the criminals who have exploited the people for far too long to acquire the rights to all of these real assets, will be the ones who have consolidated their ownership of the world should this vision you propose for blockchain technology ever be realised.