Hello Steemit

Hello Steemit community, my name is Candelario. I don’t have much of a clue as to what I am doing here; but then I guess that is my whole motive for joining.

On both a professional and personal level, I am excited about the potential applications of blockchain (or hashgraph, or whatever happens to be the cutting edge shared ledger platform at the time you are reading this) technology for social inclusion and improved livelihoods, especially for resource-poor rural communities in the so-called “developing world”.

A big hug to all those still reading.

On the other hand, I am also perturbed by the new technology. Up until now, I have always been free to ignore the internet’s unrelenting torrent of toys and gadgets. But the latest set of breakthroughs (“Web 3.0” I guess they call it) implies changes, not too far down the road, that are epoch-making, i.e. changes that will touch our lives in profound ways whether we like it or not. It feels like I am caught in a riptide which I am not strong enough to swim against.

To avoid freaking out, I 1) avoid watching unhinged youtube “new world order” tirades; and 2) keep reminding myself that said epoch-making changes are in their essence quite altruistic. A withering away of financial gatekeepers and other abusive concentrations of power? Hooray for that. Trust as capital? Love it. A world that does not revolve around Kim Kardashian and Wall Street? Tell me more.

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So, I am here to relax and study the current, rather than fight against it. What motivates people to post and read and vote and comment on all this content? Is all the foment and solidarity real, or is it speculation-driven and self-serving? Is this a supportive community of inspired entrepreneurs, or is it a futures market? (Or both?) Why was my account worth $0.82 as soon as I opened it for the first time, and why did I already have one follower, who then quickly unfollowed me? Curiouser and curiouser!

As a vehicle to this end—work and real life permitting—I look forward to exploring this space as a sandbox to think through some pro-poor dApp ideas bouncing around in my notebook, and I guess as a general creative outlet for my mathy-artsy dilettantism. The internet and I tend to have divergent tastes, so don’t expect anything trendy. If I ever understand what “curating” is, I might try to do that. That’s me in the photo above, taken this morning. Here is a shot of my notebook. You’ve been very kind to read this far.