can be staring at something, day in day out, and a whole year can pass before you really make a connection to something that you didn't recognise.

Check out the search results for thesaurus.com for the word Esteem, the root of Steem

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The word Esteem is actually closest connected to Estimate, and in numerous other latinic language, is variously something like Estima. The prefix E- also appears in other words like emotion and emulsion, respectively 'to cause motion' and 'to cause mixing' (specifically through the root mul, which means to cut into little pieces, as in mill). So, to remove the e from the root, also indicates a noun, which is also quite logical.

But about half the synonyms of esteem are very disturbing. Worship, Look up to, Be fond of, Idolize.

What is the biggest problem we have here in the Steem community? Idol worship. Who makes the most money here? Celebrities.

Ok, fair point, that's to be expected, but how far sideways do you go from this to the corruption of a game designed to get people accustomed to the value being dictated by the most worshiped? Many of the Idols of Steem were mostly unknown or of questionable reputation before this place. Their reputation persists in how the world looks at this platform.

The uninitiated, like I was, who had no idea what Bitshares was, or who Dan Larimer was, all I saw was at first, "Wow, what a brilliant idea". But it only took a few more sips of the Kool Aid before I knew there was something wrong.

Too many of the "venerated" here, specifically made this place, or joined it early, in order to build little armies of adoring, blind fans who have absolutely no idea about what is really going on, who are intoxicated with the exciting prospect of direct monetisation of content, and not aware of how much of an ego-masturbation platform this really is.

I bumped into this, while I was trying to find a suitable name for my project, which I wanted to emphasise instead of this kind of ego-stroking, the risking of stake, the sacrifice of one's money and sweat equity, towards a common pool of rewards, being always the central focus, to see that pool grow in exchange value, and the transparency (a sacrifice), and the ability for every part of the system's necessary components to compensate the operators for their reward, and even, the validators risk of not ever getting paid for doing any significant amount of work (I have started devising schemes for how to prove the backups are ready for service at any time, and paying them for proving that).

Even the development process is the same. Help in the form of providing labor and finances, is of course welcome, but no promise of reward. The would be donors, and I will use this term, because we are not seeking them, merely allowing them to discuss how they can contribute, the only promise is that when the network goes live, they are free to take credit for helping it happen, and they are free to be in the earliest adopter group, who naturally should profit should the sacrifice, the Stake, the Gamble, pay off.

What really put me onto the idea was that this is related to gambling. In Russian and Bulgarian, when you make a bet, what you put into the pool is called a Zalog. This is a stake, a sacrifice, that proves you are serious about the game (as in, you mean to win) and based on the Equity Maxim, that nothing is worth anything without sacrifice. Market prices come from the sacrifice of traders assets to a price level. It isn't just their opinion or ESTIMATION. It costs them to make this estimation, and that's what Steem Power is supposed to be.

But the message gets lost in translation with the culture in Steem. The name really sums it all up.