Last night I removed all my witness votes.
When our humanity, peace & freedoms takes a back seat to technology, currency, power, wealth and punitive discourse, we have lost our way. When our faith that technology will "save" us or solve all our problems, we have abandoned Spirit and we are doomed to repeat this cycle until we learn and realize who we are. When process matters more than healthy relationships, our relationship is doomed to fail.
TNIOp CC BY-SA 3.0
When ideas and posts are shut down and people are attacked through covert and openly overt methods like mocking, physiological manipulation using shame, guilt, minimization, name calling, dehumanization, bullying, flagging and a whole range of other manipulators, the violence must be confronted and addressed.
The fact that people resort to this type of behaviour proves that the system has major flaws, is unhealthy and it will fail to foster freedom, prosperity and artisanship within the blockchain.
The abuser does not get to make the determination on whether their actions are abusive or not.
While it seems that the vast majority of users on this blockchain support the current methods of tyrannical governance, I do not. To be VERY clear:
- Everyone has the right to be treated with respect.
- Everyone has the right to express their feelings and opinions.
- Everyone has the right to set boundaries and choose who they will interact with.
- Everyone has the right to say NO!
- Everyone has the right to disagree or have differing opinions.
- Everyone has the right to self care and protect oneself from being threatened, intimidated or attacked.
- Everyone has the right to peace; physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually
- Everyone has the right to be free of violence, coercion, manipulation or intimidation of any kind.
- Everyone has the right to a livelihood
People are shocked at my suggestion that vigilante's are policing this blockchain. People think that I am being satirical, over exaggerating or even being overly dramatic when I point out the tyranny and untouchables on this blockchain. I am using the privilege that I've garnered over the past two years to give a voice to those that have none. I am speaking out against those that engage in self-righteous, self-justified, mob supported violence which instills fear, anxiety and injury against those that don't agree as they face the wrath of vengeance as a result.
Again: This is mob rule
When a single spiritual being gets hurt as a result, we all have gone too far. While the vigilante's justify their actions so that they can deal with spam and plagiarism, they hide behind righteousness while they engage in violence to squash free speech, differing opinions and dish out their form of "justice". It is all justified as a necessary evil and that there is no other choice.
We always have a choice!
Whether you want to admit it or not, when people get flagged and then face the avalanche of abusive comments, they are injured, hurt, angry, confused, disappointed, sad, rejected and / or diminished by the action. This is abhorrent human behaviour and you nor anybody else gets to decide if the flagging actions were violent or not. The people who received the flags decides and many people have been talking about the violence for years but nobody wants to listen, acknowledge or believe them.
Where is the empathy for our fellow spiritual brothers and sisters? Who is willing to help guide, teach and mentor instead of using punishment and bulling?
People are so focused on the system that the people are forgotten, dismissed or left behind. It is impossible to create a perfect system as the problem is and always will be human. This blockchain is going down a dangerous, dark path if we don't fix how we interact with one another first. The system itself encourages and validates this abusive behaviour by design and I say again: The design is flawed!!!
We must always establish a foundational structure of respect, honour, peace, freedom, prosperity and love. ALL decisions must be filtered through this foundation first!
I rebuke the vigilante thugs that police the blockchain, but I also rebuke all those who remain silent or provide the environment for them to flourish. I suspect many remain silent as they fear the wrath of vengeance that will get dished out if they speak up. Fear is what keeps these people in power because they use it as a weapon to control the blockchain. That is why they follow their flags with verbal violence and abuse! People don't have any way to defend themselves. It is a horrible feeling that often gets ignored.
This blockchain has a major violence issue that is tearing at the core of our community!
Censorship is violence. Keeping people in line with fear is violence. Intimidation is violence. These are behaviours we come to expect from politicians, narcissists or even psychopaths, but now we expect it from those that govern here as well.
"Censors seek to limit freedom of thought and expression by restricting spoken words, printed matter, symbolic messages, freedom of association, books, art, music, movies, television programs, and Internet sites" - MTSU
"Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information, on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". - Wikipedia
"The First Amendment allows us to speak our mind and stand up for what we believe in. However, the limits on free speech are rooted in the principle that we're not allowed to harm others to get what we want. That's why we're not allowed to use speech for force, fraud, or defamation." - policyed.org
"Freedom of expression is a fundamental human right. It reinforces all other human rights, allowing society to develop and progress. The ability to express our opinion and speak freely is essential to bring about change in society." - indexoncensorship.org
"The idea of 'right livelihood' is an ancient one. It embodies the principle that each person should follow an honest occupation, which fully respects other people and the natural world. It means being responsible for the consequences of our actions and taking only a fair share of the earth's resources." - rightlivelihoodaward.org
"He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness," - Matthew 19:18
"And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." - Matthew 22:39
I refuse to support people who condone theft. Taking peoples livelihood away is theft, dishonors those that gave the reward and dishonours the art form being expressed by the artist. I know this drives people crazy and many will try to convince me otherwise. I'm still not convinced and I'm putting my vote towards those who will advocate for a foundational shift in governance on this blockchain. There are ways to deal with those that engage in violent behaviour, not limited to spamming and plagiarism, but also should include abuses of all kinds. We need methods to ban and block people, so that each user has the power and authority to maintain their own individual boundaries. That does not exist on this blockchain and it is an absolute requirement in order to receive support from me.
If these issues are not resolved, I will remove all support and withdraw from this blockchain. Just as I've done with the violent political systems, I refuse to participate in an environment that causes harm to people. This is not love, compassion, empathy, peace, prosperity or freedom. If we as a community cannot figure that out, then this community deserves to wither away and collapse under it's own weight of greed, apathy and violence.
Any witnesses out there that want and deserve my vote?
My heart is breaking as some witnesses are my friends. ALL are my brothers and sisters. I forgive you all and I love you dearly. May Creator bless you all with peace, freedom, prosperity, joy and love.
The blockchain and resource pool are not sacred! We are and our relationships with one another. If we worship the blockchain and sacrifice the user, we are lost.
As you seem to be someone who does pretty well here and seems to feel that downvotes are unfair, maybe you should be the one who makes a tribe for those who agree with you, as there are a few.
There are a few who feel that somehow downvotes, which essentially are just establishing consensus of a shared inflation pool, are violence and no amount of facts can convince them otherwise.
I’ve been hoping they would make a tribe for themselves. Somewhere where they can decide the economics of their token and make the rules, as I think it’s important for everyone to have a home here.
Many who have been unhappy with trending or what content is rewarded here have gone on to make amazing tribes, like creativecoin, which now puts the power in their hands. The power to decide how things should be within their community, maybe this can be a solution for you as well.
Making your own tribe with those who agree with this same ideology may be just what is needed. Maybe you are the one to do it.
I hope anyways 🙂
Lots of whining and crying from this “guy” because of a very very tiny downvote. If he thinks making these posts that bitch about sub-penny downvotes are going to continue making him profits, he’s got another thing coming. I would suggest he take a look at what happened to krnel...someone who had a lot more support from much bigger accounts, then proceeded to go on a multi-week tirade because he was downvoted.
My suggestion would be to stop crying about a downvote and actually publish something worth reading...or, he can just expect more downvotes for this utterly worthless content - which is precisely how the system is designed to work.
Well I was sort of saying - stop complaining and do something in a positive way. I agree the over reaction from downvotes is just silly, but I can’t deny many feel the same way as he does. The logical thing would be to use the tools they have available and actually make something different than, which is what I suggested.
Yesterday I removed my vote for @therealwolf cuz he was self voting in massive dimensions.
In General, we need new Witnesses cuz they dont care about us at all
Posted using Partiko Android
There are witnesses that do not vote for @therealwolf, or other bot operators. @ausbitbank and @krnel, for example. I recommend both.
@krnel has disabled his witness
Well, there's lot's of witnesses, @cervantes, @teamsteem, @liberosist, @smooth and others don't vote for our favorite flagger, or for therealwolf. I liked @krnel's witness votes, so I made him my proxy. It can take a bit of digging on steemd to look at who votes for who, and then there's who the witness they vote for votes for. One of my witness votes apparently still goes to @krnel, because he votes for himself, but 1/30th of my VP isn't going to break the witness system.
@liberosist is already on my witness votes
I've now also voted for @cervantes and @teamsteem
@smooth is also disabled
I can also recommend: @sempervideo @jesta @pharesim
For security reasons I use @smooth.witness as my witness account and @smooth for posting.
voted :]
I think many will miss the opportunity of voting for a good witness just cuz they dont know u are one.
Thank you for the recommendations :) will look into what they do
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You would have my vote.
Posted using Partiko iOS
Your vote for what? Witness? I don't have the resources, time or interest in setting up a witness server. My technical days were done when I retired over 13 years ago.
I agree regarding bullies and censorship: lame, a waste, a potential deadend. To me only violence is violence, but I get your point. Be well. Hopefully things move in a better direction.
Posted using Partiko Android
None of those harms are physiological. They are psychological. This therefore excludes violence, which requires physical contact.
Several of these claims are false. No one has a right to peace. Life itself is an act of war. Every breath you take kills some life forms. Every step you take violently crushes something to death. As a result, we necessarily have, as you state, a right to defend ourselves - because existential threat is intrinsic to living, and all living things demonstrably must defend themselves from harm to live. Both claims cannot be true, as if we actually had a right to peace, we would have no need to defend ourselves.
Please stop trivializing actual physical violence by claiming psychological insult is equivalent.
Further, you confuse two separate issues when you claim we have a right to set boundaries, which we do, and also have a right to choose who we interact with, which is impossible and absurd. We do not have any ability to censor existence, even theoretically, and determine how our environment - which includes other people - acts on us. We do have the right to act as we choose in response to environmental circumstances over which we have no control, and, for example, can mute other social media accounts so that we might pretend they don't exist. They do exist, and still impact our accounts, but by muting them we become unaware of that affect, except when revealed by others.
We cannot have a right to 'a livelihood'. You have a right to seek to live, and that means you have a right to seek a livelihood, but it is your responsibility to actually provide that livelihood, and thus it is not your right to have one, but your responsibility to make one.
These facts do not invalidate your dissatisfaction with the collusion and censorship on Steem. However, being unreasonable and making false statements makes even true statements you make necessarily suspect, and trivial to discard. Since we agree on the harm that censorship does, I seek to encourage you to restrict your statements to those that are demonstrably factually correct, so that your false statements do not prevent others that might lend their strength to the fight against censorship from dismissing that struggle as unreasonable.
I recommend you consider @ausbitbank and @krnel as witnesses, as both strongly oppose censorship and IMHO value people over money.
Ha...yeah, he should approve @ausbitbank...
Oh, wait. Maybe not.
He should probably read the Steem whitepaper and see why downvotes exist...then go check out Whaleshares, which got rid of downvotes. Might open one’s eyes about the purpose of them in a system with a “free” rewards pool and one that’s based on subjective content evaluation. (Hint: Whaleshares is now dead.)
Regarding krnelol...
He went off the deep end two years ago because he was downvoted. Proceeded to make about a dozen whiny posts in a row (kind of like wwf is doing), had them all downvoted to zero, and then ragequit and disappeared for a long time. So maybe he’s not the best example of leadership either.
You guys and your uninformed opinions...lulz.
For months I have been voting for @nextgencrypto as witness. I am aware he's been flagging my ass off. I had proxied my witness votes to someone who voted for him. You are not wrong that much about witnesses is unknown to me, and that is why I proxy my votes.
Basically, at this point I'm just trying to avoid voting for anyone that supports Bernie, Marky, or Wolfie. I'm not even sure it's possible to find 30 witnesses that don't vote for folks that vote for one of them, run bidbots, or other shenanigans. I don't want to support any of those things, and as far as I can tell from the few hours I put into looking, neither does @krnel.
Frankly, putting that much time into voting for witnesses with the amount of SP I have is ridiculous. I just got interested so looked. Using @krnel as a proxy makes sense in this context to me. I also find a lot of the content he puts out relevant to my interests, so there's that.
Thanks for making a lot of sense often, and keep laughing at my mistakes. I need to do that more myself.
I suspect many remain silent as they fear the wrath of vengeance that will get dished out if they speak up.
That would be me. As kind as I am being, I am still getting downvotes on nearly every post. I who see violence every day and do not speak up for fear of the violence being directed at me. The "witnesses" (deceptive name) may have meant well, but they are products of the current culture, and they can not see beyond what they have been taught.
I know the feeling...
This place is starting to make the USSR look like a bastion of free expression...
https://steemit.com/blog/@lucylin/this-is-becoming-too-hilarious
https://steemit.com/blog/@lucylin/pink-floyd-with-alternative-on-screen-lyrics-regarding-steem-oh-and-some-sheep