The world is at war, Steemit the microcosm is reflecting the macrocosm
@fulltimegeek shared a post on his blog regarding a conflict between two groups of people on steemit. You are welcome to go visit his wall to read the article if you are not familiar with what is going on. I cannot remain silent on it as the violence continues to escalate and being an advocate for peace, it is my duty to confront those who engage in violence and point out ways that we can remedy these types of situations.
I'm not going to name people as this is not an isolated incident as I've seen this behaviour more than once in my short 2 1/2 months on this platform. So let me explain the situation using alias instead so that we can all see what is going on in all these different scenarios. PosterA writes a lot of posts and is upvoted by a lot of people, but specifically is really liked by a whale WhaleB, whose vote is worth hundreds of dollars. As a result, PosterA dominates the hot and trending lists and is even collecting a significant slice of the rewards pool each day. He is getting rich as a result and people accuse him of greed, spam and threatening the continuity of the steem community. Users C & D are upset, so they decided to martyr themselves by attacking PosterA in an effort to shut him down, who in turn has reciprocated the attacks, along with followers from both sides. The battle is spreading and the method of attack is the flag button, which results in the loss of rewards from posts and an attempt to decrease each individuals reputation at the same time.
Steemit is a platform that functions on the principle of anarchy. That means we are all learning how to govern ourselves and be peaceful within a community with no centralized authority. To impose our moral and ethical standards on others through force, violence or coercion violates the tenants of self-governance and the principles of anarchy.
I want to start with WhaleB, the whale who's vote is worth hundreds of dollars. His vote is his to do with as he pleases. It is his steem power that he is exercising and as such, he found a user who posts content that he likes and he is encouraging the user to keep up the work. The story about the land owner who goes to town to find laborers to work his fields comes to mind. He found some in the morning and offered them a penny for the day. He then went out at noon and three to find more. Then towards evening he found more and offered them a penny. When it came to payment, the workers who were hired first found it unfair. His response:
Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ - Matthew 20:15
WhaleB is being very generous and PosterA is being attacked for that generosity. In a system of anarchy, we must avoid imposing our moral and ethical standards on other people, which is a statist methodology and way of thinking. If you want a system of imposed governance, I recommend people return to Facebook. It has a centralized authority that has taken up the duty to censor and impose community standards on the users. If people violate those standards then they are punished. This is a centralized form of governance and it is already established. That way if somebody misbehaves you can report them to the authority and get vengeance.
To attack PosterA because of the generosity of WhaleB violates the principle of self-governance and anarchy. Anarchy is not violence and chaos, it is a form of self-governance and to not recognize that reflects whether people have established their own law form upon which they will govern themselves, especially when participating in this form of experiment. Anarchy can only work if people choose to govern themselves based on a law form that advocates peace and freedom.
I will also suggest that PosterA reciprocating the attack only escalated the war and fed the cycle which starts to feed on itself and it will grow uncontrollably. Having supporters jump in on the war then makes it a world war as this conflict indeed has no boundaries. I am an advocate for peace, so no war is preferable, but I refuse to engage in violence or coercion to make that happen.
Some would suggest that PosterA writes spam and if you feel that way, then mute him. That way his content will no longer show up for you, but is still available for others to follow as they see value in his work. Forgiveness seems to be missing in all of this. Let's face some cold hard truths. We are not all going to agree. But this boils down to freedom and I'll let William Cooper describe to you what it REALLY means as he says it best.
If we all want freedom then we can NEVER silence another individual. If we do, we silence ourselves. If we all want freedom then we must forgive and protect EVERYONE'S right to be free as well, no matter how much we disagree with them. It is critical that we all comprehend what William Cooper is trying to say as it reflect exactly what Christ was saying in his parable regarding the land owner looking for workers.
I stand here in support of PosterA to say and post what ever he wants. I also stand here in support of WhaleB to vote as he pleases, User C&D to say what they want and I rebuke anybody who should engage in violence or coercion to prevent that process from unfolding. Greed may be involved, but we are not justified in shutting down somebody else as a result of it. Rebuke the greed as you have a right to your views, but it is not morally or ethically justified to engage in violence or coercion to shut others down in order to enforce your own sense of justice. That is not freedom. That is no anarchy. That is not self-governance. That is not Christ level consciousness. So what do we do if we feel we have been trespassed against?
Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven. - Matthew 18:21-22
I ask everyone, especially the Stewards of Gondor, to rise above the violence and lead by example by not engaging in a violent affront to freedom and anarchy. I appeal to those directly involved to end the violence now and find within yourself the means to recognize the violence, end it and forgive one another. We all have a right to post what we want. If we don't like what we see, we can mute the user. But the moment we start attacking one another, we have abandoned the concept of freedom, Christ level consciousness and self-governance. If we can end the wars here, it will end the wars in the real world as the macrocosm reflects the microcosm and visa versa.
That will require a great deal of work and it starts with the man in the mirror! I pray that men and women of good conscience stand up for peace and freedom.
One point that I would like to add.
If the reward pool is amiss, people can downvote to pull the rewards from an individual.
However, if all those downvotes at 100% which were used to downvote poster A were given elsewhere, it would alter the reward pool drawing from poster A large percentage take.
Instead of downvoting his post (and others) to negative by blasting him with hundreds of dollars of downvotes, upvote another person with the same hundreds of dollars and have them trending.
I am sure there are thousands of minnows who would love that.
Yes, exactly and it was a point I missed talking about. Thank you for bringing it up. I notice that there is still steem left over from the pool that gets distributed to share holders. That means the pool is not even being used up completely. I agree with you @taskmaster4450, if people directed their energy to supporting the content that they like, it would have a huge impact on the pool and the steemit environment in a much more positive and constructive way. Thank you for raising that point. <3
I love your constructive answer to this situation @wwf.
My mea culpa was because I feel into the emotions/ego of the situation. I felt poster A was attacked too quickly without checking things out. Since that time, there certainly have been question raised about the situation (above and beyond the pissing contest back and forth).
What is most upsetting is I personally have seen posts that commented on the topic, by people not involved, downvoted by one side or the other.
To me, it is one thing to use downvotes when you think there is something amiss with the reward pool, it is another to downvote because you dont like something or want to silence it....that is entering into censorship which, as you pointed out, is what happens on the controlled sites.
Thank you @taskmaster4450. I witnessed the war and went digging around last night to see for myself. I could not be silent as my silence would mean that I agree with what is going on. I don't agree, so I had to speak up. However, how do we do that without resorting to violence? By getting on my own soap box and speaking my own truth. It may fall on deaf ears, but the ones with the eyes to see and the ears to hear will get the message. The more of us that lead by example will then have greater and greater influence over those who are blind or deaf to the spirit of this message. We can influence the war and end it without engaging at all. Of that I have no doubt. It takes longer and requires a leap of faith, but I know in my heart that is how this war can be resolved AND the wars that rage on outside our windows in the real world as well. We all must lead by example in peace and freedom for it to work. Thank you for your kind words my friend.
Ya, the censorship thing was weird to me, like I get retaliation, but this like trying to shut out anyone who takes any little stance towards one side or another. Sometimes the posts downvoted didn't say anything in favor of one or the other!
I honestly can't tell if the account has nefarious activity going on. At worst it seems one investor is propping up another account, but shouldn't said investor be able to use his vote how he/she pleases. Whether we like it or not we don't get to decide who they vote for, they could upvote every stupid comment they post if they wanted, would that be reward pool abuse?
totally agreed.
Exactly. I wrote an entire post about this. In the simplest form:
If there are 50K people posting Each $50 upvote makes everybody loose 1/10th of a penny and each $50 flag gives everybody 1/10th of a penny. Even if this was $500 it's still just a penny. A penny isn't a justification for a war. Period.
One big inaccuracy in your post is that there aren't two groups. There is only one group vs individual steemians.
The people opposing the haejin group have far more SP but they are disorganized individuals. If we were organized and randowhale and grumpycat + other flaggers went all out against the haejin group, all of their accounts would be dead by now even if rancho was voting on them with 100%.
But those opposing him are getting a bit organized little by little.
Agreed! We need to move past the destroying each other phase in Steemit and in real life, there really is no point to it. Everybody looses and it must be awful to carry around that much hatred and vengeance!
@wwf it seems as though you've put a lot of time and effort into this post explaining your views on peace for the situation. You are however totally missing key aspects of the situation.
It's not really about pressing mute and ignoring a Steemian who has ovibously built a team to take, take, take from the other users. Turning a blind eye here would not be the correct method. I understand you are one for peace but you have given no solution other then ignoring. 6% of the reward pool to one user every week will escalate to 7% then so on.
This is not a matter or jealousy, greed or any other accusations made by the trolls. Should we turn a blind eye if there were 17 accounts doing the same thing because it's there money and they can do what they want? That would be 100% of the reward pool to 17 users.
I think the problem with your post is the fact that you are comparing yourself and what type of person you are to the situation. Meaning; if you were poster A or whale B. However Poster A and Whale B are not you and there intentions for peace and having a long term successful blockchain are non existent.
I have yet to find a whale similar to Whale B. I've looked and I can't find another Whale who only upvotes one Steemian and no others.
I strongly disagree with your views on this matter and feel perhaps you are misunderstanding the harm to the community. You are an excellent writer and a superb teacher. Your knowledge on off grid living and homesteading is comparable to nothing I've see before. However your knowledge of the blockchain, cryptocurrencies and Steemit is not all that great.
These users will end this platform if this continues and muting the users well they drain the reward pool is not something that a lot of Steemians will stand for. Investments are at stake here. Some people's lively hoods are at stake here. Some people's evening entertainment is at stake here.
One does not simply turn a blind eye to reward pool abuse!
@taskmaster4450 and I were discussing earlier, that if people voted for meaningful content with the full weight that the flagging war has thrown around, the weight of those votes could have potentially diminish the 6% take of the pool down to 4% or even 2%. The issue with a 6-7% take on the pool is associated with a small pool and very large whales. However, how can somebody be taking from others when the whole entire pool is not even claimed each day? There is lots of left over steem waiting to be claimed that gets distributed to vest holders on a daily basis because there is not enough upvoting taking place. I see it all the time with my steem power slowly creeping up minute by minute. It is like accusing me of taking 3 cookies instead of 1 when there is still 20 cookies left over and everyone who wanted a cookie got one! How did I take a cookie from somebody else when there is still left overs and nobody wants any more?
However, when 5 million users get onto Steemit, getting a 6% take on the pool will be nearly impossible to accomplish due to the mere size of the ecology in the pool. This is an anomaly due to small ecology size which would be fixed when the platform becomes more popular. This is not the first time this has been an issue and most likely won't be the last either. By supporting the minnows with our votes, we can increase the pool and make it even more difficult for people to take such a large percentage. We are swimming in a pond and by supporting new users and increasing their steem power, we can turn that pond into an ocean. Right now a whale in a pond can cause all kinds of problems, but when we get a whale in an ocean, an equilibrium can be found and these anomalies will disappear. An ocean provides all kinds of room for all kinds of users. Ponds are very crowded and disruptive. It is our duty to turn the system into an ocean so that we can remedy the issue. We do that by upvoting and supporting, not downvoting and attacking.
However, your assessment of my knowledge and skill (whether founded or not) still does not take away from the fact that resorting to violence to protect the pond is not a viable option. If we have to resort to violence to protect the pond then we are no better than those who are engaged in violence to drain it. We will NEVER get rid of greed and I'm not saying turn a blind eye to it either. I will be front in line to rebuke greed, but I will do so peacefully. What I am saying is that we can address these issues in a peaceful way and that the war itself could destroy that which it was meant to protect.
You are entitled to your opinion @hendrix22. I respect your right to share it and express it. However, I disagree with it! The pool is not being abused, people are being abused and the abuse must stop. We cannot force our ethical and moral standards on others. We lead by example, not by force and coercion. I will agree with you on one point, peoples livelihood is on the line here and through my work I pray that one day that will not be the case as we should all be dependent on Mother Earth, not some fictional construct we created.
I am here to make that point. The spiritual implications must be addressed throughout all of this and peace, freedom, prosperity and love are all critical components to that process, whether it is here on Steemit or in the real world. If self-governance is not allowed to shake itself out and we resort to violence and coercion, then I fear this won't go anywhere.
However, I still must stand behind WhaleB's free will to 'give' who whom ever he wants. It is his to do with as he pleases. If you fear the pool being drained, then perhaps this post may enlighten you as to how the pool works and the fact that the price of steem is sitting over $8 right now, should help demonstrate that it will become more and more difficult over time for one individual to take a huge percentage of the pool take each day.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@dragosroua/why-there-is-no-such-thing-as-draining-the-reward-pool
Great point about the size of the site(number of users) factoring into the percentage of reward pool being taken. Also, fascinating about the leftover reward pool going to those vested, I didn't know about this, but it makes sense. I didn't really understand the importance of using up voting power for the day to give people value before charging it up again. Think I lost a solid delegation for that mistake, so learned the hard way to use my vote wisely and actually USE my vote. Now I vote too much :)
Thanks for putting so much into your responses on comments, it increases the quality of this post. If I had more upvote atm I'd be spending some here
It is critical that we utilize our voting power. A million minnows can easily out vote a whale! The power always rests in the people and a single individual will always be swamped by that power if he / she tries to stand in its way, especially when it becomes consciously aware of what is going on. The powers that be are feeling that as well. I'm not concerned about a single individual. I'm concerned about the violence that has spread as a result of peoples reactions to that one individual.
That's a good point, you put me in mind again of the real world. We complain that the top miniscule percentage has the lion's share of the wealth while the majority go without and yet we are the majority. If we all turn around and say we're not supporting the behaviour that allows the wealth to flood one way, then it would flow in other directions.
I have to agree with @wwf here. The biggest problem isn't people abusing the rewards pool but users not voting. There were studies done years ago where someone walking with a dollar drops it. What they found is that 98% of the time people did the right thing and brought that dollar back to its owner.
We don't need to focus our attention on the few who "abuse" the rewards pool. We need to focus on the majority who don't. Focus on what you want, not on what you don't want, lest you make what you don't want a reality.
I do agree that we can find macro/micro relationships all around us and I hadn't really thought about that in regards to drama that has occurred on Steemit. I really resonate with your vision of peace. Onward and upward, through the fog!
Stumbled upon you by accident and so very glad that I did.
:)
This is a great article which clearly argues for love and tolerance.
I am an artist/writer/lightworker and your message resonates loud.
Thankyou.
xox
I am glad you found me. I read your post about your husbands ability to see into the Spiritual Realm. I wrote a book a few years ago about the Fictional, Physical and Spiritual Realms and our relationship with them. I'm finding more and more people who are starting to see the same way as well. I'm excited. Welcome to my blog.
https://steemit.com/book/@wwf/graduating-life-with-honours-full-book-with-links-to-each-chapter
I try to stay out of these types of actions or reactions. I don't need the drama in my life. I avoid toxic people at all costs. I don't tolerate greed very well either. I will only try to come between warring parties to make peace when I feel that it would be of benefit and the two warring parties agree to a truce. Otherwise it is a waste of time and energy. Some people just enjoy being rabble-rousers.
I've been known to take issues like this on many occasions as I use them to demonstrate a point. Some people don't like it when I do this, but by remaining silent we consent to it continuing to unfold. So I will speak up even when it causes me great stress. The 'old' me would avoid confrontation at all costs, but it nearly killed me. So I've since learned how to confront and I face it head on even when my knees tremble. Otherwise, nothing changes and I refuse to accept that in life. But there is a difference when it ends up being perpetual. At some point the energy is not worth it and I must walk away. The energy and time is draining especially with those who don't have fertile ground upon which to plant the seeds of freedom, peace and love. I can only help those who have the will. Those who lack the will are rabble-rousers and I have no time for them.
Hi, Rob. I really appreciate this post. Anarchy is about Evolution, not REvolution. As we evolve in the direction of Anarchy, it is people like you who are reminding us all that it is the violence - in whatever form it takes - that keep us in REvolution. This Evolution is going to get messy. There are many people who still haven't learned how to disagree without being disagreeable. Thank you for reminding us.
You are welcome and thank you for raising the evolution point. You are right and I've written about that in the past as well. Do I know you, perhaps from facebook? It is hard for me to make the connection between people I know and their avatar names here.
This is Muriel.
lol. I know you!!! hahaha. Welcome to steemit my dear friend! I look forward to our exchanges here.
I am still trying to understand the whole influential system of steem and why specific users have a vote that is worth more than others. Popularity and power can be very dangerous. Everyone needs to ask themselves, am i liking something just because everyone else does or does this actually have merit. Do we want real discussion, real solutions or do we want an echo chamber? If users C & D don't like Poster's A article then produce something better. @wwf you produce great content, that is what we need to seek out. It may not be trending or hot but it clearly valuable. Thank you
Well point you arose and i am completely agreed upon the logic you gave in it. Especially this one:
I do believe money is not everything relations and attitude does matter. Peace is the best trait to live on Earth if we are going to violet it's barrier then yes we are demolishing ourselves guys.
Steemit is the community of educated peoples this is the best platform to address people that how can they survive in a best way.
Great Article and well elaborated as well @wwf