How Steem Changed My World View

Until very recently I would have called myself an anarcho-capitalist. I've understood the need for privacy and property rights. I've followed the cypherpunk movement and would consider myself a cypherpunk as well. The ideas I've always preferenced have always been a rebellion against a clearly visible oppression by the ruling class of any society.

Some of my experience with activists amongst The Free State Project, @adamkokesh, and others have solidified both the necessity and futility of the work that must be done. However, the ideals carried to their logical conclusion have the effect of putting everyone in a vacuum. People don't know what they would do or who they could call for help. We say: "You can organize your community, your society!" Then point to limited successes in a few places. But even the best historical examples have only led to the largest oppressive regimes. People aren't usually willing to see the danger their society has put them in. Where police are more than 100x more likely than average to have killed somebody and nearly as likely to get away with the murder. We have a government whose sole purpose is now to protect the interests of corporations. Enforcing patent and copyright, enabling the PharmaBros and the collapse of pension funds alike. Using media and identity politics to divide and conquer. They control us with the only incentive we've ever know to work. Money. Stuff that is created out of thin air with little more than a whim. But when the bubbles burst and society falls into depression; what has changed?

There is only one kind of capital, it's human capital. Everything else is a tool. The vast majority of you use your tools to either your own benefit or more wisely in your community. Investing, starting companies, personal charity, community beautification. But at the end of the day you'll pay your taxes and even the best intentions have financed the next war, the next bailout, and the next intrusion of privacy.

As most of us learned long ago we live in a republic to protect us from an oppressive majority. But when we look around it isn't the majority that's oppressive, it's a tiny fraction that run for office, finance campaigns, and print money. It's the corporations that lobby for regulations to stifle innovation and competition. This soft democracy, "people rule", is nothing but mob rule, by those with the loudest voices and the biggest checkbooks. We can see it in our elections. We can see it in our courts.

Steem has welcomed each of us to a holocracy, "whole-rule." Quite simply by engaging on steem you are enforcing the set of rules in the whitepaper and laid out in code that runs our nodes. The term holocracy was coined in 1967 by Arthur Koestler in his book "Ghost in the Machine." The book is about our brain, the ghost, driving this fleshy meat suit. The unit of a holocracy is the holon. Each part of the whole is also a whole. The people who will read this are the whole of the people who read this. We can organize in to any structure we want and become a whole community, in a whole network. We are also each whole human, whole actors in our own life, with whole self-determination.

Our brain is made of billions of neurons with billions of connections. Each one of them potentially responsible for a different thought or defense. When we brush against something in the dark there is a whole nerve, in a whole nervous system, that alerts a whole amygdala, that our whole cerebral cortex will then deal with accordingly. This is the network effect of our brain. Where each part of the whole is vitally important to survival, both of "itself" and the "whole". This is emergence. This is the understanding that the best way to improve your life is to improve the lives of others. Allowing you the freedom to act in anyway, and for the rest of the network to reward or discourage you accordingly. Even the best cared for bodies will be injured, or cause us suffering with headache or ailment. I don't believe a perfect system exists because every system will be made from humans. But what we have done is redefined trust. We are participating in a network that makes 3rd party trust obsolete; leaving us with second party trust alone. This second party trust is expressed as a reputation system in the absence of personal knowledge... that itself isn't perfect but coupled with the transparent way in which it is derived we have a whole knowledge of each persons interactions with others. Every gripe and praise.

If you are here taking on reward pool politics or plagiarist, creating photos, blogs, or videos... you are propagating an idea amongst the whole network. One that can gain momentum and become a movement. When your toe hits the bathwater and you decide to get in or not, you have already won. You have made the informed decision. When a holon propagates an idea they are rewarded accordingly as well. You lucky few are the first to experience this holocracy. Where every holon has the incentive to perform to the best of their ability. When the next financial bubble bursts you will always have the incentive to perform at your best. To "free" the means of production or give your neighbor a ride to work. Here knowledge is the capital, the tool. Knowledge that is free to access. Knowledge that you, a holon, invented a software or a technique for purifying water, painted a mural, helped your neighbor, or flagged a plagiarist. Self determination here in the holocracy is also network determination. Working for yourself is working for everybody. This isn't a company, this isn't a get rich quick scheme, this is freeing knowledge to everybody with internet access. This is having a voice that can be just as powerful as any other. Here we are all equal in ability and incentive. The freedom to act as an individual here frees individuals around the globe. The freedom to organize in whole communities and whole hierarchies.

Demonetization of all of our basic needs is fast approaching. What will be your purpose when food, connectivity, healthcare, shelter, transportation, and entertainment are marginally zero cost? You're now part of the whole that is bringing about this change at an even faster pace. One that will continue to be encouraged to design, comfort, think, and support your fellow holon. In a holocracy your purpose is to love what you do and encourage the same in others.