The grind never ends. We live in a rat-race society where the majority of citizens are always looking to make an extra buck. No matter what we have, we want more. We live in scarcity.
Technology keeps getting better. Jobs are getting automated by machines, but none of that matters because only the top 0.1% reap the rewards of the distribution of wealth. Could you imagine what it would be like if we could just automate out the jobs that people hated and, instead of enslaving them to a new job, simply let them be free? What a revelation!
We can see the faint glimmers of hope of such a future in cryptocurrency. With decentralization and community consensus as it's core feature, perhaps a reality where people get paid to _____ is possible.
Think about it: how much work actually goes in to keeping us alive? Food, water, shelter. Do any of us have jobs in these areas? A few, but not many. 1%? 0.1%? Just a couple hundred years ago this percentage would have been massive. It's obvious that we should all be living better lives, but the greedy among us ruin everything and spread their greed like a cancer into the world.
Steemit is a great microcosm example of the greed taking place in the rest of the world. We're supposed to honorably upvote the content that deserves upvoting. If everyone did this Steem would already be the #1 coin on the market cap. However, this idealistic view is not how things happen in the real world.
In the real world one greedy whale decides he wants short-term profits by any means necessary. He starts upvoting himself only. The other whales watch the greedy whale exploit the fledgling system and decide they are missing out on the action. They create bid-bots and start forcing users to "pay rent" on the broken trending tab to get exposure to the site. Their constant thought isn't about increasing the value of the platform for everyone; it's about leeching every last penny they can.
Because of this, everyone suffers. Even the exploitative whales enslave themselves with invisible chains of greed. They lack innovation. They see the world through the eyes of relativity. They stand at the top of a pyramid when they could be flying around in a spaceship. They are blind to this fact and convince themselves that because they've got a better gig than everyone else they're in a good position. Nothing could be farther from the truth seeing as they are the biggest part of the problem. It doesn't help when the have-nots glorify this lottery of wealth and hope to one day ascend to the same corrupted position.
You can't just hope that people will do the right thing. You have to force them, and if you can't force them you have to incentivize them. Negative reinforcement is inferior to positive reinforcement. Showering a whale with flags is much less productive them providing them with a platform that benefits everyone. However, the latter is much harder to accomplish and requires much more innovation and thought.
Progress is slow and people are impatient. How long have we been waiting for SMTs? We haven't even begun the process of waiting for innovation to hit the platform. We are still on hold watching at the foundation itself take shape. It's hard for many people to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Sometimes it easier to assume that what we want will never come to pass. No use in getting one's hopes up when the present looks so bleak. However, the way I see it, this new world that we so desire is bound to fall into place. Blockchain revolves around community consensus. Therefore, if you can find a community that wants the same things that you want, there is little reason that those ideals can't come into reality.
Pessimists will assume that purging the corruption of the world is impossible. After all, it's the corrupt who are in charge. They'll simply make whatever you're doing illegal. Right?
I'm not so sure. Did they try to make the printing press illegal? What about cars, planes, or the Internet itself? These are technologies that can't be made illegal because they are too useful. Cryptocurrency is even more valuable than these other technologies by several factors. Any country that bans smart money is going to catapult themselves back into the dark ages.
There is no evil elite cabal that controls the entire world. The players at the top turn on each other all the time. Greed is a constant that we can count on in the old world of corporate imperialism.
The banks can whine all they want. They are soon™ to become as obsolete as the printing press is to the Internet. Cryptocurrency is money. Politicians can be bought. Coinbase has already created a political action committee. Throw a little money at the greedy people in charge and this technology blasts off to the moon.
