While I published my first post on the Hive Blockchain a couple of months ago, I haven't since properly introduced myself to the community, as suggested by @macchiata from @OCD / @lovesniper. So, it is about time to do it.

Who am I?

My name is Caetano Penna. I'm Brazilian, born in Rio de Janeiro, married to a lovely Spanish woman from Barcelona. Since I started working at Utrecht University in 2020, we live in Utrecht, the Netherlands. Besides Rio de Janeiro and Utrecht, I was fortunate to live in many other European cities: Brighton (UK), Lisbon (Portugal), Tallinn (Estonia) and Zagreb (Croatia).

I'm a trained economist from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, where I now hold Adjunct Professor in the Economics of Industry and Technology (I'm currently on leave). I have a Master in Technology Governance from Tallinn University of Technology and a PhD in Science and Technology Policy Studies from the University of Sussex. I'm also a professional translator of English to Portuguese (and vice-versa), and in theory I should also be able to translate German - aber mein Deutsch ist leider kaputt... My research and teaching focus on the economics of technology and innovation, industrial and innovation policy, and socio-technical transitions to sustainability. In the past, I worked as market analyst of the investor relations' department of the biggest company of Brazil, where I learned technical analysis to study the stock and commodity markets.

Of course, I'm into technology, but I also have other hobbies and passions. I love photography, travel, dogs and cats (but I'm allergic to the latter), culinary (eating and cooking!), spearfishing, poetry, snowboarding, surfing, street carnival, football (or "soccer" - hey, I'm a Brazilian!), running and gardening - amongst other things.

How did I get here?

I came to the Hive world via Splinterlands (my referral link), which I've been playing since October 2021 - and really enjoying it. My friend @mengao was responsible for inviting me to this world. Now I also publish blog pieces (mostly on Splinterlands, so far) in Peakd and pictures in @liketu (my liketu profile. I'm part of the HiveBR community on Discord. I still have a lot to learn.

Where am I going on Hive?

I'm enjoying being part of Hive and hope to really mingle with this community. Blogging-wise, I want to start publishing my cooking recipes, my poetry (in English and Portuguese) and - why not? - some think pieces on the economics of technology (with an emphasis on blockchain). What else do you think I should be aiming for?

What are my wishes for Hive?

The strength of Hive is its decentralization and democracy pillar, and I hope they remain solid. This means no one, no account, should act in authoritarian ways - and unfortunately, those with lots of voting weight can act so. My wish is that these accounts act more politely to newcomers, talk to them, and do not take arbitrary actions.

This wish comes from a bad experience that I had in my first weeks on the Hive Blockchain. I published a Portuguese translation from one original piece in English that I wrote on Splinterlands strategy, and a well-known account that seems to act as police downvoted it, without any explanation as to why. I asked for explanation on discord, just to receive sarcasm as a reply ("let's recycle the same content in one of 6500 languages"). Note that it did take me time to translate the piece, it was not simply machine translation as it contained Splinterland jargon and concepts - I thus believe that the post provided service to the Portuguese-speaking Hive community: it was my original content and so I (still) don't see it as spam nor (self-)plagiarism. While I'm still to be convinced with rational arguments that translation is bad, I'm abiding to what I was told to do, because I don't want to be blacklisted. Yes, we need to keep the community tidy, but there must be better, improved ways.

My wish is therefore that the Hive community does not mimic the world where people have the most irrational arguments and where confrontation and antagonism rules (particularly in Web 2.0 social networks), and where centralized authorities controls the debate.

As @ybanezkim26 wrote as his wish in his introductory post (on which I got inspired for this one), "I hope that anyone with knowledge about how this thing works will not hesitate to help those uninitiated" - to which I add: with patience, kindness, politeness, prudence and wisdom.

Hive on!