I read this brilliant post this morning, and put forward a reply suggesting that adherence to democratic capitalism, with its dark underbelly of rampant corruption, currently has humanity teetering on the brink of destruction. This has already happened many times before in humanity's history. See the Ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans. Now there is absolutely nothing inherently wrong with democracy, it's the corruption encouraged by capitalism that is the problem, and how it grows and becomes entrenched over the decades and centuries. Under capitalism successful people become wealthy, and that very wealth enables them to continue being successful, and in time that is generally to the detriment of everyone else. A sort of self-fulfilling cycle that locks out all but a few 'approved' new entrants to the game, and ensures that the rich and their descendants remain rich and with influence, regardless of their merit; and that everyone else remains poor, and largely silent, until things get so bad that they are driven to violent demonstration.
The power inherent in the accumulated wealth generated by this vicious circle also ensures that ideas that challenge the status quo are generally denied any forum for debate. This is very dangerous. If new ideas are not allowed to develop and thrive without censorship, corruption will inevitably drag us down the path of our Roman, Greek and Egyptian forefathers. And sadly, the collapse of our civilization will probably be far more catastrophic. Fortunately, the ancients didn't have access to nuclear weapons, but terrifyingly now we do. We have also used up much of the planets fossil fuel reserves, so the likelihood of a new technological civilization rising from our ashes, without ready access to the fuels necessary to power a new industrial dawn, is improbable to say the least. In short, best we don’t mess up!
I believe humanity has reached a critical juncture. What I believe we need is a new type of meritocracy to replace this crumbling system. I use the term ‘meritocracy’ with great care. According to Wikipedia, meritocracy “is a political philosophy holding that power should be vested in individuals almost exclusively based on ability and talent. Advancement in such a system is based on performance measured through examination and/or demonstrated achievement in the field where it is implemented.” Now this is almost as dangerous as a capitalist democracy, because exams are often taken at such a young age, and there are all sorts of reasons why people fail whenever they take them. And of course IQ tests can have a cultural bias, and any exam can be rigged so that success only comes to those who fulfill the criteria of the new corrupt intelligencia elite; and we’re right back to where we started with capitalism.
So, what I think we need is a meritocracy led by meritorious ideas, not by the people who had them. Although of course which ideas are valid and useful would need to be democratically decided by the people as a whole. And what better tool for the job than Steemit?
Ok, back to Steemit. What can it do at present? Well, it already provides a forum for ideas in a way that Facebook and Reddit don't. Facebook doesn't, because it is swamped in triviality... Frankly if I made this post on Facebook I'm sure it would generate a whole host of “WTF?!s”, and I'm sure I'd generate far more likes if I posted a picture of what I had for my breakfast (not that cake by the way, I couldn't eat a whole one!). The problems with Reddit are not so obvious, but to my mind it appears to be open to corruption from biased editing.
So, Steemit is already looking great, but what it does currently is, I believe, only a tiny fraction of what it could achieve. The platform already appears to be developing rapidly, and with continued expansion of its user base and a little work, I can imagine the development of structures to enable phenomenal collaboration of thought.
For example, imagine voting on ideas and schemes that could then actually be put into action in the real world to improve humanity as a whole. Or how about giving reputation not just to Steemers, but to posts (or ideas) themselves, to develop a sort of hierarchy of thought or guided collective consciousness. On reflection, maybe both of these are already starting to happen, although perhaps we need a bit more thought on how best to classify and preserve good posts and ideas.
Also, I can imagine structured forums that will act as think tanks to encourage the rapid evolution of ideas on particular topics. Imagine how powerful this could be for science, philosophy, politics or religion? How it could circumvent some of the dogma and rigid orthodoxy currently endemic in these fields? Also consider how it could allow greater cross pollination between these different disciplines, something that our world is in desperate need of.
With a bit more thought, development and structure the potential here is utterly staggering!
Of course the ideas I've listed above are just back of the cigarette pack stuff, but the beauty of Steemit is that it appears to encourage the evolution of thought. So all being well, the platform will self-generate the right answers, and evolve in the best way to be of huge value to humanity and any burgeoning new meritocracy. A bright future indeed, and a bright future is something we sorely need.
But inevitably there will be challenges, and there is one particularly thorny one right now. This is in relation to reward. The problem is that we must not allow Steemit to simply create a new digital reflection of capitalism.
Believe me, reward is necessary. If people aren't adequately rewarded they won't have the time to participate seriously, and will continue to devote their energies to “working for the man”, reinforcing the corrupt and crumbling capitalist structures of our current society. On the other hand, if we over reward for the wrong sort of material, and if power to reward and upvote remains concentrated to just a few whales, we will have simply recreated our current capitalist society on a digital platform. Steemers will only prosper when they say the right things, the things that are approved of by the whales, or the things that the Steemers themselves believe to be approved of by the whales. The barriers blocking new Steemers with quality original content will grow ever higher, and the new guys will give up and leave. Low user base will eat away at the value of the Steem currency, which could then collapse, and with it our revolutionary new platform will disappear into obscurity.
What we need is this division of wealth currently on the platform to disperse as quickly as possible, to give rise to an ocean of dolphins, each earning enough to provide a reasonable standard of living. Some may of course be bigger than others based on the value that they have contributed, and in fact a size difference will be necessary, but the differences should not be so big that they give huge discrepancies in the power to upvote.
Now please don’t take this as whale bashing. That’s the last thing I intend. After all, many of these guys were, and continue to be, responsible for building this incredible tool. Personally, I believe that they are due very significant reward for this. Also, I am already seeing signs that they are thinking deeply about this very problem, and with further Steem discussion and tweaking I’m sure that the issue can and will be addressed. I am hugely optimistic that together this community will work through this and any future issues.
This post has been a little soap boxy and Steem-centric – but I’m new around here, and currently trying to make friends. If you liked what I’ve written, please upvote, comment, follow me, and tell your friends. That’s right, trend the hell out of it, and maybe I'll write some more on different topics.
