“Reputation is what strangers think of you and character is what your friends know you are”
Ricky Gervais
One of the broken features of Steem is the reputation system as it was so easily gamed at the start through the circles and then, even more so through the use of bidbots to artificially increase it. Sure, profits were the main reason that bidbots were used, the bump to reputation was just a side effect of the process. However as broken as it is, the idea behind it is quite solid, use community support to develop a trust metric.
Last year at Steemfest3 I was listening to 
In many ways, blockchain has the potential to get "dystopian nightmare" very fast if it is used in this way, and most likely it will be attempted. However, wouldn't you want to know the track record of your doctor? A doctor might have a good reputation but, what would their friends have to say about them, with the "friends" seeing the real person, the reality of the outcomes of action in the case of a blockchain.
You know those people who brag about their winnings yet never seem to acknowledge any losses? What are the chances of them beating the system that no one else is able to best? Would the "great husband" be labelled that by his mistress? The trader who only talks in percentages and gives advice, yet has nothing to show for all the great investments made? Besides the dystopia of having our every move tracked and leveraged against us, I wonder what our character would become if the reality of all of our actions were knowable.
When I was a young kid around 7 or 8, I would imagine this in a different way. What I thought about is what kinds of statistics I would have accomplished in my life time and pictured that after death I would be given a searchable ledger that could tell me how many times I did this, that or the other thing. My figuring was that if there was a God that new everything, this shouldn't be an issue at all.
The immutable Godchain?
These days I am agnostic on the existence of God and the ledger of life but perhaps in some way through the development of technology, it would be possible to get a similar outcome. For example, how many blockchains are we going to be recorded on in the future and what would happen when we are able to cross-reference points of data in time with dozens of other points. Will that be a web of trust?
I find it an interesting thought exercise to think about how different our opinions might be if we saw ourselves through the eyes of others, through our friends, strangers an the thoughts that we generate through our interaction, whether active or passive. Would our character that we believe we have shine, or would we be something altogether different - would we like ourselves?
I find that we have created a networked world where what people know of us is largely half truths and for many, the reality of who we are is quite different to the online reputation we hold. I wonder what happens when the worlds collide and we begin to see our reflection in what we have created, in how we have made others think and feel.
I wonder that if we met in real life, would we support each other?
It is something that one would have to consider in a social world isn't it? Unfortunately it seems that this is no really the case as most of the social medias encourage "branding" of an identity, and often that is directed at what sells, not what the person actually is. It is the picture of the burger with fresh lettuce and tomato in the advert, not the reality of the processed grayness of what is received over the counter.
Perhaps we have built online trust to match our experiences where we expect that someone who appears a certain way online is not going to be that in reality, that the online presence isn't their character, it is their presented persona designed to deceive for gain. That gain may be financial, it may be the attention that so many seek, but gain of some sort is the goal.
We all have to live our own experience yet, all of our actions are interconnected, they all feed into and influence the things they touch and, that includes they way we interact with others. I wonder how many people would be comfortable looking at the ledger of life and say;
That was the best of me, that was all I was, all I could be.
So many these days have an overinflated sense of self yet I wonder, would the people around them corroborate their online story, or would they not recognize the character at all?
When the web of trust meets reality, some will stand tall, many will fall.
A conflicted life begins with the illusion of who we are in our own eyes and the gap to who we are in reality. Is the ledger of life taking notes? Your reputation may precede you, your character is what people will come to know.
Know thyself is only possible if one can see oneself clearly first.
Taraz
[ a Steem original ]
