As the saying goes, but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.
Perhaps one day, those "taxes" will disappear too, at least in their current forms. Death on the other hand seems guaranteed, although the definition might change over time. Eventually, everything stops moving.
Human behavior is pretty predictable in one thing, it doesn't like uncertainty. Those who are able to find ways to operate under uncertainty are often the ones that do quite well because, everything is always uncertain, so they are able to cope at least emotionally no matter the situation.
With the upcoming potential Hardfork, I think that regardless of what happens, human behavior is going to be predictable and that means that means people are going to attempt to avoid uncertainty, avoid risk to what they believe is theirs. Authors will protect their rewards, investors protect theirs, witnesses theirs and so on and so forth. It doesn't really matter what changes are made, people will adapt to protect their person and their group over other people that are not them or do not belong to their group. When protecting one's group, it is actually a proxied protection of the self.
Personally, I think that the uncertainty that is to come with how exactly people are going to behave is going to empower the people of this blockchain much more than it is going to harm them - no matter what group people belong to. Well, perhaps that might not be true because some people are going to suffer, just like the spammers from pre-HF20 suffered with not having enough RCs afterward. For most community-minded people however, they got the support they needed.
About a week ago an account grew to the size of Dolphin, it worked hard for the community, it bought Steem all the way down and all the way up. A few days after surpassing the 5000 Steem Power barrier, the owner of that account passed away. He joined on 29th of January 2018 and we share a Steem birthday, I joined January 29th 2017. 
He got the delegation from me after we met in chat and I saw that he was keen to work for the community. I had free SP so I delegated it to him to see what he could do with it. He did a lot, he helped a lot, he inspired a lot. I am glad that he got to see himself become a dolphin as I know how much it meant to him and even though he fought the cancer, in private he saw that certainty of death approaching. You think your content is worth more than his? You think you have more community in you?
We spoke a lot in private and one of the things that I insisted he start doing is protecting his account. What I meant by this was that he should make sure that his family knew what to do in the case of his passing, that they had private keys, that they had an idea of the values, that they had people they could trust to turn to for help if they had questions. I hope he did this, and I hope those he trusted enough to put his work in their hands will honor the agreement.
Do you have people you trust enough on Steem to look after your family? Do you know what happens with your account if you die? You call yourself an investor? a long-term thinker?
I have no idea whether Steem is going to make me a millionaire or leave my destitute but since I am aiming for the former, I have to act as if it is going to happen. That means making sure that regardless of the result, my family has to understand enough about it to know what to do if I can't do it for them. At the distance I am looking, it is likely they are going to need to know as I don't see myself making it so far and, accidents happen along the way too.
Of course, you might not care about the future at all, you might not care what happens to the world once you are dead, or about the people who will have to live on - don't call yourself an investor and, don't call yourself community orientated as if you die, the community will likely still live on.
You think that what you have done from now will improve their experience, have you inspired them to live a better life, reduced their suffering, added quality to their world?
Certainty. When you have it, you are dead.
The world is for the living.
Taraz
[ a Steem original ]