@Smooth, fuck off.

Downvoting does not aid in reward pool conservation. Nothing can aid in reward pool conservation. Rewards in the pool got programmed to get distributed in full, every day, until 2035, or whenever the devs collectively decide to tilt this pinball machine, whatever this machine may be. It's hard to define what Steem/Hive is (or was) because there was never anything like it in the history of our collective memory.

So what am I getting at? People come to the chain, and they bring their expectations with them. Most of us are market-oriented individuals because the market is what makes the world go around. I won't be so bold to suggest that a "free market" exists anywhere on planet earth today. There will always be forces that tamper with the marketplace, whether they be monopolies or governments.

However, governments are monopolies too. They are a monopoly on the use of force. That said, let's get into the mindset of why people downvote. People downvote because they are lazy upvoters. All downvoting does is slightly increase the value of all other posts that got upvoted.

I won't suggest that overly-rewarded genuine shit posts shouldn't get the downvote. However, when you see that someone has put a lot of effort into their work and you are downvoting because you don't like their content, that is not right, and I think most people agree with this. Many continue to subscribe to Steem's antiquated notion that was Proof of Brain. PoB was this noble acronym which in part, 50% of it, pretended to utilize crowd wisdom.

This bold claim stood largely undisputed and made the concept of PoB infallible in the minds of some of the cypherpunk leet class. These good folks—and I call them "probably good" because there is a good chance they invented this stuff with the right reasons at heart. They fell victim to a classical logical fallacy that is the burden of proof fallacy.

The best way I can explain the burden of proof fallacy is that suppose you blurt something out loud, and it's an assertion. Perhaps nobody responds to what you said, so you come away feeling validated that what you said is true because nobody disputed it. That is a trick of the mind, and just because you do not get feedback at the moment, that does not necessarily make your statement infallible or unassailable.

We see this all the time in the field of science. Big thinkers are thinking big thoughts and saying lots of words and stuff and things. They float an idea, and it stands as "true" because "they are so smart, S.M.R.T., I mean, S.M.A.R.T." But then, as time keeps slipping into the future, the various ideas get debunked, perfected, or redefined in better ways.

The reason I'm making this post today is to remind anyone that had the attention span to read this far, that PoB as outlined by the blue paper, does not truly harness the wisdom of the crowd. Crowd wisdom is both adored and marveled at because it gets the answer right damn near every time. However, there is a formula that makes it work. For starters, one is mass participation, and each participant must have an equal say in the matter. And it really is, quite simply, that simple.

Unfortunately, on Steem/HIVE, we cannot conform to that formula because of the code. And I'm not saying that we should code to adhere to crowd wisdom. That alone could break many other things that cause this platform to effectively juice people for their creative content. And I'm not bitching about getting juiced by the platform. This platform has allowed me to grow and develop as a writer in ways that I couldn't have previously imagined.

In all fairness, the white paper does get pretty braggadocious about exploiting Zipf's law to effectively get us to contribute more than we will ever get out of the platform. And all things considered, I'm okay with it because this has been a fantastic learning experience. It has allowed me to grow and perfect my writing. Now, I feel that I'm at a point where I can up and take my skills wherever I damn well please at a moment's notice.

But let's look at these downvotes again, these "market signals," as some affectionately call them. What happens to all those quality content creators who got downvoted because of a disagreement of opinion? I am mostly referencing those who have abandoned their accounts and moved on to greener pastures. Are they still getting challenged to perfect their art every day? How about you? Imagine a world where, if you said something unpopular, someone would walk up to you and slap the smile right off your face for having the audacity to voice your thoughts?

Would a world like that encourage people to grow to their full potential? Would it encourage free speech? What's the best way to inspire individuals to participate in this strange LITTLE experiment that we call HIVE? Should we roam about slapping the taste out of people's mouths who are trying to perfect their art while attempting to shake some value out of this beast of a machination? Or should we be joining voting trails of places that engage in quality curation?

Remember this, downvotes hurt people's feelings and drive them away from the platform. If they are putting forth an effort, then what your doing to their post is probably wrong. All it does is rain on someone's parade and infinitesimally increase the value of posts that people have taken the time to thoughtfully curate. On the other hand, want to do some good here? Want to not be a shit-heel? Want to get gud at HIVE? Then resist the urge to downvote in favor of distributing more upvotes.

The reward pool will empty itself every day regardless of what you do. And by upvoting more posts that are meritorious in your eyes, in doing that, you are spreading positivity and nurturing the good and valuable content creators that make this place come to life.

In the marketplace of social media right now, we have an advantage, and this is because the market is currently demanding censorship resistance. But you and I am talking to you—Whoever you are, you are not helping us to be that place when you downvote posts because you don't like what was said. It's on a par with YouTube's grimy demonetization scheme. YouTube's grimy demonetization schemes are what will help to make our platform more popular. But if we go around doing the same damn thing that they're doing, then we deserve to fail.

In summary, we are all getting juked by this system as it is, by its design. I've been writing here for five years now. I've spent hours and hours on posts and gotten pennies in return for it. Then one day, just the other day, I hit the jackpot and made it to the tippy top of trending. And some fucking prick (@smooth), not to name any names, tells me with his "market signal" that my post is overrewarded. Or that shame on you for being an anti-vaxxer.

No. Fuck you and the horse you rode in on. I don't care how awesome of a coder you are. I mean, kudos to you, good job, and thank you for helping to build this thing. But what do you want it to be? Do you want it to launch, or do you want it to fail to launch? Do you want people to flock here, get good at writing, thrive, and say sweet nothings about us to the world? Or do you want them to get embittered, leave, and tell all of their friends the experiment was a failure? Downvote some of your own god damned posts—you "overrewarded" fuckwit. Or better yet, show us how virtuous you are by sending all of your future rewards to null.

WE, COLLECTIVELY, get to make this thing whatever it will become (or fail to become). But we have to try to foresee what it will be or won't before it does or doesn't. Okay, this turnip is all out of blood for today, but I'll be back tomorrow. Maybe. Big up to tarazkp. Thank you for helping to inspire this post!

P.S. there is no PoB in blindly nulling an account's stake. Nor is there PoB in blindly upvoting, but a large part of this chain is run by curation trails anyhow. There has to be some middle way that doesn't involve randomly shitting on content creators. And please remember, folks, to always be classy and never get sassy! Either that or know your place and shut your face!