@fulltimegeek shared a post on his blog regarding a conflict between two groups of people on steemit. You are welcome to go visit his wall to read the article if you are not familiar with what is going on. I cannot remain silent on it as the violence continues to escalate and being an advocate for peace, it is my duty to confront those who engage in violence and point out ways that we can remedy these types of situations.
I'm not going to name people as this is not an isolated incident as I've seen this behaviour more than once in my short 2 1/2 months on this platform. So let me explain the situation using alias instead so that we can all see what is going on in all these different scenarios. PosterA writes a lot of posts and is upvoted by a lot of people, but specifically is really liked by a whale WhaleB, whose vote is worth hundreds of dollars. As a result, PosterA dominates the hot and trending lists and is even collecting a significant slice of the rewards pool each day. He is getting rich as a result and people accuse him of greed, spam and threatening the continuity of the steem community. Users C & D are upset, so they decided to martyr themselves by attacking PosterA in an effort to shut him down, who in turn has reciprocated the attacks, along with followers from both sides. The battle is spreading and the method of attack is the flag button, which results in the loss of rewards from posts and an attempt to decrease each individuals reputation at the same time.
Steemit is a platform that functions on the principle of anarchy. That means we are all learning how to govern ourselves and be peaceful within a community with no centralized authority. To impose our moral and ethical standards on others through force, violence or coercion violates the tenants of self-governance and the principles of anarchy.
I want to start with WhaleB, the whale who's vote is worth hundreds of dollars. His vote is his to do with as he pleases. It is his steem power that he is exercising and as such, he found a user who posts content that he likes and he is encouraging the user to keep up the work. The story about the land owner who goes to town to find laborers to work his fields comes to mind. He found some in the morning and offered them a penny for the day. He then went out at noon and three to find more. Then towards evening he found more and offered them a penny. When it came to payment, the workers who were hired first found it unfair. His response:
Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ - Matthew 20:15
WhaleB is being very generous and PosterA is being attacked for that generosity. In a system of anarchy, we must avoid imposing our moral and ethical standards on other people, which is a statist methodology and way of thinking. If you want a system of imposed governance, I recommend people return to Facebook. It has a centralized authority that has taken up the duty to censor and impose community standards on the users. If people violate those standards then they are punished. This is a centralized form of governance and it is already established. That way if somebody misbehaves you can report them to the authority and get vengeance.
To attack PosterA because of the generosity of WhaleB violates the principle of self-governance and anarchy. Anarchy is not violence and chaos, it is a form of self-governance and to not recognize that reflects whether people have established their own law form upon which they will govern themselves, especially when participating in this form of experiment. Anarchy can only work if people choose to govern themselves based on a law form that advocates peace and freedom.
I will also suggest that PosterA reciprocating the attack only escalated the war and fed the cycle which starts to feed on itself and it will grow uncontrollably. Having supporters jump in on the war then makes it a world war as this conflict indeed has no boundaries. I am an advocate for peace, so no war is preferable, but I refuse to engage in violence or coercion to make that happen.
Some would suggest that PosterA writes spam and if you feel that way, then mute him. That way his content will no longer show up for you, but is still available for others to follow as they see value in his work. Forgiveness seems to be missing in all of this. Let's face some cold hard truths. We are not all going to agree. But this boils down to freedom and I'll let William Cooper describe to you what it REALLY means as he says it best.
If we all want freedom then we can NEVER silence another individual. If we do, we silence ourselves. If we all want freedom then we must forgive and protect EVERYONE'S right to be free as well, no matter how much we disagree with them. It is critical that we all comprehend what William Cooper is trying to say as it reflect exactly what Christ was saying in his parable regarding the land owner looking for workers.
I stand here in support of PosterA to say and post what ever he wants. I also stand here in support of WhaleB to vote as he pleases, User C&D to say what they want and I rebuke anybody who should engage in violence or coercion to prevent that process from unfolding. Greed may be involved, but we are not justified in shutting down somebody else as a result of it. Rebuke the greed as you have a right to your views, but it is not morally or ethically justified to engage in violence or coercion to shut others down in order to enforce your own sense of justice. That is not freedom. That is no anarchy. That is not self-governance. That is not Christ level consciousness. So what do we do if we feel we have been trespassed against?
Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven. - Matthew 18:21-22
I ask everyone, especially the Stewards of Gondor, to rise above the violence and lead by example by not engaging in a violent affront to freedom and anarchy. I appeal to those directly involved to end the violence now and find within yourself the means to recognize the violence, end it and forgive one another. We all have a right to post what we want. If we don't like what we see, we can mute the user. But the moment we start attacking one another, we have abandoned the concept of freedom, Christ level consciousness and self-governance. If we can end the wars here, it will end the wars in the real world as the macrocosm reflects the microcosm and visa versa.
That will require a great deal of work and it starts with the man in the mirror! I pray that men and women of good conscience stand up for peace and freedom.