I have a confession to make; and with it an apology, I have not been honest and I need to make amends. OK, here goes;
I originally joined Steemit, in the hope of making money!
There that's it; I said it, it's true, when I joined I didn't care about growing a community, I didn't care about being part of a cryptorevolution, I was just looking out for my own selfish needs. I was thinking of my family's financial future, and to hell with community.
Are you sensing a but coming? Some kind of redeeming statement that nullify's or at least quantify's my ghastly confession, a "but", is surely in order here; isn't it?
Sorry, can't seem to find it, nothing's changed, I still want to make money and I still love the stuff. I'm a filthy, money grubbing, capitalist pig...But (yes, here it comes!), I don't believe in the current capitalist paradigm, never have, never will; and therein lies the whole delicious point, I am rather labouring to make.
Help For Profit? You Capitalist Scum!
OK, seeing as I've already climbed into the self-flagellating pit of apology and confession; I will confess yet again, and bare my soul; lest thou shoudst judge me.
Confession No. 2: I once learned of an evil capitalist tactic of giving value for free in order to recieve financial rewards in the future.
Shh, don't tell anyone, it's a secret!
When I ran my video production business, I thought it prudent to buy books, and visit blogs giving business advice. One such blog, advised that it would perhaps be wise to give out as much free value, at any and every opportunity you get, by performing this ancient ritual; the blog said, financial rewards will be yours abound.
Hmm, OK, let's give this a try, I thought, and immediately put the plan into action, I sprayed free advice bullets from my value Uzi; then one day, I came across a posting on a freelance job site I used to find work.
The posting was from a guy who had hooked up with a golf pro, and wanted to film a set of instructional videos. He wanted to make the clips different from the standard golf instructional videos, and so in order to give them something extra, he wanted to film from three different angles, including a slow-mo camera.
The poster was a tennis coach in his own right, and so wanted to film some tennis videos in the same style; both sets of clips would form the first videos in his online coaching academy. So the job was set out pretty clearly, explaining each component of what he wanted to achieve. At the end of the post, he stated that he had no experience in making videos and so was looking to the community for guidance on execution and price.
Naturally, when someone posts a juicy job on a site like that, it attracts dozens of bids in the first ten or so minutes. Anyway, by the time I saw it, it probably had over 50 bids and at least a dozen replies, so I put my dastardly plan into action.
To what must have been the fury of the other freelancers, I basically broke the entire job down for him, I told him that I had looked at the bids he had received and that there were many good ones in there to consider.
I then gave him the whole lowdown, the pitfalls to be aware of when conducting a multi-camera shoot, the hidden expense of editing that type of shoot. The expense of a slow-mo camera, the type of shooting techniques to employ, how many crew, and what cameras to use.
I then gave him a template to use to work out his cash and time budget, with suggested costings for each element, along with more cost effective alternatives, for each element. By the end of it, I had laid out a dummy project, complete with total cost breakdown of every element and stage, along with a time estimation.
In other words an entire two-tiered budget, with contingency and fail safes written in, the kind of thing a halfway descent production company would charge a heavy consultancy fee for.
I gave my knowledge for free, and what I didn't know, I researched, the whole process took me almost an hour...
...guess what?
My evil plan worked, by helping someone without asking for anything in return, obviously struck a chord, because he ignored all of the bids (which by now had reached over 75) and messaged me back and asked; "Would you like to do the job?".
"Yeah, sure, why not?" :-)
That job was worth almost £5000 to me...
...he ended up happy, I ended up with job satisfaction and a fatter bank account.
So now I'm sure you can guess where this one's going; can't you? I have been using the same dastardly tactic on Steemit, and even making alliances with other people who understand the dark arts of giving value for free.
Hmm the plot thickens...
You Say Anarcho-Communist I Say Anarcho-Capitalist - Let's Call The Whole Thing Off!
OK, I'm going to remove my tongue from my cheek for just a moment, and make a serious point; I have seen a growing pseudo-Communist movement on Steemit.com. I have seen suggestions in blog posts, and in comment sections, that all have a similar flavour.
They are along the lines of: "Cap all payments!" "Share the weight of whale votes equally!" "Remove support from Orca writers and spread it equally among minnows!" "Orcas and Whales vote for every comment on your blogs!" "Share all Steempower equally!"
I might have made that last one up...
...but the point is, these comments and posts, and ones like them, are decidedly, well, Communist in nature. And whilst I stated above that I don't believe in the current Capitalist paradigm, I sure is hell don't believe in the outmoded, oppressive, philosophies of Communism.
Whilst Capitalism errs, by placing too high a reward on activities fulled by self interest; the forced socialism of Communism fails by ignoring those activities all together.
In both society value is skewed; in Capitalism, value/reward systems that are meant to benefit society as a whole by rewarding self interest, are in turn, done in by the self interests of the gatekeepers of the very same systems.
Communism on the other hand denegrates self interest via an, evening out value, and declaring the input of every member of society to have equal worth. There can be no self interest if there is no self worth, just as we have seen in many systems, if you give everyone the same result, it hides brilliance and incompetence in one fell swoop.
A Social Capitalism - Doing Socialism Better Than Socialism
Right so I've bashed Capitalism and have sneered at Communism; what's my answer?
Well I guess before Steemit, I best identified with anarcho-capitalism, however of late, identifying myself (and therefore limiting myself) to any kind of ideology has been something I've wanted to get away from. I would still say that I have Anarchist leanings; simply because true Anarchy is not just about flexibility in societal rules. It's about flexibility of thinking, if I feel that I want to add a particular train of thinking to personal ideologies, then anarchy allows me do that.
Therefore since Steemit, I have just been doing what I have been doing, and at the same time observing; as I've said before, by creating Steem Power as a tangible, vested interest; Steemit appears to have addressed the Prisoners' Dilema, and dealt with the potential destructive side of self-interest.
So when I bring my, formerly mentioned, evil plan, of providing value for free where I can on Steemit, I am still behaving in a Capitalistic way; however I am now in an economic system that nutures my self-interest for the good of the crowd. Which as I write these words; makes me realise that's probably a huge reason why I love this platform so much, it simply allows me to help others, while helping myself.
I like that, I like that a lot; and don't get me wrong, I still find immense pleasure in simply helping people, I am not calculating how much each person can be worth to me if I help them. I simply do it; because the point of the evil plan, is that it is hit and miss; you might help 100 people for no reward, so if you're only helping them for reward, you will be left deeply unsatisfied.
I get a buzz out of helping people, I also get a buzz out of making money; why can't I combine the two?
Anarchy and decentralisation, let us set our own rules; your account, is like your house, and in your house you have rules, if I accept them, I am welcome in your home, if I reject them I am not.
So you might want to feature a writer and give 100% of the SBD and Steem Power to that person; I on the other hand may want to feature them and give them nothing.
Before either of us carry out our preferred method of helping, there is no guarantee which one will work better for the writer, but that's not the point, the point is, I have played by my rules, and you have played by yours and in a decentralised system like ours, that's just fine and dandy.
I will not call anyone out personally, however I have had a couple of direct messages on Steemit Chat, and they are what I can only describe as thinly disguised, aggressive demands for me to feature their work. It seems that some Steemians seem to think that just because somebody else is doing something, that others should follow.
I read a post the other day from a Steemian saying that he had been told he was rude, for not voting on every single comment on all of his posts.
Again I thought, if he wants to do that, he can, subsquently if the accuser wants to do that, he can too! That's kinda the point of a free society; bar the basic rules of the game, both spoken and unspoken, we're free to post and curate in any way we see fit.
For the last couple of weeks I have been part of the amazing Curie Project, the brainchild of our very own @donkeypong, I have also been involved in Spotlight for the last few issues, I have also helped a few people with advice, promotion and encouragement in Steemit Chat, and will continue to do so.
I am of the very firm belief that these vehicles will benefit the individuals and the system of which we are a part of. I also believe, that Steemit provides the best way to reward self interest on all sides; and it redresses the imbalance in the value/reward system that is so badly skewed in the 2 paradigms that are presented before us.
However, and this is a big however; I cannot and will not attempt to impose these ideologies in any kind of attempt at an unofficial, system-wide, philosophical implementation.
More to the point, if you disagree with me, and believe you can do it a better way; and you want to go ahead and do that, and write about it to prove it to me; excellent! Go for it, because what we need is diversity and live debate; we are part of an amazing organic system, that is growing and finding its path everyday. Without either of our ideals, it is a poorer place, so let's keep them, together side by side, conflicting, yet coexisting.
DISCLAIMER TIME!!!
I am not personally attacking anyone; if you recognise all or part of one of your statements quoted above, or you feel I may have referenced a comment, or a post you've made; I probably have, but it's in no way a personal attack.
I used your points merely to illustrate my own; if anything I have gathered up in my mind, posts, comments and Steemit chats and have amalgamated them into what I see as the, (or a) current zeitgeist on Steemit.
As always I delight in starting lively, well informed, intelligently discussed, debate; and to that end, I am aware that some of you may read some of my above comments, in particularly about Communism, and feel that I am saying these words with a cruel sneer on my lips, and disdain in my voice.
If you imagine me thusly, please don't, more so, imagine I am delivering the words with a faint smile, a cocked eyebrow and at times with my tongue resting firmly on the inside of my cheek.
So whilst I am saying my gloriously Capitalist attitude, is waaaayyy better than your impoverished Socialist ideals, please accept my views in the spirit they are being offered.
Either that or f**k off and die!
[JOKE! JOKE!]
DISCLAIMER 2
That really was a joke, I was going to take it out, but I didn't, coz I'm silly like that :-D
DISCLAIMER 3
Yeah, yeah I know, but... some new Steemit changes have come out just as I have finished this article; there are many changes, however the ones I am speaking about, revolve specifically around voting, you can read about them here.
These are just the type of cryptocommunist changes that I believe are missing the point; and I believe these changes have been inspired by listening to the wrong voices. Changes such as this, jeopordise cryptocapitalist initiatives such as Project Curie, and ignore the fact that there has been better curation occurring, as a direct result of self interest and groups of self interest.
So that said, the new fork, is the only thing I am directly referencing in this post; hey-ho!
Cryptogee