I just had an very interesting conversation with my friend @clayboyn regarding wealth distribution. Not only as it pertain to Steem which is of course in the center of many of our conversations, but also in the world in general. Why even think about this? Well Honestly, this little experiment of ours has taught me a lot more about humanity than I think it was ever intended to do.

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No doubt economics is a complicated subject, and one that does not interest most of the its participants, as illogical as that may sound. But, its very interesting to draw these parallels between the Steem Economy and what we could only consider a this point "traditional" economic systems.

The Rich get Richer

Yes, you've heard it a thousand times before, and I'm not revealing some enlightened truth by repeating the phrase. However, repeating it, reading it, knowing about it, does not respond the reasons as to why this might be the case most of the time. In other words, we know it's happening, we think it's because they are cheating, but the deep dive is something we leave to the experts. Why? Because that's their job, some would say.

Interesting that the conversation gets truncated by our lack of desire to learn more about a complicated subject. Knowledge, mind you, that would allow you to have an upper hand in life. Hence why I think not learning about it makes very little sense.

There is no level playing field

Because we know corruption is present everywhere, there are other elements at play that make this be a reality. Power of will, discipline, preparation, creativity are just but a few things my keyboard and I can agree on at the moment, but the list is sure to be much longer.

Dismissing this observable fact with a simple - "Its because they cheat" - Also implies a moral higher ground (one eyebrow raises) and concepts of ethics that are hard to agree on, specially when one tries to make assertions in terms of absolutes. But, what we might fail to see, is that corruption is present at the core of humanity and it happens at all levels, almost with no exception, being the small corruptors the ones we safely ignore, specially if we are referring to ourselves.

Yes, I've just insulted you, but don't worry, I've insulted myself as well. We all have a tolerance for corruption to the point that we don't even see it at all. It's as if we are not equipped to hold up that mirror due to our logical constructs design in its justification.

This sounds like I'm making an excuse for bad players, but that's not really my goal. I'm simply trying to say, that if we could get away with cheating a parking meter, we will, but our little corrupt act of financial gain is justified, by the size of our wallets, and convenient defiance of authority at that particular time.

This is exactly the reason why it seems to be so confusing to so many of us. Because things get conflated, morality gets conflated with success rates, as much as failure gets conflated with the lack of ethics. In both scenarios causation does not imply correlation. But, these are thoughts almost always left inside the briefcases.

Mindset & Sacrifice

Is probably where the game is won. And I say probably, because I've not won it yet, and as a distant observer I'm trying to distinguish the colors on the walls. It was not that long ago that I had a great conversation with an investor of godzilla like proportions and with complete sincerity, he looked at me and said - "Poverty is a consequence of a mind, not purely circumstantial, but the lie is convenient".

Attempt to dissect some of that, and please do all the in between the lines reading that you must, because I've done this myself quite a bit too. His honesty, while brutal and discomforting is actually quite welcomed by the likes of me. I appreciate being told ugly truths, because I've been striving to live a little more grounded as I've gotten older.

The conversation did not end there of course, and hours later, a quick summary of a life was downloaded into my memories. The one constant in this whole journey is sacrifice, the idea of not seeking immediate gratification and keeping your eyes on the possibilities that long term thinking can bring to your life.

In other words, discarding the "successful" people who inherited their wealth. Those who are self made, had to face many winters before they saw the first glimpse of summer. The recurring theme sacrifice.

The Steem ecosystem

Seems to emulate these human truths. And if the world emulate is not the correct one to be using, the similarities are undeniable to anyone who transacts in honesty. Here we are participating of a system, of a whole economic system with the unique opportunity to rewrite the book, and we've chosen to copy/paste most of it.

I dont like, it is a bit frustrating for me to see. Our inability to see the long term possibilities rob us of the future that would more than likely come. How can I make such assertions? Well, because we the predictable humans are just that, predictable. And we apparently have not learnt, at least as a collective, the important lessons life has been trying to teach us.

Are you a 1% -er?

The answer to that question might be a punch in the gut, so I would recommend those who are easily offended to abandone ship at this moment. A little over a month ago one of my favorite authors @tarazkp shared this post on his blog. That day, that particular day, I felt the punch myself.

I would recommend you give it a good read, but if you rather know specifically what I'm talking about, or at least the TLDR version is this: If you have more than 500 SP on your wallet, you are the 1%

Now, if that doesn't feel like the ice bucket challenge is still going, then I don't know what will. To me, that little fact is scary ugly, and the word ugly does not cut the cheese, but I'm a slave to my inability to use another. I have to ask, because I simply have to. Does this make sense? Are we really two years into this? Why are so many people powering down? Where is the middle class?

The warty ugly truth is that we almost don't have one. We don't have a healthy middle class on Steem. Of course we could blame the whales, we could tell them that it's all their fault, and all the yelling and screaming, all the RAGE QUIT postings would fly beautifly into the abyss of "the ignored".

The cognitive consistency is just not there, not yet. Here we are blaming the distribution system, that grant you requires work, possibly a code change, while we powerdown everything we've ever made on here. As a matter of fact, just today I found 5 accounts in the mid 60's on reputation that had made dolphin size stakes, all of them turned to dust, inactive.

So what's more likely

That we've designed a flawed system or that we the participants are flawed? - I'm seriously asking that question to you, but not because you have to answer me, answering to me in a sense makes no difference, none whatsoever. This is a question for yourself, the one that should embrace you along with your favorite blanket.

If we have a Steemian population that does not feel confident in powering up, in using the platform as intended, but is just honed in on the myopic short term thinking: We will never have a healthy middle class - And we know how that turns out. We've seen it, we live it, we criticize it, it angers us... Gosh, that's why I'm here!

I think its time to look inward, to ask ourselves if we are willing to be part of that change, or we just want to perpetuate the cycle. Because, perpetuating it requires no effort, so if that's the goal, then we are doing a damn good job.

Overthinking wealth Distribution - A practical guide to a quick headache