Freedom, Blockchains and Decentralization do not Exempt Us From Human Nature!

I have been a bit "thin" around here, for a few days. LIFE has a way of happening...

This morning, the first thing I read here was @kommienezuspadt's post having a closer look at the new "Voice" platform. Technically speaking, Voice is a Steemlandia competitor, as well as being a project created/inspired by Steem creator Dan Larimer.

We all more or less "missed" the fact that Voice went into public Beta a couple of weeks back, because the event was completely overshadowed by the Tron/Steem "merger."

But I digress... the two word summary of Voice I came away with after reading the post pretty much amounts to "Shit Show."

But WHY? And HOW?

Well, the usual. A small number of people end up controlling the show...

Idealism is a Beautiful Thing!

Don't get me wrong, I love ideals and idealism... and I'm as hopeful of the future as some version of Shangri-La as the next person.

A lot of people in the world hold out hopes for a better and more harmonious future... whatever that may mean to each individual. And I definitely want to be part of that future — actively WORK towards it, even — because the present system governing existence definitely isn't working very well.

Around this "neighborhood" we talk a lot about "freedom" and "liberty" and "decentralization" as potential solutions to our woes. Perhaps there will be a future in which banksters and crony capitalists no longer rule the world; perhaps we'll all be using decentralized currencies of some kind... who knows?

But Then There's... HUMAN NATURE!

The "problem" with most ideologies — no matter how beautiful they may look on paper — is the core assumption that everyone is going to behave in a reasonable and logical fashion.

The assumption is that people will look at the new solution and consider it's overall benefits, not just the personal benefits.

The assumption that human beings — who are ultimately greedy and self-serving — will use the solutions they are offered, rather than exploit them.

In the end, it often boils down to the very simple difference between a focus on merely winning and win-win. Most people don't care about the well-being of anyone aside from themselves... and maybe their immediate friends and family.

Freedom vs. Reprogramming Human Nature

Of course, many proponents of ideologies — even ideologies that treasure "liberty" as a core value — make the point that their concepts have built-in controls to minimize exploitation.

That's nice, but the instant you use the world "control" you've already stepped onto the slippery slope of denying somebody their freedom to do what they want to do.

We see that argument made all the time, here in Steemlandia, where one side argues that downvotes "graying out" their content constitutes censorship while another side argues that nobody's being prevented from being able to post (aka "speak") freely.

Which, then, leads to the next line of thought:

The Right to be HEARD vs. the Right to be LIKED

Trickier, though, is the issue of addressing claims that downvotes constitutes "stealing" someone's rewards. Does it?

Consider two market gardeners who grow veggies. And they are vying for visibility at the local Farmer's Market. One grows beautiful ripe organic apples; the other picks withered shrunken crabapples in some brush thicket.

Certainly, both have the "right" to bring their goods to market, but if the crabapple vendor starts demanding that it's their "right" to have both a Showcase Booth AND be paid the same per-pound weight as the organic grower... we're essentially ignoring reality and approaching a version of — are I say it: "Communism!"

In other words, simply being able to have our say doesn't come with some promise that ANYone will think it's some form of genius. In fact, your voice may unleash a storm of rotten tomatoes.

"Equal" and "Not-Equal" at the Same Time = Chaos

But getting back to the main event here, we tend to end up with the roots of Human Nature ultimately rendering most ideologies — however utopic or beautiful they may be — functionally impossible to implement.

Absolute freedom tends to result in a rather unfortunate form of chaos.

Consider a place like Slab City, California. It's off the grid and totally free... and the result is a colony of drug dealers and addicts, mentally ill people and vagrants living without the benefit of any basic services or even electricity. Nobody in their right mind actually wants that sort of life... but it's the functional manifestation of a pure ideology, when you add in the variable known as "Human Nature."

And so, we end up at having to approach things from a more functional than ideological angle. And that applies whether we're talking about 17 witnesses acting "in the interest of" the rest of the community, or groups of people creating "councils" and "governments" to organize themselves.

Of course, what I offer here is just one person's perception, not necessarily "the truth." Keep that in mind...

Thanks for reading!

Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment-- share your experiences-- be part of the conversation!

(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for this platform.)
Created at 20200227 14:58 PST
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