I am the co-founder of the @asapers initiative and I'm also the co-founder/founder of the "Push People To 500 SP"-initiative. Due to my leading role, (note that I'm not calling myself a leader), I feel obligated to talk about this, even though I'd preferred not to do it.
The recent, and on-going war between @fulltimegeek and @berniesanders is probably the hottest news right now, and literally everyone is asking me questions on Discord about it, so instead of talking with people in private, one after another, I've decided to go public.
I am aware of the possible risk of being flagged and punished for doing this, but hopefully, I won't offend anyone, and that's obviously not my intentions with this. I simply thought that it would be easier for me, and for others, if I shared this with everyone. With that being said, I am not interested in more private discussions about this topic after this.
"Terrible News..."
I usually avoid talking about my rewards, even though I've often been open and public about the support I have and how grateful I am for everything my audience have done for me. I suffer from anxiety and panic attacks, and I've suffered from a depression for several years. Despite all of that, I'm trying to push myself against all odds. I became a full time student in March this year and I can barely live off my student loan. In fact, I work extra on top of that and I still struggle to survive.
I have said this before as well, but the rewards I earn from Steemit makes it easier for me in real life. My earnings helps me to pay some of my bills and I have never taken any of the support I have for granted. Even though I cash out some of my rewards, I do everything I can to grow my account, as I truly believe in Steemit and in cryptocurrency. The best part is, that the support I have makes my attempt successful.
I was lucky enough to serve as an SOG (Steward of Gondor), for 10 weeks in total, and I had great results during this time. @fulltimegeek delegated me 5000 Steem Power at first, and shortly after decided to delegate me an additional 1000 Steem Power. I had 6000 Steem Power more than I'd ever had before, and I did my best with my extra power.
I spread my votes across the entire platform and I was able to upvote 1000 articles per week (I missed out by a few votes during 3 of these weeks if I remember correctly). I spread the wealth, and I was able to support hundreds of authors more than I'd ever been able to do prior to the delegation.
It should come as no surprise that it was @fulltimegeek's generosity, mindset and "pay-it-forward"-attitude that inspired me to do something more for others than I had done previously... And the "foundation" of the @asapers project was brought to life due to the immense effect FTG's SOG-initiative had on me. @fulltimegeek inspired me, and he gave me a tremendous motivation-boost with his Stewards of Gondor, and as I got to serve as an SOG, it obviously inspired me even more.
The SOG-initiative got suspended when FTG decided to bring down the troll. When the Haejin war took place, FTG revoked all out-going delegations, as he needed his Steem Power.
The outcome of the war?
I won't go into any details about that. It's for each individual to decide for themselves. I personally think that it was some sort of "half-success". I think it could've gone better, but I'm glad that someone stood up for what he believed was right, and a "half-success" is much better than a complete failure. I think the outcome would've been different if more people would have teamed up and worked together.
Fast-forward some time and we find the FTG-bot-army.
I was one of the "few selected" who received upvotes from @fulltimegeek in different shapes and forms. And I can't even describe how grateful I am for all that support. As an extra bonus, on top of the army-support, I also received a couple of donations from FTG for my live-streams on DLive.
I still, have never taken any of the support for granted, but damn, I've loved each and every second of it, as it has truly helped me out in real life. The insane icing on the cake, is the 420 Steem transfer FTG did to my account. I didn't ask him for it, and the only thing he said in the memo was:
"You can pay me back when the good times come and the shit storm passes :)"
There is no question were my loyalty lies.
No other Steemian have ever been able to help me as much as @fulltimegeek has done... And don't take this the wrong way, because this is definitely not only because of the money or the rewards. The motivation and the inspiration I've been given by and from him... The encouragement, is what truly is the deciding factor.
That being said...
No matter how grateful I am for everything FTG has done for me, I won't take his side on everything he does. And while I'm being honest, let me tell you that I don't agree with everyone he supports either. I have nothing against any of the people I've seen him reward, but I would rather see a handful of other people being rewarded than some of the people he has been rewarding lately. But, that is based on personal preference, and he does whatever he wants with his stake. As you do whatever you want with yours. I also prefer to see him reward others, no matter who he rewards, than to use his entire stake on himself.
However...
Despite these "complaints" of mine, and despite the fact that I won't pick his side at all times, it doesn't mean that I'm against him, because I'm not.
In fact, I can't see the reason for @berniesanders to trash talk @fulltimegeek the way he does, and I can definitely not see why being a flat earth believer or not would make any difference.
If you believe that the sky is red instead of blue, or that the 9/11 incident were due to Trump, Bush or Mahatma Gandhi doesn't matter either. If you believe in reincarnation or unicorns doesn't matter... You are entitled to your beliefs, and I'd never call you a retard, a twat or a loser for believing in god or not. - But hey, we are all different.
I don't like personal attacks, and I've said it many times before... I don't agree with everything @berniesanders does... But, I do believe that he has good intentions.
The ongoing war is terrible news.
The fact is, that no matter if I like @berniesanders shitposts or not, he rewards his audience. Truth to be told, I would rather see bernie's shitposts on trending than @jerrybanfield or @joeparys for instance, because I know that bernie will reward his audience, which is the opposite of these other users.
I do believe that people like @joeparys is bad for Steemit. He is using Steemit as a personal advertising place for his shitty products. And he rakes in tons of rewards at the same time.
- And that's one example.
I have nothing against him as a person, because I don't know him. But I am disgusted by his behaviour and his approach. Much like I hate to see shitposts being rewarded with hundreds of dollars.
However, it's impossible to deny the facts that @berniesanders rewards his audience... And people comment on his articles, no matter how crap they are, because they know that they have a high chance of earning easy rewards.
- This is the case with all whales.
Whales will always attract most engagement on their posts, because they might reward their audience with something more sustainable than I would for instance.
During This War...
I don't receive any more upvotes from FTG's bot-army which obviously have a negative impact on my overall earnings. I have also seen many Steemians that I like and support getting their pending rewards destroyed. From my understanding, bernie will not reward his audience further on due to this war, so the chances of getting rewarded by him is gone too.
I'm not sure how this will affect @helpie, but bernie has previously upvoted my articles due to @helpie so I guess I'll find out as soon as I publish this article...
Needless to say, I am being affected in a very negative way because of this war... And I'm a simple bystander who haven't picked any side. And I'm not alone.
I have seen so much trash talk so I can't even believe my eyes... I have seen newcomers, red fish, minnows... I have seen established Steemians talking shit.
One of the things I reacted to the most were people talking shit about @fulltimegeek because he is some sort of "superhero" on Steemit. A hero with a cape and all.. Wtf?
What I Want People To Realize...
Seriously, you need to understand one thing before jumping to conclusions. People are in general jealous and most of these comments are based on jealousy and anger.
@fulltimegeek might not be a "superhero", but he sure has done way more for Steemit than most of you. The fact that you've never been rewarded by him doesn't make him a bad person. You might disagree with his approach and who he rewards, that's entirely up to you. But you can't talk shit about someone who've dedicated himself to reward as many people as possible with his stake.
@fulltimegeek is not a hero on Steemit due to his flags and downvotes. FTG is considered to be a hero due to his kindness, his generosity and his genuine way to help people. He cares about others... And due to his stake, he is automatically in a position to do more than most of us.
And while we're at it, even though I like the fact that @berniesanders rewards his audience, I'm still against all of his shitposts. As he rewards his audience, he automatically rewards people who doesn't deserve it too. - I'd much rather see bernie reward quality contributions. Article and comment-wise.
People are looking for a quick way to earn some extra rewards, and that's why posts by bernie or any other whale gets engagement. Like it or not, but that's the truth.
- Give me 500,000 Steem Power and I'll prove it to all of you.
The biggest problem here is not the war between these two users... The biggest problem is the current system and the overall behaviour on Steemit. If that would change, there would be less reasons for these wars...
Like I said in a previous comment:
We want this platform to grow. We want to empower people to make this a better place. You both have a bunch of "fanboys" that would follow you straight through hell... And the only thing these sort of wars will accomplish, is to make an even larger gap between people. Please, continue to build roads and bridges instead of destroying them.
These things forces people to make a decision of who to follow, instead of working together.
And that's how I will end this article.
I have not met any of these people in real life, and I have not informed any of them before I published this. I don't agree with everything they do, but I do believe that both users are doing what they believe is for the best. I will not pick a side in this war, but I will always be loyal and grateful for everything @fulltimegeek has done for me.
Now, I'll go back to being a bystander and wait out the storm.
See I have had the exact same type of encouragement and support from @berniesanders in the past while never getting a FTG vote even once. I do see Bernie is still supporting Helpie and any user Helpie picks up while FTG hand picks who he makes curation off of.
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The support I get from @fulltimgeek means I use pretty much all my steem power to upvote others. You may not get upvotes directly from FTG, but those who he supports and delegates to multiply his support for others.
So my upvotes to you are in effect supported by FTG.
Swings and roundabouts as we say in the UK.
@kabir88
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I understand how it works, I am 100% delegated out myself. If others didn't give back to me I'd be voting at zero. I also don't selfvote BTW either. We can all do as we please with what we get. The key is to have fun and it looks like only a few are having fun these days.
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Hopefully the bull market in the crypto world will return soon and suddenly the whole mood here will change. I imagine most people are holding bags of crypto that are 80% down which makes them want to moan somewhere and steem is the one place where they get some traction when speaking about crypto and steem.
I am on negative 11 reputation and still having lots of fun!!
!popcorn !pancakes (!drama ?)
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The first rule is don’t get caught holding bags! 😜
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All I am saying is, I am hooked on steem! The drama is bad for earnings, but disagreements will hopefully allow some discussions on these important topics.
I hope the storm passes soon and @fulltimegeek and @berniesanders can go back to helping the steem blockchain grow in their own ways.
We don't all need to agree on everything. We don't even need to agree on how to grow the network, as long as our actions have some positive effects.
Clearly the fact that both these steemians have their own group of supporters means they are doing something right. How many other whales or orcas could manage such fanatical support?
One thing that is worth noting is that the reward pool belongs to all of us collectively and you have your say on who gets that via your upvotes and flags. If you want more of a say, get more steem power.
Stay positive, keep building your audience, this is social media after all
Finally !popcorn
@kabir88
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I agree with you and I'd love to see them work together again, just like they did when they fought Haejin. That's was epic!
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Indeed! It's all about finding common ground, there will always be differences, it's what makes us individuals
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“When whales go to war in deep waters, wise guppies stay in the shallow waters.”
……… Sun Tzu (paraphrased)
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Come stand by me Andre !popcorn
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What?! How did you get your hands on that .gif of me? ;)
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I have been flagged a few times in my support of @fulltimegeek and I take it as a right of passage and evidence I am making a tiny impact on this blockchain. He has helped me so much.
I find @berniesanders entertaining as hell and love the punk rock attitude he uses to make his big impact.
It is unfortunate a couple strong folks are taking shots at eachother as they are each strong parts of this place. I just eat popcorn and flags as the entertainment unfolds as I hope the differences get settled to mutual benefit.
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What I've always liked the most with @berniesanders is that he: "says it like it is". I don't agree with everything though, but I still like that with him.
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He’s the real Bernie Sanders... right?!
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I think you should be able to block people who flag you repeatedly as an attack (that’s a real pussy move), but I appreciate that the ability to flag is there for actual spam and stuff.
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Thanks for that, I've been trying to make my mind up about what's going on between the two (and their supporters) as I haven't really been involved with neither bernie nor FTG (though following both).
While it would also be interesting to know (I don't) how it all even started and why they both spend a lot of their time, energy, and financial resources on this war, I think the most important part we have to get used to is:
This will happen again. And again. It's kind of the nature of decentralization, where no person or group of people can censor or rule out such fights. On FB, it's likely one or both (along with some supporters) would've been banned. Not possible on Steem.
In addition, the nature of awarding monetary compensation for activity causes such wars. If the disputes go along self-voting, usage of bots, centralization of the reward pool or similar, the core is always the inequality in distributing money.
That said, I think it's awesomely interesting to see where this all goes. Steem is still pretty new (as is blockchain in general), and our overall experience with it is still limited. Maybe the fact that anybody having an audience will be listened (even though I may not like some of the content), or the fact that you can do something (flagging) about abusers or proponents of dangerous content will eventually give Steem the push towards mass adoption. Until then, I hope that newbies or prospect users aren't confused or discouraged to do their own best by the sharpness of the conversation. We'll see.
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it was a long one but i read it all! honestly for me all this thing is just boring. I have seen all kinds of fight here, this one to tell you the truth was the last i was expecting but still it is boring and i don't see the point.
I won't take sides either cause 1) i don't care 2) literally this war has no direct and i repeat direct impact on me and 3) as i said again what's the point?
The majority of users that are taking sides or write posts for that matter (don't get me wrong i don't mean you) just wanna earn some sympathy and thus upvotes from them. Let them handle it the way they want to!
For me what's important is the final outcome. what would that be and what will it change? especially between these 2..... (that's some food for thought). If those 2 or others like them united to kick of the platform people like joe that you mentioned too would have a great impact in this platform (then they could continue with their own battle)
the only thing i will disagree though and it's based on my life experiences is that you can easily understand what a person someone is just by their beliefs. The beliefs that someone has says a lot about his mindset, about the way you gonna communicate with him, if he is a person that makes his research or he is easily fooled, if there is a point to get into an argument with him etc etc It all comes down though to what interaction level will you have with this person or what you gonna need him/her.
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Fulltimegeek showed a lot of support to my channel as well. I am extremely grateful for all that he did for my channel in the short time I have known him. That being said it's difficult to have personal opinion on someones actions on this platform (regarding EVERYONE). While some profit can seem undeserved it is a free market people will place their votes where they like and that is their right to do so. The only thing we can truly focus on is ourselves and supporting one another and the great content providers we know are out there. Keep spreading the love everyone!
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It sure is. And I'm glad for it, but I'd love to see these two users team up and do great things together instead of fighting each other.
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.
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I say the all the time, but the only thing I don’t like about Steemit is how childish some people get about rewards and/or how other people choose to conduct themselves on Steemit. Money brings out the worst in people.
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I totally agree with you. Money is power and most people can't handle power.
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I have learned a lot from this war that I never knew about steemit. There is an upside to everything. Hopefully thus will blossom some good discussion and be good for the whole ecosystem.
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I hope you're right. I'd definitely want to see them work together instead of against each other.
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This war will end soon. We have seen wars between haejin and berniesanders before. Once this platform had censorship of grumpycat but now everything is normal. War between @fulltimegeek and @berniesanders will end soon because it is easy to fight a battle, but it is very difficult to go on wars for years. After sometimes both parties will be tired and the things will be normal again.
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Did Grumpy leave the platform? The last posts on their timeline are from months ago.
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I think Grumpycat has left Steemit. I checked his accounts months ago. He powered down and possesses no considerable SP now.
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You lost me at 9/11 was an incident...lol.
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Ha! Ditto!
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I should probably have said attacks instead of "incidident"*. I'm not native in English so I blame that. :P
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Steemit flag wars!! It never ends !!
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It's been quiet for awhile if you ask me, but I guess it was about time that something like this happened. I'm just sad to see that the war is between these guys, as I know they could do awesome things if they worked together.
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Being a flat-earther is relevant as it shows the type of person, and mind, we are dealing with. Obviously he is not of a sound mind.
I have no intention of removing my support for @helpie at this time.
In my opinion, it is too difficult to find quality content on this site and I do not have the time to read through junk all day long to find a few posts worth upvoting.
Here is my voting CSI from steemworld for @berniesanders, which my accounts follow so would have similar behavior. ~40% of my VP is used on myself.
Voting CSI 15.7 ( 39.77 % self, 1288 upvotes, 410 accounts, last 7d )
I hope his penis tastes good in your mouth.
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I appreciate the comment bernie. It's nice to have a "normal" conversation about things but I can't really see why you wrote that last sentence... I mean, seriously?
I think I've explained that I don't agree with everything that he does, nor do I agree with everything you do. I also said that I don't pick sides in this war but that I'm grateful for what he has done... But sure, I'll continue to suck his dick, if that's how you see it.
I mean, according to others, he's a superhero with a cool-looking cape... I just hope that he wears it when I suck him dry.
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Let's see if a geek bot will steal your pennies too.
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It seemed appropriate given the post was written because you’re missing out on rewards from him.
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I wouldn't have dared to say any negative things or said any of those "complaints" if that would've been the case actually, but point taken.
Like I said in one of my comments on your blog:
You are definitely not the type of person I'd want to upset, because I know that you have enough power to kill my entire account in a heartbeat. The same goes for FTG. The same goes for literally anyone with more Steem Power than me.
In all honesty, if I would've wanted FTG's attention and to get his support again, I'd never include someone like you in the same article. Especially not when you're at war with him.
Not even I am that stupid.
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Damn, I forgot to leave you some !popcorn.
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I would totally say something stupendously cute on this popcorn thing but since I'm muted (and you won't see it now) I'll just keep it to myself.
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