I have been thinking again. Mostly about booty to be completely honest, but there was something else a tad more relevant too. Steem witnesses.

It's all rather complicated, and I would not pretend to understand all the ins and outs of what the role of a witness amounts to. Nevertheless, there is enough which is easy to understand about what is expected of a witness on the Steem blockchain, for me to make a rather clear comparison with that which a politician does in the material world.

The first parallel is hard to miss. Both roles are determined through an electoral process. Having more STEEM Power makes your witness vote more powerful, so one could note a further similarity by that wealthy individuals have a higher chance of influencing who will be chosen for a position in the role(s).

If politicians determine legislation through voting or vetoing, it could also be said that Steem witnesses determine blockchain protocol (which amounts to little more than the immutable law of the Steem blockchain) in a similar manner. If a malicious piece of legislation was drawn up which may have negative consequences for the people, it should be the politician's job to veto that bill in order to protect the people. If a hardfork proposal is put forth that threatens to impact the average Steemit user negatively, then it should also be the role of a Steem witness to vote against its implementation, protecting those who voted them into power as a witness.

It should be pretty clear already that if we consider Steemit as a country, and ourselves as citizens of that country, then the blockchain is the law this country is governed by, and the witnesses are our elected representatives.

The Problem

Steemit may still be a baby, but I am sure we all know that it will not remain that way for very long. What happens when this place really blows up and is a household name just like Facebook or YouTube? What happens when Steemit and its potential catches the attention of the biggest fish out there, and they decide that with a few amendments to the rules, this could be the perfect tool to make them more billions? My guess is that those witnesses become a number one target for bribery, much like politicians have in the real world.

I make no accusations here. I do not know the integrity of many witnesses at all, as I ignorantly chose not to investigate for a very long time. However, we cannot pretend it is beyond the realms of what is possible for witnesses to be coerced into enacting changes that stand to benefit one or a few, rather than all Steemit-users.

Perhaps then, we should keep a closer eye on, and do more to ensure that the integrity of our witnesses is secure from potential manipulation, than the eye we didn't keep on our politicians and the laws that were supposed to secure the honest exectution of their roles.

If you don't know who to vote for..

If like me, you don't know everything that being a witness entails, and so this makes it difficult for you to make a choice without doing a lot of research, my advice would be to set a voting-proxy to someone who's vision for Steemit you share in, and that you believe understands what you do not about the intricacies of being a Steem witness.

As an example, I set my proxy as @austbitbank, because I know that they are against censorship and not afraid to post about the more controversial talking matters such as pizzagate. I also know that, as a witness, they know far more about what that means than I do. Now that they have all my votes, I can trust that they are not getting wasted, and I can hope that they are getting used in the exact same way that I would use them if I had the level-of-knowledge necessary to make my own mind up.

I intend to research the matter more in future and then make my own votes at that point, but until then, I see that it is important that my votes are getting used to ensure there are at least some witnesses in power who share in my beliefs about where Steemit should be heading.

Given the amount of SP that some accounts on here have, obviously they are going to have the power to select a fair few of the witnesses. But, for the little SP-holders out there, if you decide not to waste your votes, there is no reason why you cannot have some "politicians" in your country who are fighting for your interests. So, vote for a witness. But vote wisely. And keep a close eye on what is going on or Steemit may turn out exactly how the real world did...

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