Hi,
I'd like to introduce myself, my name is Joe Claxton and I've just joined steemit. I've been employed in all areas of programming, testing and analysis for nearly three decades and am transitioning to a second career in Cyber Diplomacy. I've been investigating tools and techniques now for nearly eighteen months and the last four months every spare moment around block chain technology.
I created Weblomat Ltd in June 2015 to investigate Cyber Diplomacy. I'm so glad I did or I wouldn't have come across Ethereum, Bits share, BitNation and a whole host of other folks beavering away at all manner of projects creating a new frontier. Last November I came across Ether Camp by accident and jumped in with both feet with no more than a desire to learn by doing and now I'm really hooked (many thanks to Roman for keeping me sane, busy as he is).
There's so much wrong with conventional international politics and diplomacy and the technology used to support it. In the old model a group of hoary experts and financial muscle would gather in say, Davos, or Geneva or wherever, and c(r)ook up a formula to keep the international affairs scene on the road. 'We the people' would be duly informed, patronized (the news appropriately dumbed down for us), and taxed to the hilt just to maintain the status quo. If we had no money they'd take it from our bank accounts and pensions anyway and turn off social welfare 'because we can't afford it'. In short, they decided what their priorities were and we were told in no short order, what was going to happen and to 'put up and shut up'. Unbelievably, we're now we're back to dictators and political strong men (and media moguls) calling the shots around the globe and that's such a bad way to do business let alone empower people and manage the environment. What a relief then, to discover communities of people working on things a diverse as cryptocurrencies, voting systems, identity management, trust-less banking and so on. Not asking anyone's permission, just getting on with it!
Personally, and I won't pretend its easy, I'm doing as much as I can to unlearn pretty much all I needed to know in order to survive the last half of the twentieth century. The more I succeed in letting go of now, the more I can embrace twenty-first century technologies capable of kick starting a much better world than the one we currently have. mmm - That's enough about what I think. What's more important is what the community thinks.
Cheers :-)