When kings rule the land and their subjects are busy sucking their teats, both king and subject lose their night vision.
Image Source: Patricia Piccinini's Skywhale hot air balloon [I'll be sending the artist 10% of this post's SBD earnings and also sending her this link]
Let's break this down using this known fact about human nature: attachment based on personal gain has destroyed more kingdoms, corporations, people than we can even count.
How do I know such a thing?
I have experienced this feeling of attachment to money many times in my life, and yes, quite recently. If I experience it, there's a good chance that many others do, too. If not directly, then there are many who wish they could experience this attachment to money. The ones who wish they had it believe in the false idea that having it will solve all their problems. It won't. It will solve a few issues, but not all.
I realize I could lose all my money at any moment. What I cannot afford to lose is my integrity.
Money can be replaced, integrity cannot.
I have lost fortunes and gained them before, so anything is possible. I know how to live as a poor person as I've been doing that for much of the last 10 years. It does not scare me. It would suck, because I'd probably have to work for some assholes again, but other than that, I would still do exactly what I'm doing already: writing, learning, coming up with ideas to benefit people, social media and creating stuff. My time doing it would be greatly diminished. But that is all. I live the same way as I did when I had nothing.
I know that anything is capable of completely imploding at any time.
Steemit is no exception. I believe that it will succeed, because the technology on which it is built is groundbreaking, but the word, 'believe' was used, so I have no factual evidence that it will succeed. The main flaw in its construction and ongoing development, however, lies in the fact that Vulcanesque individuals who represent less than 1% of the population are constructing it and making the decisions without thinking through how the rest of the population will react.
I hope it does succeed, for obvious reasons, as I have invested approximately 864 hours of my life into it. And Steemit has rewarded me handsomely for my time and endeavors. I have every reason to continue supporting it.
But I am not a puppet, nor can I ever be bought off. I will not sacrifice critical thinking skills in exchange for money.
And no, I don't have any other cash cow, other investments or anyone supporting me. I am completely on my own. We are all on our own. It is an illusion you've bought if you believe you are not. The only thing we can know for sure is that things will change.
For the record, I never invested one dollar of my own money into Steemit.
I wasn't a miner, developer or any other crypto insider. But I learned all about Bitcoin when it first came out and shared this knowledge on social media back around 2011. I learned about mining and was fascinated but I never got involved. I also knew about Second Life, and its digital currency and I think I joined Second Life, but never became active. I loved the idea of virtual goods having an actual real monetary value.
I came into Steemit as a user, just like everyone else, with zero Steem Power, zero money, zero friends and zero goals. I have never had a real desire to become a witness or miner (due to the fact that I already spend too much time on the computer and it is a goal of mine to reduce the time I spend on computers, not increase it.) So, ultimately, I still have a user's perspective, not a whale's or early investor's perspective. I am not attached in the same way they are.
Because I am an independent creator who cannot be bought off, I will continue to write in any manner that is honest about the issues I care deeply about.
If the whale teat dries up, then so be it. But I'm not going to censor my mind and I would advise you not to censor yours in favor of whale votes. A mentally censoring environment is detrimental to growth and will suck the oxygen out of an environment faster than you can say "Nama mugi nama go nama tamago."
I'm not going to censor my thoughts and cave into the minute-by-minute trending pages to figure out what the whales are voting for. I've gotten quite a bit of heat with my last post from early investors, whales, etc., and this indicates that their night vision has gone out the window. Critical thinking skills are at an all time low which is never a good thing. But everyone has a right to their opinion, and I am no different.
I would add also that I give absolutely no financial advice whatsoever. I only invest time and energy into projects, not real money.
Other lame news....
It appears that a new flagging ninja group have attached to me after yesterday, and my highly articulate article (that first appeared on the website, Interesting Engineering) has attracted losers flagging my Nikola Tesla content (which is absurd considering the entire article is about the world's most amazing inventor). It's to be expected that people do not use their creative energies in a way that could truly benefit them.
In a nutshell, when we become whale shills, we censor our most creative energies, dilute their strength and churn out mediocre shit that no one wants to read.
I've heard comments recently, "I like your stuff, but 90% of the crap on Steemit is worthless." Some solutions are being implemented but I still would like to 'VOTE LIKE A WHALE" on some occasions. Is it possible to transfer Steem Power to certain authors' posts? What are the reasons we cannot push a button and give the author our SP and have that show up? I am not in favor of burning SBD. I don't like the feeling of doing that because the author is not the recipient of the transaction, the shareholders are. That seems like a misguided attempt to solve the problem. If the author was the recipient, I would feel differently.
I realize that perhaps this stage of Steemit's development is rough, and perhaps it will improve with hard work, but I want to insist that everyone become vigilant in their tendency to write popular fluff in place of posts that they feel passionate about. If we cannot be truly honest when we write our posts, then no one will grow and we'll be left to contend with the shriveled remains of our weak egos as we pack our bags for the next platform. NOT GOOD!