We're a mirror of the 'real' world here on Hive, with all it's frailties and imperfections. Whilst we extol the potential and existing benefits of this daring social media, we also experience it's shadow side and failings.

One of the complaints I've read recently is about censorship of 'truth' via downvotes and lack of support for alternative views. That sucks. We're a better platform for diversity, and if we value freedom of speech in the real world, we should absolutely value it here.

However, one of the angry criticisms I read was about how Hive is just about 'people sharing trivia about their lives like recipes and kittens and shit' - at the expense of ignoring 'more important truths'. I get the passion. Some things shouldn't be ignored - they should be discussed, highlighted, and promoted via reblogs and upvotes. Politics, war, government agendas - all part of the same elephant, of course. Whether we agree or disagree, we shouldn't be disallowing voices on Hive. Downvotes are for scammers, plagiarists and vote farmers.

But dammit, I'm going to defend my right to writing trivia. It won't be kittens (ew, cats), but it might be mittens - these beautiful post winter surf hand warmers knitted by my best mate.

Because that's human, and important too. How many of us are here because of everyone's 'trivial' lives? People upcycling shirts into trendy jackets in Portugal, making plant pots out of water containers in Indonesia, the daily life of lyme disease sufferer in America, overcoming flood in the Phillipines, a road trip down to Croatia, the darling buds of May in plant pots on windowsills in the UK?

Don't you trivialise how important my lentil soup fast is to me when I'm feeling under the weather, or that I had to cook muffins on my woodburner yesterday morning because the power was out for hours and the man I'm still in love with had brought me coffee in bed and lit the wood burner before he went to work.

It's these little human trivias that are what keep some of us going. There's people like us on this blockchain, just trying to live a good life, and enjoying connecting to others.

I'll defend your right to freedom of speech if you defend mine - it doesn't matter whether it's mittens or Palestine or what you think of needles. If we don't like each other, or what we have to write about, we can scroll on by.

With Love,

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