This post is my contribution to the "What Does Hive Mean To Me?" initiative by
What is HIVE to me & What do I want to see HIVE evolve into?
Introduction
The first time I heard about Bitcoin in 2012-2013. My friend told me about the game which allows you to earn some money. And I clearly remember that I (as the one who overcome my addiction to computer games in the past) thought that it was a stupid idea, because games mostly help to “kill” your time, and now the addiction should become much stronger. I didn’t realize at that time that Bitcoin could be used in other areas as well.
5-6 years later in summer 2018 I was Googling “translation projects” to find an opportunity to earn some $. That’s how I found out about translation category of Utopian project and Steem/Steemit.
Hive seems like the next step of Steem evolution. And it’s Steem where my journey into crypto world (with its enormous opportunities and investment risks) began.
And I’m thankful to Steem/Hive community for that.
In a nutshell, the answer to the above questions is that HIVE gave me a hope to solve the problems I encountered during my life.
It’s always a good idea to have a plan before doing something.
I’m going to use Maslow's hierarchy of needs in order to structure the content of this post.
(Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. image was taken from Wikipedia. CC BY-SA 4.0. No changes were made)
Note that the order given below doesn’t reflect the importance of each aspect to me.
Basic needs
Physiological needs
In some regions of the world (especially cities) you need $ to get food, clean water and warmth.
As far as I remember, in November, 2018 Steem community managed to win the free listing of Steem on Netcoins. And a lot of users mention that now we will have an opportunity to buy food with Steem.
To be fair, I don’t think that Hive will ever help me to buy a house or pay my dues. However, I believe that even I could make $40-50 per month (if put enough efforts) which would be enough to buy some food and water in my region (currently Ukraine).
Safety needs
Well, there should be some content on Hive which teaches about self-defense, but I guess the safety aspect here is more about the safety of the content and privacy of the authors.
As fa as I understand, that’s exactly some of the advantages Hive has in contrast to centralized social media platforms.
Psychological needs
Belongingness. Social aspect
Hive is not just the code hosted on computers of Witnesses. The code is a “ground“ (or “hive”) which helps “flowers”/”bees” (communities and users) to grow.
Due to some circumstances (for more on this see below), I didn’t have much opportunities for social interaction in the last 5-6 years. Sometimes I felt like Chuck Noland from "Cast Away" movie.
(screenshots were taken form the "Cast Away" movie)
And I admit, it’s social aspect and belongingness what makes us humans.
Revenge to centralized authorities
Keeping anger inside is not a good idea. However, letting creatures to destroy your life may be even worse.
University
I haven’t got my master degree in biology when I could. It’s mostly because of the creatures at the university/hostel with power & mental insanity conditioned by money who decided to break the law and enforce me for ass-kissing which is what I ultimately refused to do. Instead, I have a hope for ass-kicking (metaphorically speaking) of those creatures.
Idiots with power is like monkey with common projectile.
It’s unfortunate to know about corruption happening at some universities and hostels and not being able to do anything about that. I have a hope that one day decentralization will be “injected” into universities (which for me would be the best revenge to centralized authorities to take away their power) and along with other dApps on Hive we will also see dUniversity (a place which allows you to get education and connect with employers in a transparent environment).
In fact, there are already some attempts to implement this idea -> Open Source University.
https://twitter.com/OpenSource_Uni
(screenshots were taken form the "I, Robot" movie)
War
Well, I’ve never thought/expected I can see a war taking place in/near my home town/region with corresponding consequences (no/few jobs, no banking system, but fear, expired docs, health problems, and death).
For those who don’t know what the war is, the best description I’ve seen so far is
(4.12 – 7.13 minutes)
(Zeitgeist: The Movie - by Peter Joseph)
For the uninitiated, in 2014 the people of some regions of Ukraine voted to separate from the rest of Ukraine which basically turned them into sort of Transnistria (Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic).
It’s hard to say what is the reason for all this insanity happening in Ukraine because of a huge amount of mis-information. However, the rumors are that the voting was faked-up (presumably by third parties) to spread discord between 2 nations (Russia and Ukraine) and make money (wars are probably the best ways to make money for the manufacturers of the weapon).
That’s where the blockchain could come into play (which allows to eliminate the need for third parties) by providing transparent environment to ensure the fairness of voting.
As far as I understand, Hive/Steem is considered as a social experiment which can help to see whether or not it’s possible/better for nations to live without centralized authorities.
If the “in vitro” experiment succeeds, then the experience, possibly, could be applied to the real world/”in vivo”. Maybe, it will be possible one day to build upon Hive the system which will allow nations to get rid of centralized authorities.
I hope that Decentralized Organizations would find a way to solve their problems without the wars (possibly, blockchain could even allow to create the world without money (for more on this later in the post)).
Self-fulfillment needs (achieving one’s full potential)
Information
There’re some “pearls” (content and people) on Hive which serve as an excellent educational material.
Sometimes you can find here very useful pieces of information.
For example, for me that piece was the info about the Narrative platform (re-branded as PubNooks now) which I got from one of the posts of 
(never talked to that person but read a lot of his posts).
Linguistic potential
Well, I rarely comment here, but I read a lot (often just to learn something new from native English speakers). Hive is a fantastic resource for language learners (especially for English learners). Linguistic power of Hive is the hidden “gold nugget” which will show its full potential one day.
Venus project (or the world without money/Beyond Politics, Poverty and War)
I’m super happy to see the “The Venus Project” account on Hive
@thevenusproject
The Venus Project is a non-profit organization that presents a new socio-economic model utilizing science and technology toward social betterment to achieve a sustainable civilization of abundance for all, without exception.
source
And my question is
Why not try to combine The Venus Project with the blockchain (why not Hive?), so that people could invest their money (-> non-financial advice <-) to ultimately get rid of the very need for the money.
If there’s automated systems in our city providing everything needed for us in abundance to live (home, food, clean air and water, arable land and access to information etc.) and achieve your full potential, why would we need the money?
No money -> less reasons to kill us
("Paradise or Oblivion" official trailer)
(screenshots were taken from "ZEITGEIST: MOVING FORWARD | OFFICIAL RELEASE | 2011" movie)
By the way, I was surprised to see an ecoVillage project on Steem (and I hope on Hive)
Imagine a world where you were truly secure, relying not on the vulnerable and unethical model of modern capitalism, but instead on the natural intelligence and reliability of the forces of nature. Imagine leaving the city and joining a small community, discarding the whole notion and concept of money as we know it, and instead embracing a new paradigm based on true team playing and synergy.
source (Can a non-technical, non commercial project be supported on Steem? The Steem ecoVillage Community)
seems like a mini-Venus project to me.
Scientific potential
As far as I know, there’re some initiatives on Hive trying to reward some scientific work done by community members (mostly theoretical).
What about practical part of science (funding experiments), GitHub for scientists, Freelancing platform for scientists etc.?
There’re projects like ScientificCoin (crowdfunding platform + freelancing platform for scientists + online university) providing scientists from all over the world an opportunity to get funds for their projects. I’ve tried to share some thoughts on this in my post (Blockchain-Based Scientific Ecosystem (dExperiment is coming). General overview)
Hope we'll see something similar on Hive one day as well.
As for
What do you think about having a large funded DAO for future HIVE development?
Seems like a good idea.
However, to be honest, I feel like I have more questions about this rather than answers.
Will read about it more.
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