I want my Steemit page to be contentious. I want to ask questions that challenge the beliefs that people hold. Unless I take a specific stance on an issue, I try to keep everything in the air. I don't know what is right or wrong any better than you do, and I'm not here to tell you what is right.
The famous economist Albert Hirschman loved to emphasize in his writing that having one certain way, and being close minded often left out invaluable alternatives; a path might bend, break, or sometimes cease to exist completely. So I take the same stance, I see Steemit as the next step for humanity. We have social media, we have seen the social media experiment, now what? The general population of the United States is very confused, the new administration has discredited many major news outlets (this is up to interpretation), and people are posting memes everyday that further divide us. So where does Steemit fit?
1. Steemit forces credibility on posters. If you citing a source that has a link, someone will flag you. If you are posting something that is obviously biased and one sided, the community is sure to post something on your blog or flag your post at some point in the next infinity.
2. Because of that forced credibility, and the force of the invisible hand that is the Steemit community, Steemit motivates people to communicate more effectively. People aren't going to post fake news, or spam, on Steemit because their account will immediately get hit with flags from the community.
3. In my 3 or 4 short days as a steemian, I have already come up with a couple ideas that the platform could integrate in. And it's noobs like me, and big whales like you guys! that motivate new people to figure out ways that this platform can help us communicate and live our lives better.
In one of my subsequent posts, I want to start a series of questions that start a philosophical basis for the morality of the Steemit community. It could be interesting to try a upvote/comment technique wherein an upvote signifys yes responses to questions, and a comment with an N is a no. That would make it super painless.
This is good. We need more of this...
If you'd like a good read on Hirschman, Malcom Gladwell wrote a review of an autobiography in the New Yorker in 2013, I will link it below.
"The Gift of Doubt" by Malcom Gladwell, June 24, 2013 Issue.
</http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/06/24/the-gift-of-doubt/>
And as always,
Skrt Skrt
Anchorage,AK