I am Scott, Block chain wannabe expert, Co-founder of TypingAgent.comand owner of SJK Enterprise, an Enterprise level application development company, We program in Yii. I am also an entrepreneur, traveler, bitcoin miner and seeker of new internet technologies.
When ever I am explaining to someone about Steemit there is a natural confusion about how Steemit actually works and what is the power (magic) behind it.
When I open my eyes I can see the future.
The easier way to understand how Steemit works is to open you eyes and ears to what nature is already telling us.
On the new Radio Lab Podcast “From Tree to Shinning Tree". This is a must listen to pod cast, and please support Radio Lab. This is what got me listening to Pod cast years ago before anyone even knew what they were, and it was my gateway drug to learning so much.
credit
The hosts of Radiolab, Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich.
From Tree to Shining Tree Pod Cast. (Listen Now)
Now through this radio lab pod cast it explains the eco system of forest and how trees are actually connected to a secret community that communicates and collaborates beneath the ground, scientist are just beginning to under stand how it all connects.
Hear Jad Abumrad say “F&ck off" at minute 24:54 when they explain how salmon are found in trees... I wonder if NPR edited the radio version.
Here are the bullet points of what is happening in the forest as explained by Suzanne Simard the one that has discovered and experimented to prove how the forest actually works. ( Can we get the commuity to invite her to Steemit?)
Science is so cool… I wish I was smarter...
Listen to her Ted Talk to truly understand the parellels between the forest and Steemit.
Fungi will get established in the ground by wrapping themselves around the roots of the trees. This provides micro nutrients that the tree root system can not get themselves.
Hmm. Sounds like mining steem to me...
The large established trees will help support and supply nutrition to the saplings around them. Even if the tree is a different species.
Sounds like the Whales and Dolphins of Steemit.
From Susans Ted Talk she explains it very well
"I have to tell you, before me, scientists had thought that this belowground mutualistic symbiosis called a mycorrhizawas involved. Mycorrhiza literally means "fungus root." You see their reproductive organs when you walk through the forest. They're the mushrooms. The mushrooms, though, are just the tip of the iceberg,because coming out of those stems are fungal threads that form a mycelium, and that mycelium infects and colonizes the roots of all the trees and plants. And where the fungal cells interact with the root cells, there's a trade of carbon for nutrients, and that fungus gets those nutrients by growing through the soiland coating every soil particle. The web is so dense that there can be hundreds of kilometers of mycelium under a single footstep. And not only that, that mycelium connects different individuals in the forest, individuals not only of the same species but between species, like birch and fir, and it works kind of like the Internet."
In the pod cast they say:
"Trees will give between 20 - 80% of their sugar to support the fungus through their root system."
Sounds like curation votes to me.
"Trees use the fungi like a bank where they can store their sugar, and draw on it later if they need it. "
Sounds like SteemPower
"They can warn other trees that they are getting attacked as a early warning system. Then they can start producing chemicals that make them taste bad."
Ever gotten Flagged? This is a early warning system of Steemit to keep the bad posts out.
"When a tree is aged or dying they will give their nutrition to the trees around them for the greater good of the forest and the survival of the whole eco system. This is an intelligent communication between the plants."
Not sure that Whales will die off but Powering down may be the sign that we look for to follow the leaders.
Look at the similarities between forest visualizations and Steemit. If you map it out it is like a large network of nodes sending signals to each other like the forest is a organism themselves.
I can see the parallel between the eco system of Steemit and that of the forest floor.
[Forest credit] (
Steemit image credit & post: Also a great read
thanks @coinfund for the explanation and visualization of Steemit.
Susan explains how the Mother trees work. This is how Steemit and nature are similar.
“The biggest, darkest nodes are the busiest nodes. We call those hub trees, or more fondly, mother trees,because it turns out that those hub trees nurture their young, the ones growing in the understory. And if you can see those yellow dots, those are the young seedlings that have established within the network of the old mother trees. In a single forest, a mother tree can be connected to hundreds of other trees. And using our isotope tracers, we have found that mother trees will send their excess carbon through the mycorrhizal network to the understory seedlings, and we've associated this with increased seedling survival by four times."
Here is how the Mother trees understand the nature of the network.
"Now, we know we all favor our own children, and I wondered, could Douglas fir recognize its own kin, like mama grizzly and her cub? So we set about an experiment, and we grew mother trees with kin and stranger's seedlings. And it turns out they do recognize their kin. Mother trees colonize their kin with bigger mycorrhizal networks. They send them more carbon below ground. They even reduce their own root competition to make elbow room for their kids. When mother trees are injured or dying, they also send messages of wisdom on to the next generation of seedlings. "
This is similar to Whales grooming the dolphins and dolphins having their swarms of minnows that they protect and groom to become the next generation of bigger fish.
"Through back and forth conversations, they increase the resilience of the whole community. It probably reminds you of our own social communities, and our families, well, at least some families."
Stems community is the one that is a functional family in nature.
"So let's come back to the initial point. Forests aren't simply collections of trees, they're complex systems with hubs and networks that overlap and connect trees and allow them to communicate, and they provide avenues for feedbacks and adaptation, and this makes the forest resilient. That's because there are many hub trees and many overlapping networks."
This is why Steemit is thriving when only just starting and why it will be the game changer for the next generation of the internet. ( My opinion and what I am telling everyone that I know.)
"But they're also vulnerable, vulnerable not only to natural disturbances like bark beetles that preferentially attack big old trees but high-grade logging and clear-cut logging. You see, you can take out one or two hub trees, but there comes a tipping point,because hub trees are not unlike rivets in an airplane. You can take out one or two and the plane still flies,but you take out one too many, or maybe that one holding on the wings, and the whole system collapses.
This is where the white paper helps to explain the natural ability of Steemit to slow down and have time to correct any of these abnormalities
This point seems to be the biggest point of confusion for most people.
Read the following sections of the white paper after listening to the above Ted Talk and pod casts and you will now see these sections differently:
- Steem Dollars (SMD)
- Mitigating Timing Attacks
- Minimizing Abuse of Conversations
- Liquidity
The Abstract from the very first page of the white paper:
"Steem is a blockchain database that supports community building and social interaction with cryptocurrency rewards. Steem combines concepts from social media with lessons learned from building cryptocurrencies and their communities. An important key to inspiring participation in any community, currency or free market economy is a fair accounting system that consistently reflects each person's contribution. Steem is the first cryptocurrency that attempts to accurately and transparently reward an unbounded number of individuals who make subjective contributions to its community."
There are 4 steps that Susan gives us that are the exact things that the Steemit will use to thrive as a social network and the community beyond.
"First, we all need to get out in the forest. We need to reestablish local involvement in our own forests…."
"Second, we need to save our old-growth forests. These are the repositories of genes and mother trees and mycorrhizal networks…."
"Third, when we do cut, we need to save the legacies, the mother trees and networks, and the wood, the genes, so they can pass their wisdom onto the next generation of trees so they can withstand the future stresses coming down the road. We need to be conservationists."
"Fourthly and finally, we need to regenerate our forests with a diversity of species and genotypes and structures by planting and allowing natural regeneration. We have to give Mother Nature the tools she needs to use her intelligence to self-heal. And we need to remember that forests aren't just a bunch of trees competing with each other, they're super cooperators."
I hope that last statement hits you as hard as it hits me.
When I opened my eyes to the fact that nature uses the Fibonacci Sequence almost everywhere I can also see how the simple rules and social aspect of Steemit will follow the same logic that nature does.
Relating Nature to Steemit
Like a bee colony there is a super organism where each individual bee is working as cell of the body sending food and resources to each other. The forest has a feel and relationship very similar; Steemit has a feel and relationship similar to all aspects of nature.
Are you seeing the parallel connections to how the math, logic and flow of Steemit is connected to a natural flow?
this is from a blog post from Ross Pomeroy that I found interesting when searching more on this subject.
Follow @SteRoPo
I hope Ross will join Steemit.
"But it gets even more spellbinding when you realize there's a mathematical pattern underneath it. Over many divisions, the generations of cells reproduce mathematician Blaise Pascal's legendary triangle, in which the two numbers directly above add up to the one below them.
For most evolved life, efficiency is everything. It is in pursuit of this perfection that some of nature's most astounding patterns have arisen. Ever count the petals of a flower or the spirals of a pine cone? Each will almost always* be a number from the Fibonacci Sequence, in which the previous two numbers add up to the next: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, etc.
The founders and geniuses behind Steemit Ned Scott and Dan Larimer have figured out a way to introduce the pattern and mathematical rules to enable this structure to live breath and thrive as a DAO (distributed autonomous organization).
Because of the Eco-system that is built into Steem it will thrive.
I hope that making some basic comparisons between Steemit and what we see working right all around us, most people can understand in a way to bridge the gap between explaining what Steemit is:
It is a forest where you can be a seed on the floor of the forest today. But with some persistence and determination and a little luck the forest will feed you and you can become the oak tree from the acorn.
The symmetry between the eco-system and the social network helps all users survive and potentially thrive, understanding that on Steemit as in nature that not everyone will be the mother tree but have the knowledge that there is diversity, cooperation and a dance that goes on within the ecosystem of Steemit that makes it work. Through the locic math, science and magic that happens in our Steemit ocean we are able to explain and see for ourselves how this really works.
I hope this helps others open their eyes to the true potential of Steemit.
I am continuing to learn, post, curate and invest in Steem.