RE: All upside: the cost of community benefits
Dear @tarazkp, I have tried to explain the things you outline here both in comments and in a separate post (that might have been too theoretical though). I would like to stress again some particular points you make:
Part of the reason that most people in a real-world community act well is because there are social costs to not acting well, future costs but, that future cost is potentially forever as people can't change bodies.
That is something that is very important to understand for all those caring for this platform. I got in an argument with @smooth and with @valued-customer because I advocated enforcing a "1 person - 1 steemit account" policy precisely in order to internalize the cost of irresponsible, anti-social behaviour.
Con artists however generally move around a lot so they can keep running the same scams without paying the social costs since they are never actually a part of the long-term structure of the community.
There is NO freedom without social responsibility. This is something @valued-customer seemed incapable of comprehending. He could not see that his freedom to say things that in the real world gothim beaten up meant that others were also free to spam or worse, slander, lie and make accusations that they would not need to prove, all under the veil of anonymity
You've put it best when you wrote:
A community is not a place of freedom, it is a place of responsibility and responsibility by definition is a constraint on freedom.
I deeply believe that "the market" does NOT have a solution to this. Costs, payments, to post or to clean, downvoting the con artists and "chbartists" are NO solution.
This is a fundamental position backed by scientific research in sociology that I refer to in "Steemit and the Fractal Society"
The libertarian and anarcho-capitalist atmosphere around here (especially among the orcas and whales) tends to blind some people to that reality.
The solution shall come by exercising the social dimension of the human nature, NOT the economic dimension.
Here is a post I wrote some time ago about this :
https://steemit.com/busy/@sorin.cristescu/sovereign-identity-on-blockchain
Ok so the solution to making Steemit a better place is...?
Strong link between real-life identity and steemit identity.
This way you disincentivize anti-social behaviour. Bad reputation can "spill out" on your real life person and as @tarazkp puts it "you can't change bodies". Hence if you have an ounce of brain you avoid being a d*ck on Steemit
At the same time good behaviour is incentivized, for the same reason: whatever great piece you write here on Steemit people can find it when they Google your name
This is the basis for pro-social behaviour, for community building:
This boils down to a kind of KYC. It doesn't need to be extremely intrusive like for opening a bank account or such, but a little KYC effort could go a long way
Good idea. This would also prevent the following nightmare scenario that's occurred to me: as it stands, it's perfectly possible for some sick pervert to actually take advantage of the fact that they're anonymous and invisible, and sneak some child pornography onto the block-chain.... imagine the fall-out if (when?) that's discovered.
This already happened, it's called Facebook and Google. See recent fiasco for a portion of the downside.
Remember when you could be anonymous on Google, and then Facebook made you use your real name, and then Google quickly followed.
The whole shine to Crypto is that people can be themselves via Anonymity. What you're trying to eliminate, is what makes the internet and crypto special, the ability to actually say what you're thinking, for real, instead of all the PC nice-nice bologna everyone on their Ambiens and Zolofts need to hear to keep thinking they live in LaLa land.
Evil is worst when its hidden. Let it out in the open and it becomes so absurd, it's easily dismissed. The KKK isn't scary, they run around in white sheets like children at Halloween. But what if there was a secret society that met in private, and thought up evil schemes (wait, we have those, they're called TBTF banks!), now THAT would be TRULY scary. But if you swallow a pill and think nice-nice all the time, you basically support those scary secret entities.
But yeah, we agree everyone would seem nicer if their name were attached to everything they did. Be we already have that in the OTHER 99% of life, including the most popular social networks. But if the goal is to just be FB, then sure, make everyone give their name, passport, and a short video proof that says they are who they say they are.
Crypto makes us laugh, as it grows, it loses more and more of the appeal it first had, frequently at the hands of do-gooders.
You are confusing two different things. I'm not trying to eliminate the ability to "say what you are thinking".
If what you are thinking is physically harming someone or prodding others to do so then I would like to avoid you saying it on Steemit.
Whether I'm in favour or against you saying it someplace else is beyond the point.
Saying non-PC things while anonymous is no courage, is cowardice. If you think non-PC things you should take responsibility and consider whether saying them out loud under your own identity is a good thing or not.
If you nevertheless you want to say it anonymously, then steemit is NOT the place to do so because of the fact that, as @dan says in this post "it distributes public money"
Well said. Market 'freedoms' only tend to empower those with cash, while dis-empowering those with none. The problem is that steemit (I think) is run by hard-line capitalists and it empowers capitalists (some of whom call themselves anarchists, I just call them capitalists) and so it's these that have the most visibility.
Bit of a catch 22 situation!
I also agree with the linking of online and offline identities.
I'll give those posts a read, nice comment!
The good thing about this blockchain is that not much prevents someone from implementing "a completely different steemit" on the same blockchain. Call it "steemit social" (as opposed to the current "steemit cash").
It's just that until now, where there has been available capital there has been no willingness to do so. And where willingness, no available capital.
The prosperity of Singapour owes almost everything to one good man, the late Lee Kwan Yew. The Messiah of Singapour. We need such a guy to save Steemit. Shouldn't be that complicated
On that note - I think @steembasic income is a promising initiative. Amongst many others.
I didn't know that about Singapore!
Lots to think about here! Cheers!
I will come back later to this. My daughter just got home :)
People just don't go for it as they think that the anonymity hides them from the authorities which is apparently of utmost importance to some people. I have a feeling that for most, it is because there is a large discrepancy between online persona and the reality. Here, they get to live a fantasy and it seems to bring out the worst desires in many people.
They can do that in other "social" networks and ruin those. I would prefer that Steemit lives up to the vision of a strong community. And as you justly point out, you can't build a community without responsibility, without accepting some limitations to freedom.
This comment is similar to thinking the 2nd Amendment is about preventing break-ins to your house by an armed evil assailant. The 2nd Amendment exists to prevent VERY rare occurrences of dictatorship.
so sure, you can claim that we are all good people and citizens, so why do we need Anonymity? But this ignores the 1% of the time when Anonymity is highly valued, like when the police state emerges. It is in THOSE instances where you wish the citizens had their weapons and their abilities to communicate without being on confiscation lists (gun licenses) and snooped.
American forefathers lived thru such a time, and therefore respected the right to be private.
Innocent until PROVEN guilty, not the other way around.