Can Blockchain Technologies End Wage-Slavery?
A young lady tries to adjust her mirror in order to apply some make-up. She seems to be headed to a very important meeting. Two cars down, I can make out a middle aged man yelling on his phone. He looks like he is about to have a heart attack. The guy on my right looks like a zombie that popped out fromThe Walking Dead. Most others are zoned into oblivion.
Stuck on traffic lights during rush hour is perhaps the most depressing thing I can endure as a human being. At some point, I can't help myself but start pondering about the lives of those around me. The thought that they are stuck inside these mobile cubicles trying to reach... a stationary one, poisons my existence. And for what? To fulfill mostly someone else's dream?
These fellow human beings will repeat the same ritual over and over again for years to come. Worse of all, they are stuck inside the wage-slavery limbo. The only reason they can continue doing what they are doing is because everyone else is doing it as well. Is this supposed to be our 'liberating upgrade' from slavery?
The idea of the wage is a dreadful one. A human being is getting paid a fixed amount of money a month, despite their variant performance throughout the year. It is as if you pay an arbitrary rent for being alive. You get a basic stipend so you can continue being relevant.
Slaves 300 years ago had food, water and shelter on a daily basis. Their masters catered for them because they were valuable property. They received free medical care and had allowances. Today, wage-slaves can barely pay for food, shelter or medical care. Bosses treat workers much like disposable underwear and at the end of the month still have nothing to show.
The slavery imagery sculpted inside our minds consists of a white man waving a whip on a poor soul. I wonder how future generations will choose to iconize the relationship with our bosses.
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More and more people are in need for psychiatric medication in order to handle this existential delirium. More and more 'disorders' are invented in order for people to willingly shove sedatives down their own throat. Forcing someone to accept soul medication appears violent and twisted. Get everyone to do it and it goes almost unnoticed.
Who wouldn't medicate themselves to sleep? How can one bare such a dreadful existence and still be able to get up from the bed and join this charade? Most create families in hope that this will cure or alleviate the pain. They too soon realize that they only propagate the same fortune to their own children.
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We have the chance to break free from all these. We are now taking the first steps towards the blockchain revolution. Individuals no longer need to sell their soul to an arbitrary master. Decentralized networks empower individuals to form and pursue their own dreams.
Initiatives like Aragon, will allow anyone to create and manage their own companies. Bancor will let you create your own tokens. Bitshares powers a decentralized exchange platform. Steemit brings a revolution to the way social media platforms operate. Every sector is being revolutionized as we speak.
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The Internet some decades ago begun something that seems to have risen from a science fiction book. The entire planet and its people got connected under an invisible network. The mechanics are still unknown to most people but that doesn't stop it from being the most liberating human initiative. Our minds expanded beyond our wildest dreams compared to our ancestors.
Through the internet humans got to learn about who they are and how we all relate. We got to see our masters up and personal — removing the myth from the man. We started questioning and doubting the status-quo. We understood that we are being played but our feet were still bounded by the wage-slave paradigm of the industrial revolution.
Blockchain technologies can bring an end to this. They can offer solutions to political and economic problems that have been tyrannizing humanity for centuries. A decentralized network no longer relies on the tribe but on the individual. No one is more important than another. One can rise as easy as they can fall.
I believe we will all embrace the potential of blockchain technologies and join the wave. People will come to realize that they can choose not to sacrifice 8 hours a day serving someone else — other than themselves. Our early ancestors spend little time on food and shelter and dedicated much of their existence in enjoying life. We have the tool today to reverse engineer our primitive ways and remember once more how to be human.
AI is more likely to end wage slavery than blockchain, but perhaps not in an utopian way.
indeed. it will never be utopia
Blockchain has challenged the stated norms of our financial world already, i am excited to breathe in the era of its happening.
excellent
Qualifications , Self employment , Self improvement , Continuous self development is the answer .
I worked once for a short while never again , you can earn a months wages in a day if you use your innate abilities and humans are filled with ability .
AI and block will improve our lives or at least the ones who know there is no limit to your ability and capability it will rid us of the banks and politicians who feed of us and maybe free us for unlimited success .
we know it's not the perhaps. it's romantic to think anything different! :)
Well, Utopia is not far away , but we have to stay positive :) AI & blockchain is here to stay for sure! :)
Blockchain is the future and it's here already. Many people are just not aware of it yet.
My thought exactly. Most people struggle to realize the potential...
AI will only create useless eaters.............. and if we are not careful that will around 6-7 billion of the worlds population. ......... agenda 21 anyone
If i may intrude, i don't see AI ending wage slavery in the part of the world where i am before Cryptos cos this thing is spreading like wild fire, i saw a seminal somewhere not far from me about blockchain and i am gonna attend it tomorrow.......Blockchain 1: 0 AI
You may always intrude. Good luck!
i couldn't agree more. blockchain's time is now due to the convergence of many global political/economic/tech/weather factors. i'm very hopeful myself that blockchain will indeed liberate us, from debt-slavery and more.
honestly, AI may just have to sit the bench for this play.
"Give me control of a nation's AI and I care not who makes its money." - bigmo
True
Might end wage slavery, but might end up with state slavery or imprisonment. Total control.
So far the level of tax has reached historical highs, and are still climbing. The state are taking more and more % of the peoples wealth production. Even the wealth production is so high that also most people has more wealth.
In Norway, we are now at 21% of the working age population living on government money. If you take out government employees from the equation (they are not producing, or producing very little of real value), we are down to about 15% of the population doing work in the private sector (real wealth generation). And even a part of those are delivering services to the government wich takes of even some more percent.
We are certainly moving in the direction of a state society like North Korea, but with more wealth, higher standard of living and a majority dictatorship instead of a dictator.
As we know, the state is the most ineffective organisation, this will at some point crash like it has done in all other places where the state got to big, like f.eks. Venezuela.
Why does the reply end up all the way down here? This was a reply on eek's "AI is more likely to end wage slavery than blockchain, but perhaps not in an utopian way."
Only people can end wage slavery. The blockchain can be a tool used to speed the solution up though. :)
Excellent post, I think the blockchain has nearly limitless potential in it's application.
Well put!
It does seem that the blockchain is the steam engine of our generation and experiments like Steem hail the advent of a new technological revolution.
If we have learned from history, we know that the steam engine did not free us from labor, though; instead, the workers engaged in the folly of competition with the machine: and they clearly lost the battle.
I would like to share your optimism, but I think we have the holy duty of making sure that the blockchain will not be [ab]used to shackle the next generations in a "cryptotechnocracy" even more thoroughly than the current system could.
Few have the knowledge or time to audit the source code, or even predict the outcome of including this algorithm or adjusting that variable. Let us make sure that not again, the "second class" incites the "third class" to remove the "first class" so that the second class becomes the first and the third remains the third as always – the way Orwell describes in his "book within a book" in "Nineteen Eighty-Four".
I am giving you full upvote because i share the same exact thoughts. The only difference is that humans tend to avoid the dystopian scenarios we are making. We tend to learn from our narratives.
This is actually true. It's a similar concept perceived differently. In the future, people will see the way we work the way we see slaves from a few centuries ago. I also believe that today, we get to experience exciting times, a real change just like our grandparents experienced change when electricity, telephones and cars were introduced. The world will never be the same again.
Indeed. We will live to tell of the transformation.
"I believe we will all embrace the potential of blockchain technologies and join the wave. People will come to realize that they can choose not to sacrifice 8 hours a day serving someone else — other than themselves. "... very well said. I think blockchain will make this possible.
thank you
Hopefully crypt I is going to make a big difference in the known wordl.. I'm waiting for the day it gets mass adopted.. Heard they were rolling out BTC atm's in some countries..
But as to what I see either and BTC are on a journey to the moon..
Have used a btc atm as far back as 2014, was a 'mixed' experience. Not sure how it would work now with the slow transaction speeds!
yeap. heard that too
Considering blockchain enables the free flow of money all over the world, the possibilities are endless.
Complete financial freedom was once a dream, that more often than not, remained unfulfilled. But everything is changing for the better, even the social and economic barriers that tied down women in developing countries are slowly breaking.
I was reading about Women's Annex Foundation (WAF) that works towards the betterment of Afghan women. The foundation teaches young women various skills such as social media engagement, software development and blogging among others.
The best part is - they are paid in bitcoin.
I myself worked at my job for more than 12 hours/day. I was proud of what I was doing and it gave me immense satisfaction that I was showing excellent results. The bosses were happy, the clients were happy and the investors were happy. The only person that was not happy was me. The day I left my job was the day I realized what freedom was. I still struggle and have problems - but I'm my own boss. I'm independent. I no longer spend hours in my car, adjusting my makeup in peak hour traffic, on my way to a meeting that only results in profits for my boss.
We have the tool today to reverse engineer our primitive ways and remember once more how to be human. (loved this)
Steemit..... a decentralized social network that offers hope to INDIVIDUALS. I can see light at the end of the tunnel.
Thoroughly enjoyed reading your post. Thank you! (Upvoted and followed.)
Wow, thank your for the Afghan insight and the thoughtful comment. :)
Thank you for an insightful and interesting post :)
Thanks for sharing! Interesting question! I believe investing is a way of ordinary people breaking away from wage slavery, and as cryptocurrency is a kind of investment, then yes it would help to break the status quo. However, we are slave of money still at the end, we try our best, sacrificing our time with family, our health and so much more for money. Probably its time to rethink if it all is worth it
Not really. Value always exists with or without money. the point is to be in control.
although it is still currency, decentralization is a needed evolution for our species. it is a movement toward a money-less system.
Wasn't familiar with the phrase Blockchain Technologies, so thanks much for that. One of the things Eric Larson and Seth Tobocman illustrate in the graphic novel Understanding the Crash is the parallel development of wage-reduction and debt-availability over the last few decades.
You are welcome. I will check it out. Wasn't aware of the book.
mmmhmm, thats a good an interesting parallel!
thanks, amigo.