Do you see yourself as a passive Steem user?
It's easy for us to adopt a passive mindset, lowering our levels of responsibility and accountability towards a system. We must resist the temptation to continue with the thought processes our societies have embedded within us:
"Someone else will do it"
"It's not my responsibility"
"As long as I'm getting mine!"
It is easy to think like this, even when considering that by taking ownership and working together the system will exponentially improve as will our stake. Our school systems, workplaces, and scarce-capital-ism teach us to work against each other. It is hard for us to see anything else other than a finite pie which we need to grab a slice for ourselves. Most people cannot imagine that by working together the pie will grow.
It's called synergy:
the interaction of elements that when combined produce a total effect that is greater than the sum of the individual elements, contributions, etc.; synergism.
We must adopt co-owner mindsets and take action. Even if that means just educating ourselves and each other about what is going on in the blockchain. A healthy democracy requires a well-informed electorate, just like healthy consumerism requires a well-informed consumer.
We have great technology, but our thinking behaviour as humans is something we must overcome if we truly want to see it succeed.
The amygdala
When challenged with new concepts or differing world views the amygdala is activated. The amygdala processes fear response to physical danger. This means that people treat facts and information that challenge their beliefs like a knife coming right at them. So they defend themselves and harden their beliefs. This is known as the backfire effect.
People who have conservative beliefs have larger amygdalas. Just like muscles, different parts of the brain grow in size depending on use. A population primed on fear will have larger amygdalas and be more conservative; facts and information will be less likely to change their beliefs despite the body of evidence provided. These people aren't stupid, they just don't understand how their bodies work.
We must overcome our biological and neurological thinking. We must resist fear of change. Blockchain technology is new, as is the ecosystems around it that have appeared. If you believe in the Steem blockchain you must consider evolving the platform. One of the main concerns of blockchains are sustainable economies/ecosystems.
It is easy to say "leave it as it is" because things are working now. But that doesn't mean things won't start to unravel within a year or three.
We need to strengthen our economic systems. This means creating positive feedback systems linked to other blockchain economies. We should focus first on working together with the blockchains within the graphene ecosystem. I made a recent proposal which was an extension of @cryptoctopus's idea of creating a community war chest to fund projects and other things.
My idea was to use a small % of the Steem war chest to buy up Bitshares, for a Bitshares war chest. Although mainly positive feedback, the negative was based around Steem being the best and there no need for us to engage ourselves in such activities.
Even if we imagine that the economics of Steem is perfectly sustainable, this will mean linear growth as opposed to exponential growth from working together. It is the same concept of growing the pie by working together. We need to imagine blockchains as countries, and seek to create trade deals, and positive feedback systems which fuel our economy. We cannot let ourselves be scared of change because we are loyal to the Steem blockchain or believe things are fine the way the are. We must push the envelope!
Are you expecting Steemit Inc to do everything?
This is a passive mindset, to pass on responsibility & accountability to another. We are co-owners together on this blockchain, and we must work together to make it thrive.
Bitshares has a form of governance which is one of its many strengths. I hope to see the Steem blockchain develop a form of governance that surpasses the current bitshares model.
Together we are stronger. Let us unite and adopt co-owner mindsets. This is OUR blockchain, and the future belongs to us.
@RiskDebonair
Adventure Capitalist of the Future