PicturedTally sticks were one of the first common means of exchange in Great Britain beginning centuries ago and were the primary means of centralized exchange for surprisingly a long time even by monarch standards. Do yourself a favor and read up on the concept very ingenious for the time and what the people had to work with.
The level of freedom created on here is a relative but important idea to me. Freedom to me is the chance to live with less shackles less limits and less concerns of the "crabs in a bucket" or "peasant culture mindset" taking over among those I am around, at least around for the moment. Worrying about everyone else and not what they truly want and aspire to what they want their purpose of daily endeavors and fruits may become today and in the future further than the attention span of the moment. Since joining Steemit in December of 2017 at that time I went from a place with very little upside on the horizon. I was so lost personally it was not even funny everything I touched blew up in my face. A lot of little personal things and some devastating personal losses losing two people very close that I thought were marvelous ideals for a model splendors I had ever met. Both of them extremely vivacious people, especially the elder for her age being 87, I felt she never hit 65 (just kept being 64, lol). Both of them with faith and hope for the best measured by numbers in the imagination not on a spreadsheet.
But the nice thing that happened in the meantime I was lucky enough one night not being able to sleep and fortunately tuned in my AM radio (yes AM talk radio-I am the oldest 38 year old in America, lol) one night I couldn't sleep and my favorite radio show Coast to Coast AM had a topic that captured my imagination being an absolute glutton for reading and learning all I can in finance/markets/psychology (basically why everyone is wired the way they are and what is important and why). The topic was cryptocurrency, the host was guest host Connie Willis [@bluerocktalk] interviewing Stan Larimer [@stan yep Dan's father] about the nuances of cryptocurrency then getting into steemit, steem, bitshares, you name it anything relevant to those topics even up to today was amazing visit among two friends that 10 million people including myself were eavesdropping in on. Stan's rapport with Connie was amazing, Connie a very solid interviewer and able to probe for information was amazing, having come to the world of crypto some months before this interview being knowledgeable but still new she was great for the audience to sit in on.
This interview generated an immediate impulse call to action, I set up an account and was off and running. I am going to say something horribly controversial and I hope it is taken in the right context. The "comment specialist" that has had without question for me is simple. If Time Magazine can name their Humankind Person of the Year "The Personal Computer," then I will also follow this cop out. I will name the voting bots my most influential.
Why? First reason I began to see success in the growth in numbers early on when I started and found ways to be economical with vote buying. For those that remember December and January was hard to not find a place where vote buying wasn't a slam dunk windfall profit venture every time. People were not using some of them because they did not get all of their sbds back when the post paid out. It was that ridiculous. Then the hoards of people joined and the bots eventually were overwhelmed and here we are today, 25,000 people wanting to ride the carnival ride each day. The numbers just don't work and thankfully SteemMonsters has taken from that unsustainable burden magnificently. So the growth witnessed early on clinched my staying active on here since I started along with the amazing community that you can develop if you are lucky enough to find the right people to surround yourself with. In all candor I think the bot voting and witnessing the possibility of growth clinched an already high likelihood of working among the group of people that keep me coming back daily.
Those people I would like to mention have all had a degree of contribution through countless talks as well as a few very seemingly non-eventful visits that have all contributed immensely in my continuing to be here, through trying to be like them in their strongest areas each individual carries with them daily whether they recognize it or not. I will try to tag as many as I can think of to get into this contest but I don't like doing this because I do a crap job of building a watch list because I don't look at my feed months at a time and have visited with so many awesome people on here it's impossible to track them all.
Another crypto effect is peace of mind in knowing that the world is not nearly as finite as it is made seem daily by those that make money on freaking people out over mass mediums. I will let you guess those media I would be referring in passing. I also am astonished by what the level of will of the people cryptocurrency and Steemit's role in lending a voice to the crypto culture has made evident. It was nice to see so many thousands of people talk about daily a lot of things that I agree with in so many ways across the planet. This platform is the first thing that has pulled me from reading and listening to audio books, soaking in as much information over the last few years and it was a very healthy thing to move on from that. Forrest Gump was even smart enough to stop running eventually so it was good I at least slowed that pathological non-stopped pursuit of know why about anything that made people famous and relatively anonymous do things that boggle my mind from the spectrum of my perceived blinding positivity to the lowest depths despicable evils of mankind's ugliest events and people that made them happen. How different ways can you listen all sides discuss their theories on current economic systems that are flawed greatly and that the duly elected officials (& countless non-elected) people are all discussing principles I agree with but remedies I don't necessarily agree with at times because the will of the people has become derilicted so clearly it's nothing painful to the intellectually honest in my humble opinion?
Massive appeal to cryptocurrency is an option to trade where value is not squandered in your opinion but swapped among those that may have a closer unified view or daily interaction with you and your common interests and/or hopes to become reality. Also outside of the flawed current monetary systems policy, a banking system that was designed when heretics (in the eyes of the official church at the place and time) could be put death in an iron maiden I think there are some definite upside alternatives that crypto brings to the table. On a trip to England in the 1760's Benjamin Franklin was asked "Why are the colonists becoming so wealthy?" To paraphrase his answer he mentioned that they are able to print their own money, have their own exchanges, their basis of wealth is not beholden to anyone. Very soon after the Bank of England is chartered (thrust upon as) the exchange of all colonial goods were forced to have a stamp marking taxes paid on the goods making them legitimate in the eyes of the (ruling class) king and noble subjects applicable. Then the "Intolerable Acts" followed, shots are fired and the Declaration of Independence as colonies of the British Crown is passed. An empire withers from within and one is built over the following generations. That is the upside of what crypto can do, a peaceful will of the people being a medium of exchange so that wills of the exchanging parties have theirs met freely with transparency and simplicity.
I would like the following people to take a shot in this contest/drawing, consider entering your stories would all be great to share with everyone that is involved with the contest in this subject matter: @aiyumi @gracefavour @davemccoy @royaleagle @doomsdaychasis @profanereviews @terminallyill @gjones15 @beeyou @lynncoyle1 @charisma777 @simplymike @sames @cicbar @amariespeaks @andhovesyan @bluerocktalk @coolguy123 @cryptonewslife @khusairi @loudetteiam @magicalmoonlight @seanlloyd @shaungerow @clearbluecrypto