The image is a collage that shows a public domain photo of Bertrand Russell from Wikicommons imposed on an AI enhanced image of the philosopher. The image should be public domain and street legal.
As for the post: I am super stoked. I reached my goal of 10K STEM and want to talk about the token. Unfortunately, the rules for the STEM community frowns on posts about the STEM token.
So, I thought I would try to camouflage a post which is really about the token with the deceptive title "The STEM Paradox." The STEM Paradox is a version of the Russell Paradox. The paradox goes as follows.
There are numerous tokens on #hive-engine. Some of the tokens like #CENT and #POB encourage users to write about the token. Some do not.
Self-referencing tokens are prone to pump-and-dump scams while those that discourage self-reference miss a major promotional opportunity.
The two tokens have different profiles. So, it would be worthwhile to make an index token for both types of coins.
A developer might sort through the HIVE Tokens and make two indexes. The first would list the tokens that encourage self-reference with the name SELFDEX
SELFDEX would be huge as token developers love to pump their coins.
The second, NONSELFDEX, would much smaller. It would include tokens like #STEM which discourage self-reference.
The developer is likely to notice something odd about SELFDEX.
Initially, SELFDEX is a non-self referential token. The moment he writes about SELFDEX in the SELFDEX tribe it becomes self-referential.
The developer then decides to write about the NONSELF token.
He notices that NONSELF is not self-referential. So he starts to write a post about NONSELF in the NONSELF tribe.
He realizes that, the moment he publishes, the nature of the tribe will change and it will be self referential.
This no good. So, he edits the post returning the tribe to its non-self referential state.
Being an honest, the developer can't publish the post.
The developer realizes that he threw himself into an infinite loop. He sits, hovering over his keyboard for the next three years and suffers an intellectual angst the likes few in the world have known.
Finally, after several years of torment, his head explodes.
History of the Liar's Paradox
People have known about self-referential paradoxes since antiquity. The standard form is: "This sentence is false."
Historians of philosophy note that Epimenides of Crete said that "All Cretans are Liars!" circa 600 BC.
But no-one takes Epimenides seriously because he was from Crete and must be a liar.
The Russell Paradox
Since people have known the liar's paradox from antiquity: How did the Russell Paradox become so famous?
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) was a devote follower of Georg Hegel (1770-1831). Hegel, the father of new-think, loved self referential paradoxes. Hegel used the liar's paradox to argue that freedom was slavery and slavery is freedom; So, if you want to seek true freedom you should seek to become a slave!
Russell spent much of his youth contemplating the reflexive paradox.
It just so happens that German Mathematicians including Georg Cantor (1845–1918) and Gottlob Frege (1848 – 1925) were working on projects to reduce mathematics and calculus to pure symbolic logic.
In 1901, Cantor wanted to present his work on Transfinite Theory. Russell received and advanced copy of the work and asked if the set of all sets was self referential or not?
Legend says that Cantor realized that many of the observations in transfinite theory were actually versions of the self-referential paradox. Legends say that Cantor booked himself into a sanatorium as a result.
Russells version of the Liar's Paradox is famous because he destroyed Cantor just as Cantor was preparing to publish his definitive work.
Imagine how great it would be to totally crush a fellow philosopher just as the writer was publishing a definitive work.
This is the stuff that makes academic legends.
So, the liar's paradox catapulted Russell into mathematical stardom.
Russell then went on to co-author the "Principia Mathematica" with Alfred North Whitehead (1861 – 1947).
Although the Princia fails to resolve the paradox.
The Principia is considered important as it positions Hegelian Dialectics at the foundation of mathematics.
Freedom is slavery and slavery is freedom ... you know.
But Lets Talk About the Token
Having just regurgitate some mathematics history I will try to segue myself back to the topic of this post ...
I am stoked today because I just bought boat load of STEM this month and I achieved my life long goal of holding 10K STEM.
You can check My HE Account. It says that I now have over 10K STEM.
Okay, okay, okay.
When I was trying to buy STEM I got really confused.
Trading STEM now involves big numbers.
I was crossing all of my fingers and counting all my toes.
So, while I was trying to buy 10K STEM, I accidentally ended up with 20K STEM. 20 K STEM had a reported value of $25.57 ... not that it is really worth that much.
There is only one order for 300 STEM on the buy line for 0.00400000 HIVE. Despite my huge purchase of STEM today, it looks to me like STEM is poised to drop another 99% of its value. i suspect that at some point it will drop to zero.
The History of my STEM Empire
I started recording a monthly tally of my HE account in August 2021. At that time I acquired 556 STEM which was worth a little over fifty bucks. STEM lost about 99% of its value since the purchase.
The table shows the evolution of my STEM empire. Columns show the date, the coin count, USD amount. The Coin value shows STEM price in pennies. The final column shows the percent drop in the price of the coin.
| Date | Coins | USD Value | Coin Value | Pct Drop |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8/2021 | 566 | $53.51 | 9.45¢ | 0% |
| 9/2021 | 578 | $48.97 | 8.47¢ | 10% |
| 10/2021 | 579 | $28.26 | 4.88¢ | 48% |
| 11/2021 | 617 | $23.21 | 3.76¢ | 60% |
| 12/2021 | 649 | $17.47 | 2.69¢ | 72% |
| 1/2021 | 653 | $10.33 | 1.58¢ | 83% |
| 2/2022 | 658 | $9.34 | 1.42¢ | 85% |
| 3/2022 | 667 | $15.09 | 2.26¢ | 76% |
| 4/2022 | 729 | $12.82 | 1.76¢ | 81% |
| 5/2022 | 752 | $14.98 | 1.99¢ | 79% |
| 6/2022 | 893 | $9.00 | 1.01¢ | 89% |
| 7/2022 | 924 | $5.76 | 0.62¢ | 93% |
| 8/2022 | 1,049 | $7.59 | 0.72¢ | 92% |
| 9/2022 | 3,440 | $21.00 | 0.61¢ | 94% |
| 10/2022 | 3,619 | $19.39 | 0.54¢ | 94% |
| 11/2022 | 4,136 | $6.08 | 0.15¢ | 98% |
| 12/2022 | 4,238 | $11.24 | 0.27¢ | 97% |
| 1/2023 | 5,356 | $7.13 | 0.13¢ | 99% |
| 2/2023 | 6,587 | $19.64 | 0.30¢ | 97% |
| 3/2023 | 6,933 | $25.91 | 0.37¢ | 96% |
| 4/2023 | 7,084 | $32.41 | 0.46¢ | 95% |
| 5/2023 | 7,478 | $14.20 | 0.19¢ | 98% |
| 6/2023 | 20,000 | $25.57 | 0.13¢ | 99% |
The picture shows the drop in the coin's value. If you are wondering what the graph shows. I bought 500 STEM in 8/2021. I let the coin count grow organically for about 16 months.
The price had fallen so far and so fast that I decided to up my coin count to 5K STEM and then to 10K STEM.
This month I bought 13K coins to bring my total to 20,000. It account is worth about half what it was worth when I started.
When i started collecting STEM, I was buying it is bundles of a hundred. Now that the price has collapsed, I am buying it in bundles of a thousand.
Essentially, instead of just looking at the coin count, I consider the USD value.
I have 20K in STEM. I am now in position 25 on the STEM Richlist. That is about as far as I want to go.
My upvote is worth just over 5 STEM.
The current buy price is 0.004 HIVE. So my upvote is worth 0.02 HIVE.
My upvote is worth two HIVE pennies! I can say that I am giving my two cents on each post.
Half of the coins go to the author and half to the curator.
That means that I am currently earning a penny per upvote.
This account does nothing but upvote STEM posts; So, I will make a HIVE dime per day.
A HIVE dime is currently valued at three US pennies!
The point of this post is that, if you want to curate STEM, you need to think in terms of thousands of STEM and not hundreds.
Despite my huge purchase of STEM this morning. There is only one small buy order of 300 STEM on the market. STEM could easily lose another 99% of its value this month.
Of course, there is only a few thousand sell orders. Who knows? The price might be chaotic for a bit ... after all, STEM is subject to the same reflexive paradox as the set of all sets.
Conclusion
This was a post on the history of the Russell Paradox that happened to include my STEM totals.
My excuse for violating the STEM prohibition of talking about STEM was to highlight the self-referential paradox.
Plus I hope to encourage STEM curators to realize that one should be thinking in thousands and not hundreds.