I had planned to target other issues in Steemit, and was slowly moving ahead to lay the foundations, but then this hypocritical and irrational flagging that targets original quality information like morality and self-knowledge reached a limit for me. So I went after this bullshit first, and knew that going after whales has it cost (bernie took it upon himself to get xeldal to no longer upvote me, and abit removed their witness approval). I knew there would be costs, and there will continue to be costs as I speak up about issues.
It's even more costly when so few actually care to stand for the issue and make noise about it. When it's just one person making noise about an issue, less people take it seriously, and simply brush it off as one person's issue with another person who flagged them. Apparently reading is a problem when you lay out what happened yet people don't want to read what was said...
Thanks to a few posts I am aware of that I have resteemed, at least I know some people are aware of this issue to some degree and are confronting it in their own way. Thank you for speaking up.
I wonder if people understand how change happens in any community...
Do you think it's by saying nothing?
Do you think it's by letting someone take all the hits while you sit back afraid of being a target?
Nothing much will change in that case...
For things to change in a community that has injustice or wrong-doings being done, pressure, interference, tension, fiction and conflict will emerge. Many people fear the negative and getting involved in standing for something that doesn't directly, immediately and personally involve them. It's not their fight, so then don't really care about what is going on. And worse, they don't care to understand, so they just look at it however they want join in the bandwagon of "look at the whining, pathetic asshole losing his cool!"
So if one person stands against something, and no one else in a community does as well... then they stand alone. The issue will be ignored because no one else stand with the lone wolf. They become marginalized. And then when you're essentially fighting against something on your own, while the "community" doesn't wake up and see what's going on... well then that person gets frustrated. Apparently more noise is required. Maybe people will eventually give a shit if the noise is so loud they have no choice but to pay attention.
So whats the solution? To just ignore it all? For someone to not even address the issue to begin with? I guess I should have just ignored the flag and just let this behavior keep going. Just let wrong-doings go unaddressed. That's a REAL solution, right? LOL.
If a community wants to actually create REAL UNITY, they need to unite under truth and morality. That's the only way to true unity. Hiding, being afraid, letting the status quo perpetuate, does not address anything. A community that leaves someone hanging when they fight for whats right, isn't a real community. Few of those actually exist in the real world too, so don't feel too bad about that for Steemit ;) It's a symptom of being conditioned into cowardice and fear of standing for what right. This pervades all of society. I tried to previously teach about this in previous work, the importance to stand for what's right, and the fear of ostracism, standing with others. I understand the psychological factors that have us in fear and cowardly tyo stand and act against things. I really get it. Sometimes people get together to stand together on issues, but as a society we aren't united anywhere. We just go along to get along.
If you don't care about what's going on or to even understand it from the facts presented, then why don't you just ignore the whole thing? I guess its fun to pile on the BS when someone dares to speak up and keeps making noise about an issue.
So don't fight against injustice and wrong-doings, fight against the person calling attention to it! Brilliant! That's how issues are dealt with... Don't understand an issue, don't care about it, and then turn on the guy who is speaking up and standing for what's right, and just marginalize him more until he just gets torn down.
If you want good contributing members of the community to keep getting slapped, over and over, while they can't stop the powerful people in a disunited "community" from slapping them over, and over, and over, then you need to stand with them. Otherwise, if the community does nothing, one person alone can't stop the irrational abusers of power. It takes numbers!
In real life, I could defend myself from a physical attack. But in a virtual "community" like Steemit, I can't do anything myself to create change, that's what a community is supposed to do together, united in what's right on an issue to address and correct wrongdoings. I can only speak up against wrong-doings, and keep speaking. But for the ignorant fools, this is simply "whining", "complaining", "pathetic", etc. I have defended the right for anyone to speak up against issues in the past, commenting on posts that any issue can be brought up, and in voice chat to correct fallacious understanding where people want to dismiss people bringing up issues as simply "whining" or "complaining".
The only option I have is to speak, and keep speaking, and keep making noise... or else... NOTHING! Nothing at all will happen if no one speaks up. I spoke up, and will continue to speak up.
If no one stand with others on issues, you end up with someone who stands alone, marginalized, and they get alienated and outcast -- not because they did something wrong, but because they DARE to speak up against the wrong-doings that the powerful people in a "community" are doing.
Are you afraid of losing autobots upvotes from whales contacting others to remove those upvotes from your posts?
Are you afraid of getting flagged on your posts for talking about this?
Are you afraid of some whales not liking you?
Do you even understand what the issue is?
Ok, let's just let this flagging behavior continue... right? I shouldn't have said a thing to begin with you say... LOL.
Sure, I could have just shut up, let it continue, keep reaping my big rewards, and not give a shit about what's going on as along as I keep reaping the rewards, which I was. Be all fake and pretend everything is just fine and will magically work itself out. What a good dream. That's what I could have kept doing. It would have been easier. No tension, interference, friction, controversy, conflict. All I had to do was keep coasting along and keep my head down doing my own thing, just ignore problems in Steemit. Because THAT is a real, good "community" member, right? Just care about myself alone and my self-interest to keep making rewards, keep my high payouts, and just take the flag once in a while. Sure, that would have been easier. I knew when I started this I would get hit and be affected. But I did it anyways, because I had enough of the bullshit, irrational, hypocritical flagging. I did what I did because this is an issue about the abuse of power and bad behavior on this platform. Everyone who wants to turn this into "KrNel just wanted to keep making big rewards" doesn't understand because they don't want to understand.
I tried with facts, and apparently facts don't matter to many, they just believe what they want, which I already knew from my work on psychology and cognitive biases, as I made a post yesterday on how facts and truth don't matter to many. So I'll keep making noise, keeping the tension and friction on this issue to generate the interference for people to notice something is up and needs to be addressed.