Fear of missing out.
As I examine my motivations behind joining this community, FOMO is top of the list. I know it’s not sexy, but it is honest. I see it in every green and red decimal rapidly appearing on GDAX’s order history. We are all participating in one of our specie’s oldest instincts; memetic desire.
As social beings, we are hard wired to mimic the desire of others. It is a short cut to evaluating the value of something. Our ancestors didn’t have the luxury to research the walkability rating of a neighborhood before moving somewhere. They relied on the behavior of others. They followed the collective will of their tribe in determining things like what to eat, where to live, and what to avoid.
Fast forward thousands of years and you find a mid-twenty something frantically researching how to deposit Litecoin into a Steemit wallet. You will see him fixed to a screen, watching a line of a graph go up and down while nursing a caffeine addiction. All of these behaviors; driven by the behavior of digital personalities navigating a digital ecosystem. Instead of heeding the wisdom of my tribal leader, I click the subscribe button of a YouTube channel called DataDash. This is our reality. FOMO is what brought me here, but it is not what will keep me.
Everyone who has caught the blockchain bug understands that this technology is disruptive. The question is, how?
Will it create the anarchist’s utopia through decentralization, or will it favor the socialist’s ideal through collective ownership? Or is the answer a combination of the two?
Will corporations and banks like Google, Facebook and JP Morgan try to monopolize the technology to maintain control, or will the momentum of Bitcoin bulldoze these attempts? (I think that the current position of BCC and BCT are good indicators that those attempts will fail)
Will the crypto currency ecosystem create more inequality, or will it reduce it?
I don’t claim to have the answers to these questions, but I hope to use Steemit as a place to learn and discuss these very topics. As we watch this societal shift unfold, I think the mistake would be to take a passive approach. Instead of trying to predict what will happen, I want to work together with you to direct it. I believe that the fundamental function of blockchain technology is to empower local communities. Steemit is the new frontier for that empowerment. Steemit will not try to manipulate your political views. It will not mine you for data. You are not a commodity or good to be traded. You are an owner and fellow leader of a new society.
I’ll be honest. Right now Steemit is like the Wild West. A lot of people have caught wind of a gold rush. Right now it is a race to get upvotes, followers and this shiny new token. But, that is fine. It is understandable. We’ve been conditioned by years of free market capitalism to fight tooth and nail for that rare stone.
But like the frontier, the ones who profited the most were not the ones rushing to the mountains, they were the city planners and business owners.
Instead of following social trends and creating content to gain wealth, generate content that challenges the trends. Create content that contributes to your vision for this community. Challenge people who have a different vision and learn from their perspective. As much as I love cat memes, let’s not make Steemit a garbage bucket of profit driven narcissism.
As we lay the ground work for this new society, my only plea is to not repeat the mistakes of the past. Let’s not create a system that disproportionately distributes wealth by taking advantage of those who are late to the game.
I am many things, but first and foremost, I am an existentialist. I believe in taking ownership of my reality and source of meaning. That is the challenge of my first post. As Steemians, let’s take ownership of what this community is and will be.