Howdy Steemit people!
Let me start off by stating how excited I am with this platform and all the other platforms connected to it like DTube. Seriously, I've had my account for a few weeks, this actually being my first post, and I've at least converted ten normies on their way to becoming Steemians up to this point.
After doing a Meetup this past week with @steemitla and meeting lots of cool people like @virtualgrowth, I am certainly way more invested in helping grow the community. The underlying feeling I got was that of using technologies like block-chain to disrupt the current systems we live in by building new one's outside of it for the betterment of human kind. This is the kind of stuff that really gets me going and optimistic about the future.
Now the hard part, writing about myself.
I'm Jonathan, but friends call me Gonzo.
I was born and raised in Hollywood, California with a little time lived in Guadalajara, Mexico. A big part of my personality I take from my father who was a Mexican journalist, activist, and truth seeker, while my artistic and empathetic nature totally comes from my mom and grandmother who pretty much raised me after my father passed away.
I went to film school thinking my journey would be of a great film director (like everybody out here), but took the route of a daring entrepreneur. I've gone from being part of the tech boom/bubble of 1999, to being heavily involved in the L.A. underground street art and lifestyle scene during the early 2000's, to running a live-in mixed martial arts gym for professional fighters not too long ago. Life has definitely been an interesting and fun ride.
The current business projects that I'm working on now take on what and why I like about Steemit, and blockchain in general; I'm all about "bucking the system" and taking on the so called "the establishment" or the "1%". Most of my posts will have this as prevailing theme.
Cannabis/Hemp vs Big Pharma and the Petroleum Industry
I've been involved with cannabis industry for about 20 years, first as a grower, then as a consultant, and now I'm currently have a business that makes clean cannabis extracts like 90% THC distillate, 99% CBD isolate, and Rick Simpson Oil. I figured once we could make clean extracts at 90% plus we would be directly competing with "Big Pharma". I've personally seen the affects on people that use it, from healing skin cancer, to the reduction of pharmaceuticals for ailments that people usually take. I've documented most of these cases and will show in future posts.
Now I love getting high like anybody else that partakes, but I'm really high on hemp and its possibilities to change the world for the better. There was a reason a plant (hemp) that doesn't even get you high was also outlawed by the U.S. and across the world and It wasn't because it might turn people into devil sex fiends. It was because cannabis's big brother hemp could replace petro products like plastic.
I'm excited about the future of the hemp industry as well as the cannabis Industry, I like how now other countries are just saying a big fuck you and diving into getting cannabis and hemp back to where it belongs; to retake its throne as the worlds industrial resource.
The People vs The Big Banks/Wall St./"The Establishment"
Lets get real here; all the problems this planet has been going through, with its perpetual wars, with its corruption within our highest levels of government, from the poisoning of our foods with the constant disregard of this planet and the people on it, all for the sake of "the bottom line". All while its propaganda machine creates wedge issues to distract and divide people from actually coming together and dealing with the big fat greedy elephant in the room, THE BIG BANKS.
Now do I think the people that run these financial institutions are evil? Not necessarily. I think maybe it's an archaic system that because its about its "bottom line", it ends up greatly rewarding greed and tends to leave out compassion. Just because this is the believed system in place, it doesn't mean there isn't a better one outside of it. We have to see it outside the box we're in and put the same belief into it.
Imagine if ad driven Google was a publicly owned bank with each member that joined was given equal shares. What if Google deciding to share it's ad revenue with all of its members and decided to never charge a transaction fee. What if all of these members had a say on what Google should invest in, things like health-care, education, and sustainable living technology/green energy infrastructure? What if this bank decided not to prey on the poor and under-banked, but rather invest into them? What if there was a way to socialize capitalism??
For the past decade I've been working with a very special group of like minded people, visionaries, who are also activists within their communities, on a project we believe can be that new way.
FORUS (Free, Open, Realtime, Ubiquitous and Secure) is a Global Digital Exchange, over a public utility blockchain with an ecosystem solution that provides a single, global, universal and trusted, user authentication platform for both mobile and web based transactions, for the banked and the unbanked.
FORUS was created to enable:
the alleviation of poverty;
the building of a generative economy;
the creation of sustainable return for the investors;
while simultaneously generating sustainable capital returns for the communities using the platform.
Our platforms can be monetized through our integrated AI advertising model which will in turn create access to capital for those previously disadvantaged. Basically we share our ad revenue while eliminating transaction fees so that we could inject about 2 billion under-banked into basically a free and rewarding banking system.
Because of our platform, I will be posting about subjects like worker-owned businesses, social enterprises, how FORUS plans to get rid of student debt , how FORUS can monetize your social media so that platforms like Youtube isn't the only one making money off of your followers. How the combined spending power of just 100 million like minded people from all over the world under one platform can compete against the 1%.
Its all about the power of the transaction and where you decide to put your money. Its time we stop putting our money into corporations that only think about their bottom line.
Thank you for your time, and I look forward to growing with you Steemians on this sexy platform.