The role of governmental interference
I am not an anarchist. I am an objectivist. I follow the teachings of Ayn Rand, so to begin this discussion, I will start with two quotes from Mrs. Rand regarding government.
"A government is the means of placing the retaliatory use of physical force under objective control—i.e., under objectively defined laws."
"The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man’s rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence. A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of man’s self-defense, and, as such, may resort to force only against those who start the use of force."
*The Virtue of Selfishness*
“The Nature of Government,”
The Virtue of Selfishness, 107 - 109
I defined government in these terms because I wish to communicate that it's not up to a government enforcer to build communities. It's not up to the powerful to increase the social and economic prosperity of a group of people. This is instead, the position of the individuals themselves. The whales are not responsible for the community, they are members of the community. They should do what's in their self-interest and only what's in their self-interest, as should you.
We are the community
When we talk about steemit, we certainly throw the word community around a lot. Specifically in many of the articles discussing "flag wars" many cite an appeal to the steemit "community." I'm not attempting to insight a witch hunt so I will not name any names, but trust me there are many articles out there.
I happen to agree with these sentiments in the sense that we are a community. I think it's pretty obvious why: we are a group of people ideologically similar, within the same economy, who all speak within the same forum. I think any rational person can agree and see the correlation between steemit's user base and a traditional community.
Community through ideology
Many people Anarchists and Marxists alike, believe that communities can arise from an ideological uprising or enlightenment. The idealistic believe that through a grand education, they can inspire a wonderful society. I may agree with this in theory. In reality, however, we have time and time again disproven this theory.
Marxism
In Communism, we often see those in charge of distribution or decision making succumb to corruption. This can be seen through the government contracting friends, mysterious death of activists or politicians, and salary bonuses to members of the party.
Anarcho Capitalism
In Anarchistic systems, we see the same violations of ideology. Even if a large majority of members are in agreement with the capitalist model, we see violations of basic human rights. We see this in places like Somalia and the middle east. Out of the anarchy evolves government, and often not Ayn Rand style government, but instead an oppressive regime.
Neither of these enlightenment based models for communities has seen success. It's always because people decide to abandon the common ideology and instead enjoy their own immediate self-interest. Their own incentives outway the incentives of the many, and instead of a utopian society, we end up with a seedy and corrupt society in which nobody is achieving their full potential.
Incentives as a means of justice
Instead of focussing on how the ideology of everyone in a society should change and how the community might enjoy a new level of consciousness, the world has shown we should appeal to self-interest of the individual. The current ideology and the selfishness of man is not a problem, not something that needs to change. it's a tool that can and has been utilized for the betterment of a community.
This incentive based model has proven very successful in our modern day society. Capitalism capitalizes on it. The main focus is to gain happiness. In order to do this many citizens focus on obtaining wealth in a capitalist society. Each man is acting in their own interest to improve the lives of themselves and those whom they love, for selfish reasons. As it turns out this promotes win-win situations, a happier society, and a more productive community. Governmental interference is only needed when one's fundamental rights are being violated.
It is because of this incentive-based model that it all works. There is no re-education required because this is an intuitive ideology. One people already understand. When the incentive structure is in place, the community can grow around it. Who provides this incentive structure? Nobody because it's intuitive. The government simply provides the means of objectively enforcing the incentive structure. Allowing for the beauty of the incentives without the atrocities of violence.
Bringing it all together
The flag wars (and further more any future issues) cannot be solved by "reaching a new consciousness" and re-educating the existing citizens of steemit. It can only be solved by coming up with incentive structures and ways of enforcing them. An example of an incentive structure about flags might be
If a flag is rejected by the community, the flagger has potential to lose money.
edit: This sentence above is not one that I support. I was simply giving an example of "incentive structures" as the pertain to steemit and specifically the flag wars. How they could be applied to suite the current situation. The line above does not represent my opinion of a good solution.
You see that this appeals to the intuitive sense of self-preservation in people. I would like to see more solutions in the form of incentive structures. Any other solutions will likely see very little success. Sadly, the members of the community discussing the alleged "flag wars" have rarely suggested actual solutions, and beyond that they solemnly suggest and incentive structure based solution.
I appreciate you taking the time to read my post. I firmly believe that if everybody approaches issues from a similar stance we can brainstorm better ideas that will stand the test of time. Thank you again. Nate.