Whether you're talking about spoons, knives, fire, chemicals or Steemit Bots -- in and of themselves, tools are neither good nor bad. A tool can be used or abused. You can build a fence with a hammer (use) or commit murder with it (abuse). Often times and especially these days, we see well intended people making a historically classic mistake: they want to make the world "safer" instead of encouraging people to have a greater sense of personal response ability.
Now don't get me wrong, safety is a good thing until or unless it goes over kill. Then it becomes the opposite of what it is intending to do. All totalitarian regimes who have committed horrors beyond measure, have always done so "in the name of safety".
Most people don't know this, but both Germany and Russia used to be "Constitutional Republics" before the increased desire for "safety" went FULL RETARD. Even Hitler started out as a "good guy wanting to make his country safe through fighting evil" until he went full Anikan Skywalker on everyone's ass.
As the old quote goes:
"Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you."
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
Now, I'm not sure what sort of Morskarian Fire Magic is being used by @themarkymark to access the administrative end of Steemit to such a point that it literally edits the way EVERYONE views a person's content (that is really the only part about this which baffles me) -- but I do want to try my best to look at this situation as FAIRLY and OBJECTIVELY as I possibly can.
If Steemit is to truly be the open and flexible API with limitless possibilities that could potentially propel us into the dawn of a completely revolutionary new way for Social Media to be used, then this has to be built upon a platform of FREEDOM and LIBERTY. Otherwise known as "the golden rule".
The Golden Rule has been expressed in many different ways:
Do as thou wilt, as long as thou will does not infringe upon the will of another.
Do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you.
We are all one.
Don't be a flaming douchebag.
Etc.
It is the acknowledgement that things need to co-exist in harmony and that being a cancer upon the Earth only leads to everything humanity does not like.
Individual sovereignty is important.
Collectives are important.
Collectives are made up of individuals.
A collective collapses when individuals are divided.
Unity can not be foisted upon a person by another. It needs to happen through an educated society which understands the equal importance of both respect for the rights of the individual, and respecting the rules of society (whatever those might be).
As long as the rules of society abide by the golden rule, you have a renascence.
If they do not, you have horrifying totalitarian tomfuckery.
Though cultivating a civilization built upon the golden rule might seem "easier said than done" on the physical reality level -- the digital level lends us some advantages that make building this a bit easier.
If the focus becomes the improvement of the API to evolve into greater flexibility so that more powerful front end tools can be created, this then allows (if we so choose) for tools that gives THE INDIVIDUAL the FREEDOM OF CHOICE as to exactly which sort of content he or she does not wish to see or be bothered by.
@themarkymark thinks my content sucks. Guess what? Fair enough! He has every right to think so and every right to not be bothered by its existence. He should be able to make it cease to exist in his personal universe. But only HIS personal universe. He does not have the moral or any other right to make that choice for OTHERS.
I'm not saying this to chastize him, I'm saying this with the hope (albeit probably a naive hope on my part) that he might come to see that instead of creating a blacklist bot that he has unilateral control over that enforces his will on everyone who uses the Steemit.com front end -- why not work towards creating some sort of front end application that allows each user here on Steemit to be able to make those choices for themselves?
Just about every other social media site in existence has some sort of a block or blacklist function that each user can create and maintain themselves. Facebook has one. deviantART has one. Other than this site I'm actually fairly hard pressed to try to think of a site that doesn't have such a function. So why not create one?
If you don't want to see someone's content, don't follow them.
If someone is being a pain in the ass, you should be able to block them.
But for one person to have the power over AN ENTIRE PLATFORM to decide for you exactly what content you can and can't see and how, including but not limited to unnecessary front end disclaimers ... I mean, that is kind of silly.
Another concern I have is that I would hate to see this platform die. Now I know what some of your initial reactions might be. You might think I'm overreacting and its fair enough for that to be your initial reaction. However, if you do some research and check around -- you will find that as far as the Internet as a whole -- Steemit's reputation is starting to DROP because of this sort of bot-based abuse.
At first when people started telling me that they refuse to join Steemit because of "all of the abuse of the system going on" I was confused and I didn't know what they were talking about. After all, they aren't Steemit users and I've been on here since late last year without incident. Everything seemed fine. I just thought people were exaggerating, perhaps out of fear of the new and unknown. Willful ignorance. Hesitance to embrace change. That sort of thing.
I assumed that those who run Steemit would never allow administrative-level abuse of the system, because they had personal stake in the cryptocurrency and wouldn't want to risk scaring people off. When I saw STEEM recognized as being traded on the global market, I was pretty well reassured. Apparently it was I who was suffering from willful ignorance of a reality I didn't want to face.
Steemit has the potential to revolutionize the world. I truly believe that. But if it is not compliant with the before mentioned "golden rule" then it will have all of the past mistakes of history repeated upon itself. IPFS itself is so solid it almost feels like magic to me, but IPFS being so solid does not magically guarantee any particular IPFS-based Platform being designed to take full advantage of the stability.
Yes, because of IPFS (Inter Planetary File System) even if Steemit itself goes extinct, every post made here will be preserved for as long as there is an Internet which exists and human beings to maintain that Internet. However IPFS in and of itself does not create a magic force field assuring the continuity of any platform placed on top of it, cryptocurrency or otherwise.
I will do my best to defend the Steemit platform even if abusive bots downvote me into cryptocurrency paralysis. For me, its not about the money. For me, it is the potential this system has to improve the quality of life for humanity and I'll be fucked if I'm just going to stand by and say nothing and do nothing.
I'm only one person and I know I can't single-handedly protect this platform. No more than TheMarkyMark can or any of the rest of us can. This place is going to live or die by the sword of public sanity or insanity.
As it stands, the abuses are discouraging many people from signing up. Which is unfortunate. I am however hoping that cooler heads can prevail. If not, then que sara sara, whatever will be, will be. I have to at least give it a shot, though.
Maybe I'm naive. Maybe I'm making a futile effort to stop a tsunami by throwing rocks at it. Maybe I'm an idiot. I don't know.
Time will tell.