Steemit is not Steem: decentralized confusion and messy success

Last May, I wrote a post about changing my post sign-off from [ a Steemit original ] to [ a Steem original ] for what are now pretty obvious reasons. Steemit is not Steem and hasn't been for a very long time as the nature of the decentralized Steem blockchain is to encourage (surprise, surprise), decentralization.

This process of decentralization isn't just limited to the interfaces and applications, it is all parts of the system. The witnesses from all over the place, the communities that fracture and spiral off organically and even the clones that no longer use Steem directly. It is all part of the decentralizing process that encourages freedom, responsibility and accountability.

The problem is that many don't seem to understand the concept at all which is no surprise considering that many people had no interest in freedom, responsibility and accountability, they wanted to earn money. And, like I mentioned in my last article, there are people like Joe Parys who are teaching a Nonsense "Master" class on how to become successful on Steemit.

Master Joe, you seem to have missed the memo. Steemit is not Steem.

However these people are also among the most visible on Steem as they shill their wares on Youtube and the like, and due to most people still signing up to Steem through Steemit, it is only natural that people are going to confuse the two. This is especially true when many of those who are on the platform don't spend much time actually learning about how the platform works, care about the philosophy behind it or understand the process required to make Steem what it could be.

Steem is what you make it

This sounds like some kind of marketing shill but it is not the case, Steem literally is what you, I and all the others on here make of it. It is just a blockchain infrastructure designed to deliver content but it doesn't care at all what that content is. If you want to make a library to preserve Latin texts, go for it. If you want to make a site for cam models to get their kit off for tokens, that is possible too. You could even combine the two of them if naked people reading Latin is what gets you off.

Someone asked in a comment today,
"If this is a place of freedom how come there are more and more rules to live by if you want to belong to the community?"

No, there are no rules to be in the Steem community other than the ones that are dictated by the blockchain. Sure, there are some for various communities and of course, there are consequences to actions but, anyone can post what they want or even create whatever application they want and be almost guaranteed that they are protected by the decentralized nature of the chain. Anyone can build their own community of whatever kind they want. And for the last time, Flags are not censorship. Even if it collapses the content or takes income, it is all still there on the blockchain for anyone to see if they choose and another application's view need not even hide it.

Choice is a big part of Steem and again, it is a growing ecosystem where the choices of views of the blockchain or how one wants to interact, are expanding also. There are more and more developers coding new perspectives and a multitude of new applications on their way. While Steem can interact with and deliver them all, all of them can act independently governed only by the rules of the blockchain and the behaviors of the creators and users upon the application. With SMTs, their freedom to move changes again as they can apply code that isn't available on Steem itself to distribute, encourage or discourage in a near unlimited amount of ways.

Steem Multiverse

Steem could be called the Steem Multiverse as it is possible to have so many highly diversified instances running on the same blockchain simultaneously. The thing that limits it is the imagination we have to develop and act upon it. And from a narrative perspective, the inability or unwillingness for many of the people who come here to do any kind of investigation into just what this place is and where it could go.

This is part of the programmed mind that has been drilled into us to give up our various freedoms to centralized authority and even many of those who claim to understand this, still blame @ned. Ned isn't to blame, he is free to act as he pleases on the blockchain too, even if his actions have much larger ramifications than many other people here, even if what he does upsets you personally. Steem encourages self-governance after all.

Oh, the problem?

When it comes to Steemit not being Steem, the problem is pretty obvious as a lack of knowledge about the way Steem works but what most people assume is that this requires some kind of centralized and formalized education. It doesn't. They will learn. Or not.

Sure, it will take time but like minds and ideals tend to flock together and word of mouth is a much better educator than a list from an authority telling what Steem is. The reason for this is that the list will be narrowly focused on what is and will likely become the habit that marches into the future, but the whole idea is to build organically outward in an increasingly diversified and decentralized manner. This means letting people roam and largely learn for themselves to discover what they might want and how they might go about it.

Some will learn and some won't of course and all of the applications, initiatives and projects will attempt to teach their perspective of Steem which is great ,but at the end of the day, it really is what you, me and we make of it. And, that view is never going to be one and the same reached through consensus and unanimous agreement. It is going to be messy, fractured, conflicted, diversified, suffer large failures, massive wins and everything in between to reach its goal of decentralization.

It is a fucking mess

This is the true power of Steem as it is able to adapt to us, our complex needs and all kinds of our desires, from the mundane to the strangest kink. The wider it spreads, the more decentralized and varied the applications, services and communities on the blockchain get, and the more integrated Steem becomes with our every day lives.

Steem is a system, process and concept where not only our digital needs can be served, we can increasingly tie our interaction to our walking world at emotional, mental, physical, social and of course economical levels. The people who are confusing Steemit with Steem don't just have that problem here, it is because they do not understand the core tenets of decentralization itself.

The decision to learn about it is up to you. Not me. And, no one can learn for you.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ] < Still.