RE: The downside to tokens, pirating assets, and greedy nickel and dimers
It makes me sad to read something like this @torico, and yet it also doesn't surprise me. I guess I first shrugged about the true nature of people and opportunities when I first came across (accidentally) Amazon's "Mechanical Turk" many years ago. What was shocking to me wasn't so much that there were "desperate" people willing to do "work" for less than one cent per task they were doing... but the fact that there were thousands of them(!) actively competing for those tasks.
Whereas I love the idea of all these new "tribes" and tokens, I've also come to realize that the only reason I'm going to be part of any of them is because the tribe/token and the people behind them sincerely represent something I am interested in or value.
I guess it will always be the "dark" side of free markets and capitalism that the only motivating factor is profit and anything else (ethics, doing good, etc.) is simply considered a distraction from the profit motive.
=^..^=
I question whether humans in a "free market" need to be that way tho. when i was growing up, I was instilled with values, and learned that even tho we live in a capitalist society, the profit factor should never come before kindness and compassion. Many people today shrug their shoulders and act as if there isn't a choice, because they don't see they are making that choice automatically. They don;t have that same values, or it's been corrupted by a society and government that pits us all against each other in order to obtain the material goals of "the good life". but when is it ever "enough"?
If a homeless guy and I both see a dollar on the ground (hypothetical), will I let the homeless guy have the dollar, because he needs it more? IRL, most likely. Yet you take away the social stigma in a free market. When we put that real life situation in the virtual world, somehow all of the constraints become broken because it's just a game to us. We don't see the people behind the numbers, just "how can I win the game?"
I question why we arent instilling values in the marketplace. If, as aggroed keeps telling me, there is a system of abundance here in the blockchain, even with the price of steem dropping daily, why do we still have a scarcity mindset? Why is it ok to be a dickhead when you have a free market in the equation?
If we don't solve this equation correctly, all these notions of tribes and building a better system all become fancy wallpaper on the fact that we are creating the same goddamned ecostructure of cut throat capitalism that we rail against in real life.