Q micro/macro blog : from Digital Nationalism and Anti-Intellectualism to Leo's microblogging service

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Every single day I come across multiple topics that I like to write a post about for three reasons mainly.

  1. Because I think it is an interesting topic for our HIVE community and adds value in one or the other way;
  2. Because I believe it will invoke interaction and engagement;
  3. Because I like to share my knowledge and (sometimes) also my thoughts and opinions with the side effect that it'll drive engagement.

For reasons I'll explain down the bottom of this post, I bring to your attention a few items I wasn't able to write a classy post about. Five in total, while the sixth is more personal of nature.

Topics in this post

  1. Dan Larimer's book "More Equal Animals" now available for free download.
  2. "Digital nationalism: Understanding the role of digital media in the rise of ‘new’ nationalism", a recently published scientific article.
  3. "Anti-intellectualism has little to do with intelligence", an article published in "Psychology Today" discussing the question "Are American's Just Stupid?"
  4. No Brainer improvements by Governments: Seriously?
  5. Micro Blogging service by our own Leo Finance team.
  6. Why I wasn't able to write 'cool' posts last so many months?


somewhere in my neighbourhood

More Equal Animals

Dan Larimer, the visionaire of the decentralised society and tech guy that launched Bitshares, Steem and EOS, decided to offer his book "More Equal Animals: The Subtle Art of True Democracy" published back in 2019, as a free download. You can find the link in his recent HIVE blog post "More Equal Animals Book Released".

In case you are interested in the blog by Dan around the topic of this book, you can visit it here.

Digital Nationalism

Last week I discovered a great article exploring the level of influence digital media in general, and social media in particular on the renewed rise of nationalism. I immediately wanted to read it, so I skipped lunch, and dropped a not so important meeting with a bunch of colleagues.

Two hours later, I felt much better informed. I also came to the realisation the perceptions we have regarding the influence of digital media and social media, cannot be more than just opinions.

This paper shows clearly, we can't have real answers yet, since science didn't focus on the complete set of parameters in most of the studies executed till date.

I planned to write a post about this, giving my thoughts on and all. Maybe I still do so. In case you cannot wait, or not interested in my thoughts and opinions, you can read the article here.

Anti-intellectualism has Little to do with Intelligence

In light of all recent events in the USA: the elections, the behaviour of the current US President Trump, the violence in and around the Capitol, the banning of Trump from all social media platforms; It becomes apparent the US doesn't show it's best 'face' to the rest of the world. I hear the question: "Are Americans Stupid?", quite often. An interesting article I read recently (here) discusses this question. The subtitle of this article is quite interesting: "Anti-intellectualism has little to do with intelligence".

No Brainer Improvements by Governments: Seriously?

A few days ago, just months before general elections will be held, the Dutch government stepped down from office. Something to do with some tax law implemented a decade or so ago, and the subsequent actions of our tax office, resulting in 10's of thousands of families and individuals falling victim.

I was baffled to read the five improvement points they came up with (source).

  1. The effective results of a new law must be tested and reviewed one year after its introduction: "Does the policy work as intended?"
  2. People must be supported more easily by the Tax Authorities by phone and on location.
  3. People shall be supported at all times. If someone calls an authority with a question that is not for that authority, that person will be supported to be connected with the right authority: "There shall be no wrong doors".
  4. Laws must include more "powers with discretion and hardship clauses". Translated: if a law is disproportionately hard on someone, (local) authorities must be allowed to make exceptions and "decide in favour of the citizen".
  5. A payment scheme must be created if "well-intentioned citizens get behind on their payments". The fallen government also states: "A (small) mistake may never lead to the mark of a fraudster."

In my opinion, all of these improvements are no-brainers. Something that should've been in place in the first place. But apparently, they were not. I'll just make a generic remark since I don't want this topic to become dominant in this post.

I'm baffled none of these improvements was a topic for our lawmakers, authorities, institutions and politicians before. How algorithmic, mathematical and inhumane the Dutch government has become over the recent years, is beyond me! It seems we've managed to create a society equivalent to a fully automated factory. The robots are the lawmakers and implementers thereof. The humans are degraded to objects, those being created and controlled by said robots. No exceptions allowed. Those who fall outside the box, simply discarded. Unbelievable!

Micro Blogging service by the HIVE based Leo Finance team

Leo Finance is developing services with lightning speed! The other day information reached me the Leo team is planning to launch a microblogging service. Something similar to D.Buzz, but better in my opinion.

The Leo team will not mix this microblogging service with their own (longer form) blogging service. The Leo microblogging service will be totally separated: from user interface perspective as well as from the rewarding side of things. The upcoming service will get its own content and curation reward token and will get its own governance system. HIVE will be used to store the content, but the rules of the service will be implemented in a new decentralised side chain to HIVE.

The recent post/video (here) by @khaleelkazi, the founder of the Leo Finance community, gives a good insight in their upcoming plans. Nice to watch and it'll just cost you 20 minutes of your time only.

Why I wasn't able to write 'cool' posts last so many months

Due to my efforts last months to drive engagement in our community, I didn't have time left to even try to create a 'cool' post. That said, I had many really nice conversations going; I woke up more than a few users; I got others to use other HIVE ecosystem services; And along the way, I believe, I increased the fun levels in the comment section of our blog posts (very subjective statement 🙃).

Due to my love for music as well as my daily curation rounds in this side of HIVE, it was this section hat had to deal with my presence mainly. Not sure if the artists and fans liked it, but I did 🤣.

Though I'm not really competitive, all these efforts got me in the top ranks of "The Engagement League" week after week. For those who don't know this league, it's one where the engagement levels of subscribed HIVE users are monitored and reported. The league is managed by our own @abh12345.

Being competitive or not, I urge everybody who didn't sign up yet, to do so. It's great fun! Just leave a comment to the most recent Engagement League post (here), or send abh12345 a message on Discord. He'll add you to the list for sure 🙃 BTW, he is also a very nice and helpful guy, but that aside 😉.

a HIVE original
all images by edje unless stated otherwise
qsounds music & story library | A...K | L...Z |
hive curator for curie



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29 comments
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I believe, I increased the fun levels in the comment section of our blog posts (very subjective statement 🙃)

You did!!!! Objective statement!

Thank you for your comments @edje , I don't know for others, but you engaged with my posts so many times, I am grateful for it 🙏

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Owwww Thank You for your kind words 😊
Am glad you liked our conversations, I know I did 🙃
Apperently I chatted with a whole bunch of community members. According to todays Engagement League, I wrote almost 400 comments last 7 days with 130 unique members. Not sure what this means, but I know I had fun 😉

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(Edited)

While my husband was active, he was also in the first 10 for a lot of weeks. So he read , "look edje is writing super long and meaningful comments, how he can achieve it? 😃

I am going to check out now the engagement ligue list 🤣

130 unique members!! Yuhey, 130 people could be more happy with your interaction ! 👌

EDIT: Congratulations for the first place 🎉

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🤣🤣🤣 not so sure if all these people got some fun stuff from me, thats up to them to decide.

Thanks for the congrats, but as I mentioned, its not a competition for me. I was actually a little disappointed about last weeks results: Just a little more than 100k characters in my comments. I reached 160k+ levels a week or two ago. Comments became shorter over the last week, must be.

Which user is your husband?

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ph1102 but don't look his rank position now 🙏🤣

He had other things to do during December so now it is a bit difficult to go back to normal routine he had before.

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Don't worry, I don't check the League. Wanted to check his blog; Looks interesting 😉 Mr Enagagement fr the CTP Swarm community. No idea what that community is about, but sounds dangerous... I like a little adventure 🙃

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Hahaha, me neither know a lot about, better you check out his opinion about that in his recent posts...

We have "independent" paths here, I never comment in his posts and he doesn't comment on mines. I wanted to do my own way when I started, I didn't want any "help" (or contrary) just because I am a wife of someone here. So we don't engage even with the same people and in the same communities because we have different topics of interest.

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That sounds like a good plan, to go after your own interests. When not, it becomes a game. Games are nice, but social media is not a game for me. Glad also not for you and your husband 😉

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I also see myself climbing high on those rankings in the short term, it has impacted my content creation no doubt, I haven't made a finance post in a bit now, but I'm not bothered, I'm more interested in driving engagement, a win win eventually.

Posted Using LeoFinance Beta

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It's indeed great fun to chat with others. It takes a lot of time but is rewarding for sure. Wish you a position at the top! :)

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Congratulations @edje! You have completed the following achievement on the Hive blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :

You got more than 9500 replies. Your next target is to reach 9750 replies.
You received more than 18000 as payout for your posts. Your next target is to reach a total payout of 19000

You can view your badges on your board and compare yourself to others in the Ranking
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word STOP

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Woooow .... Hiiiii @edje, I think the same thing happens to almost all of us, overwhelmed with occupations, sometimes it takes us out of what we want to do, as long as there is an organization of our person everything will continue to flow in a good way, I liked it read your article.

Due to my love for music as well as my daily curation rounds in this side of HIVE, it was this section hat had to deal with my presence mainly. Not sure if the artists and fans liked it, but I did 🤣.

hahaha take advantage of that and enjoy it, you are certainly doing what you like, the important thing is to keep up to date and above all be very happy 😉

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Ah yea, time is passing by quick 🙃

Not everything in the area of engagement was what I choose to do myself. Read and commented to so many users that never returned anything. I started this full focus enegament to wake up users. Some did, more kinda did, and many didn't. Since this week, I took a step back and only engage with those I had pleasant chats with, and to posts I really want to repsond to. Became a bit more quite at my end, which leaves me some time for writing one or two posts again and finish a piece of truly random 'art' (can't call it art, but I suppose it is part of that section; a may share this sometime in the future). Along the way, my character count in my comments seem to increase again to come cloase to the size of a post 🤣

Thanks for dropping by 🙃

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haha I understand you, it is bad to leave an opinion and not receive any response, I have realized that many here do not value any comment and most always leave an empty answer, that at the end one says "Wtf"? hehe, if I realized that you are more human in that aspect, you see and appreciate the content, that's why I became your follower, I hope you don't change, more people are needed so hehe without a doubt an example @edje, blessings for you friend !! ;)

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Owww I will always repsond to comment to my own posts, don't you worry. I intend to continue commenting to other users posts as well, those that are in for a little chit chat, on serious topics, or just for having fun and anything in between 😎

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Ok hehe it's good to know, good luck friend, good day! ;)

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You did increase fun level of my posts, at least for me, most of the time I feel like writing a diary :) and is nice to have interaction (not that i am all over the place making comments over posts of others though).
You gave us quite a homework with this post, topics to think about :)
I.m glad that you included psy topics; people know much about many things but when it comes to knowing themselves... Eyes of a stranger, from great concept album Operation mindcrime by Queensryche :)

And I raise my head and stare
Into the eyes of a stranger
I've always known that the mirror never lies
People always turn away
From the eyes of a stranger
Afraid to know what
Lies behind the stare

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(Edited)

Thanks so much for your kind words.

I came across so many interesting articles, views and optinions across a lot of different topics. All triggers for me to write a post about. But in general, I only want to write something when I have something more to add. Research, time to form my opinion etc is of the essence. I wished I could buy time, like in the movie 'Time'... That said, in that movie, when one runs out of time, one dies... So I guess I'm happy the movie is fictional, and its not possible for us to buy time. Maybe I should have the superpowers to stop time for everybody but me. In those 'pauze the world', I can dop all the research I need, and take all the time to form my opinions, as much as I need {LOL}

Didnt read any letter of the book by Dan, but am so curious of its content.

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Actually, it is the same IRL, when one runs out of time, one dies, just we don.t know when it will be, unlike the movie :)
I feel the same way about pause the world and believe many people do also. In my case that would probably be on a monthly level, for let.s say a week, so in that case I.d be out of my time much faster than those around me :D. Maybe we can try similar but scientifically speaking more possible approach in a form of accelerating ourselves, for example, taking every Saturday (or other day free from going to work) and turn it into a whole week :D

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Actually, it is the same IRL, when one runs out of time, one dies, just we don.t know when it will be, unlike the movie

You are absolutely right. I think it's better to not know, and also better to not being able to extend. Though when we are able to download our brains (including our consiousness) and in a next step are able to upload it to something or someone (AI, or human), we will be able to buy ourselves time. I'm pretty sure we will get the technology allowing us to do so.

Hahahaha, nice approach to extend a day into a week, every week!

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Tech is developing faster than understanding of human brain and consciousness so even if some shell is to be ready tomorrow, the ghost that is to be transferred in not ready yet :) Now, imagine putting something structurally and functionally so complex as brain into something based on quantum physics and DNA like based databases (or whatever that can be carrier of thousands TB info) through attempts and failures; do you find those kind of experiments acceptable? Maybe someone should create database of volunteers for those, so when the time comes, there are plenty of material to begin with...I.m sure all sorts of psycho will apply for eternal life, what a better place this planet will become :P
Why can.t we just stick with the vampires? blink blink

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do you find those kind of experiments acceptable?

Whether I find it acceptabe or not, it'll happen anyway. Even when not allowed by any kinda of law or culture/social pressure. Technology will continue to be developed. When needed, in the underground.

Maybe someone should create database of volunteers

Hahahaha, maybe indeed. Better to have some subjects available :)

Tech is developing faster than understanding of human brain and consciousness so even if some shell is to be ready tomorrow

True. Though it maybe AI that will better understand the human brain and consiousness. Or, at least AI is able to create an AI, not the same as our brains and how it works, but similar enough for humans not able to detect the difference. It's that later type of 'human' AI that I very much believe will be possible at some point in time.

We'll be adding natural moving body parts to robots we know. At some point in time these will resemble real humans (and animals for that matter). Boston Dynamics has some great robots already. The other day I watched one that is able to dance, jump, balance and all. Give it another 10 year, and you'll be amazed and shocked at the same time. Same will happen to me as well 😉

You ever watched the TV series 'Kight Rider'? Kid, the car AI, didn't it feel like a real person; At least to some extend?

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I asked if you find those kind of experiment not as approval (ofc no one is going to ask us what we think :)), but as your opinion.
Yeah, dancing robots as party crew that does not require distancing and masks, place your orders now ;P
I am amazed and shocked not with how robots are becoming more able but how humans are becoming more disabled :/
Did not watched KR series but did Black mirror and Westworld which are imo very nice contemplations on the given topic.

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(Edited)

Well, thats a good question :) In principle I'm not against such experiments. It'll need to be volunteers though. Purely based one own will. We need think of something that'll guarentee that. As you already mentioned, there will always be people around who like to embark on such experiment.

I am amazed and shocked not with how robots are becoming more able but how humans are becoming more disabled

Yea, this is something really strange with us humans. We're getting too lazy. Intelligence is not always leading species in the right direction. In fact, I'm pretty sure we are getting dumber by the second. But as a collective, we are not getting smart, more the opposite. Such dependence in technology, and how quick that has gone. Though I kow very well still the times before a personal computer, or phone. It's unthinkable to be without one of each today. Can't remember any phone number anymore, not even the one from my employer I got 3 years ago. Soon, and we don't have to do anything anymore, we always have some AI around helping with our schedule and tasks, maybe do all our tasks. Then we will be not a lot dependent on tech anymore, but 100% (guess we are already enroute).

Both "Black Mirror" and "Westworld", I didn't watch. Maybe I should :)

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You definitely should :) BM is easier to follow, independent episodes. WW requires more attention for different timelines; although have some unnecessary and boring parts, at the end is worth it :) I also recommend Russian series Better than us. Enough homework for now, you.ll get new one when finish this ;P

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Thanks :) Added the russian one to the top of the list as well, where BM and WW are already marked ;)

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