An amalgamation of sparks

I was talking to a colleague the other day who knows I write a blog, that if they were to read it, they would recognize themselves in some of the narrative, but would be upset that I didn't represent them accurately. But, this is done on purpose, as while it is them I am talking about in part, the characters I use are an amalgamation of people using conversations from various sources, to give depth additional depth to the conversation.

The reason I do it this way is that I have many conversations around similar topics each day, with several people and it is far easier to combine overlaps and points of interest into a handful of characters, than introduce many into the one post. It is kind of like a mini version of a TV show, where lots of things happen to the same people, so they don't have to have a cast of thousands and they can maintain audience connection to characters by not losing continuity.

I was thinking about this in regards to the future of Hive however, especially since the marketing proposal got funded and will hopefully start swinging into effect in the near future. While I really, really want Hive to be successful, if it is successful, it opens my content up to many more eyes, some of which will recognize themselves in the text and feel misrepresented, even though there are no identifiers to who these people may be and they aren't misrepresented at all.

Will they be upset?

I don't think so, as while I can be quite critical at times, I believe that the overarching trend to my work is about well-being improvement for as many as possible and the challenges we face to get there. The biggest challenge is of course us and while we don't like being the bottleneck to better conditions, the fact is that there is an adoption process that we all go through for change and there will always be early adopters and laggards.

What people should remember though is, an early adopter in one area, might be a laggard in another and, a previous early adopter might be a laggard in the innovation of what they first adopted. We see this last point in Bitcoin maximalists, where many do not see the value of the alts, even though there is plenty of space for literally millions of chains and tokens, in the same way that the internet is not just one website.

In any marketplace, there are going to be first movers and they will take advantage, but also wear the early failures and social ridicule associated with supporters of the unfamiliar. I think most of us who have ever talked to a few people about crypto have faced the backlash of some kind or another, with some people getting upset at the thought of things like economic change, even though they have never thought about it before. Often, the first reaction to new ideas, is resistance, regardless of the validity of the idea itself.

The benefits of talking to many people about similar topics is that I get to kind of "take the temperature" of attitudes across a wide cross-section of backgrounds and experiences. What I have seen over the last two years is a shifting of attitudes within the people who I talk with often, where the resistance has lowered considerably and the discussion flows far more freely, with interested queries and statements, rather than ridicule. The talk about economics and trading has increased, as has the discussions around social responsibility and the implications of a different wealth model on society. About half the people have bought some level of stake in something, with a few buying considerable amounts to diversify their portfolios.

In my opinion, it is this shift that will become the groundswell that builds the increasing floor of crypto, not they hype and FOMO into it, as that eventually dies. Paradigm shifting the global attitudes toward what an economy is and could be, is not an overnight change, it is a decades long process and requires far more discussion time than many are willing to invest, especially early on and in the face of peer group ridicule. But as the discussion becomes more acceptable in the open, an increasing number of people are exposed and the social narrative changes.

As I was saying to my colleague, I often hear words I have said, said back to me by people who once upon a time had resistance to those same words. This is also a reason to consolidate attitudes into one character, as people are able to more likely recognize a part of themselves in the reflection, causing deeper thought, even if it is negative, and think about what it means to be that type of person. No one wants to be on the wrong side of history and when people can feel the tides changing, they are more likely to review their position and see if it is still relevant and heading to where they want to go.

Not everyone will do this of course, but the more that do, the more that will, because we are social animals that look for security in groups. It is a minority that go out on a limb and risk themselves for new ideas, as they will also be the first ones persecuted, especially if proven wrong. I have said many times to people how I may be wrong, but I would be remiss to not at least try to get people to listen and consider these things, because I believe that I am not wrong and if I am right, everyone benefits.

One of the challenges of considering the economy is that it touches everything and we are generally far more comfortable as individuals when we have a narrow focus on what we know and understand. The problem is that not seeing the larger picture compartmentalizes us in a "divide and conquer" kind of way, where while we are focusing on a sliver, the ecosystem is being controlled by those who do understand the connections at scale. As individuals we have a "what can I do, I am just one person" attitude, without seeing that all of those ones added up are the entire economy.

For many, changing the current conditions seems impossible, but I think that just like every generation believes they have it bad, we fail to see that the "impossible" of every generation has changed in time, with many becoming the norms of today. This is obvious when it is looked at from the perspective of technological innovation like flight and the internet, but the economy itself is a technology we have created and it has innovated and changed over time, in positive and negative ways.

While for quite a while, the innovation of what the economy is and how it works has been held in the hands of the few, other technological innovations have given the hands of the many access to create and generate tools and values for themselves, within increasing inclusivity. Just like any movement, it starts from nothing and builds velocity, but it always requires energy. The energy of social change is us, and we can each be a spark that ignites a fire - or a retardant that puts it out in the minds of others.

Never go full retardant.

Taraz [ Gen1: Hive ]

I appreciate the people I talk with immensely, they are the sparks in my life that ignite my mind and challenge me to be better in so many ways. I am lucky that I have the opportunity to be surrounded by people who are intelligent and skilled at many things, with each of them being valuable as an individual, but as a group they are fire.