The Economy of the Absurd

It is not quite 6am and I have been up for two hours already, trying not to be up. For some reason I awoke and while I tried to fall back to sleep and I should have just got up and started writing immediately instead - as I had a feeling sleep wasn't going to arrive again. I suspect it is a "reaction" to the last few days, where there is just so much going on that my head is unable to be "at peace" even when asleep and I haven't had enough time to work my normal process of writing to clear it.

The drinking hasn't helped.

Laying in bed for a while, I ended up flicking through some various content and then turning to a news channel, saw the always depressing news of another mass shooting in a US school, this time involving very young children. It is incredibly sad and I truly feel for the parents and the greater community involved. As always, the media are going to do what they do and focus on the shooter, giving them exactly what they wanted all along, instead of washing these people from the history of the earth as they deserve. Give attention to the actions of attention seekers, get more attention seekers looking to compete.

Sure, that might be an over simplification, but it is about how we all act on incentives and when what we do is rewarded with something we value, we are going to do more of it. This works in the negative too, where if what we do is punished with consequences we don't want, we will do less of it, but in most cases, it is probably healthier to aim for positive reinforcement, rather than punishment. Most cases.

Punishment has its place in this world too.

I haven't slept much over the last days and even less this night, but the current world is tiring, isn't it? It is like all the important things that could be getting worked on are constantly put on hold in favor of dealing with the absurd. So many opportunities to be our best as people and society, yet so many useless challenges taking our time and effort instead. Rather than creating clean and free energy, we are attacking each other across imaginary border lines. Instead of improving the potential and experience of children, we are dealing with people killing children. The more we focus on the absurd, the more space we give it, the more we incentivize it in a self-perpetuating cycle.

I don't think humans are inherently bad - I think we are inherently stupid.

Even at the personal level, we incentivize ourselves to get that little dopamine hit from being triggered by people and events that suck our energy and keep us from developing better. We are incentivized by the outside world and betrayed by our biology to expend energy on the useless, by making it feel like it is useful, valuable - important.

Last night I was talking to a younger colleague who was saying that he is moving away from social platforms s he gets older (he is under 30) because he doesn't find value in them. And I explained that there is immense value in them, it is just that it isn't distributed to the people on the platform, as all they get is the impression of value.

In most cases, that is all value is these days, an impression. Because, everything is incentivized through some form of tokenization where people are working for the token, not the result. I know what you are thinking - that is what Hive does - but that is not entirely the case.

People are worried about the price of Bitcoin for example, but what is their endgoal? Is it to be more wealthy, or is it to create a wealthier world, with "wealth" meaning, healthier, safer, more opportunity, less violence and other factors that make a very real impact on our lives? Are people buying Bitcoin and crypto so that they are financially secure in a fiat world, or are they looking to spread a tokenized value of the world amongst more people so there is increased decision-making power amongst the group?

If people really believe in crypto changing the world, they shouldn't be worried about the price, they should be concerning themselves with the value. The value is having more people with ownership in the world, with stake and skin in the game, so they are incentivized to improve conditions, rather than expect others to do it for them. To be owners, not renters - taking responsibility for the broken window, rather than complaining to the owner to fix it.

If you want crypto to do well. Stop investing into it in order to get out of it and instead invest into it by putting into it. That is the value of Hive - it isn't the token people are extracting, it is the developments that people are making. Even at the content level, it is the willingness to invest into content that takes us forward, not what holds us back.

It is about transferring and supporting our values, whether economic or as other, into a system we own and operate.

The journey might be expensive and very slow, but the economy is so incredibly restrictive, exclusive and harmful, that it has to change, otherwise it consumes us. So many of the world's absurd problems are incentivized by the current economic models in place and will continue to be so, because they can be used for those who have control in the economy, to generate more control for themselves and their agendas, by triggering our internal mechanisms in a way that feeds our agenda, no matter how inherently stupid that is.

This isn't about money - it is about behavior.

But, while people are taking part in the latest TikTok challenge to feel that they belong to something; while people are reading all they can about the latest shooter; while the masses worry about all the problems we face daily - very little is left over to actually do anything toward improving conditions. If people did more at a practical level instead of focus on the absurd, even small things will mount up to great shifts in society.

Yet - here we are;

Incentivized to punish ourselves indirectly through our own behaviors.

We do this to ourselves, yet because we don't take ownership for our actions and responsibility for our outcomes - we think it all happens to us.

People say "What can I do?" as if there is nothing that can be done. When we could wake up each morning, ask the same question and then, do something daily.

In this world, we are all content creators.

Absurd.

But, what do I know... I have hardly slept.