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RE: Adjust your witness votes!

in #hive4 years ago (edited)

I greatly appreciate your informed and substantive reply.

I do actually believe Hive is presently under attack by nefarious actors for malignant purposes, you're right. However, in the sense of game theory, each Hive user is assumed to be intent on maximizing the benefits they derive from their stake, and this is the sense I expect we can agree on - unless you do agree that Sun is not done trying to censor this community.

What I meant by the term 'harmful' in the latter context is that the benefit to the stakehodler is not maximized. By voting for fewer witnesses under the present system the influence they wield on governance, and potential for quid pro quo, or other emoluments, is reduced.

You're right that if someone has no interest in maximizing their influence on governance, voting for fewer than the maximum witnesses but grants other voters greater control, which assumably isn't going to break the chain under ordinary circumstances, and I technically mistated that fact, which I appreciate you bringing to my attention.

As I pointed out I don't think Sun is done with us. I therefore don't think these are ordinary circumstances. I think we're fighting for our lives and freedom, and not just our Hive tokens, against forces that have spent $billions censoring centralized social media platforms, controlling propaganda on legacy media channels, and through local, regional, national and international jurisdictions of governance globally. Recently the WHO met with various centralized social media platforms and my understanding was that they strongly encouraged them to censor posts that were not from 'official' sources.

I have been told today that 'unofficial sources apparently include scientific journals, as a Tweet (or Facebook post, don't remember) was blocked and the person that re-tweeted the post got a message saying the content was false, so the 'infodemic' the WHO claims to be fighting isn't just fake news. It's a narrative that does not support the WHO, and apparently includes peer reviewed factual data contrary to the WHO's recommendations.

Today, more than ever in the history of the modern world, online and telecommunications are taking a primary role in effecting speech, not just as a result of improving technology, but because we are forced to restrict our personal contacts, meetings, rallies, protests, and even physical mail, due to increasingly draconian quarantines and restrictions on potentially infectious contact.

As a result, the more effective censorship of online communications is, including Steem and Hive posts and comments, the more powerful censors' control, over narrative, beliefs of people deprived of the forthright speech of others, and misleading by propaganda and disinformation is. Censors get more bang for their buck.

I do not believe Sun Yuchen just wanted to do any of the things he publicly stated he did, such as increase decentralization, just make money, and leave governance to the community. What I have read of his rise to his present circumstances reveal he has been driven in his quest for fame, wealth, and power, and that he has been the recipient of support from various institutions controlled by the Chinese Communist Party and the government of China via various soft power projections.

Maybe he's more charming speaking his native language, and made a bundle on BTC, as he claims, but maybe he's working for the CCP and China, the most egregious censors on Earth today. For some reason there are 21 million fewer cell phone users in China today than there were only three months ago, according to the Chinese government itself. Debate continues as to whether this decline in cell phone users is the result of massive lying about deaths from the pandemic that began in Wuhan, or whether it's because China shut down those accounts to censor them (those are the only theories I am aware of, because the number of users has not declined previously, and AFAIK China offered no explanation).

If China set out to censor this community, and set Sun Yuchen to that task, them his successful takeover of Steem leaves that job only partially done, and we are between him and fulfilling his orders. In that event, I do not see China stopping now, nor that HFs will remain nominal options going forward, because China has the ability to create money out of thin air, just like all central banks, and their next attack will not deploy all the stake in a bare grab for control of governance, but will leave enough in reserve to prevent success if they are forked off again.

I see no reason to fail to consider the censoring of this community necessary from the perspective of forces that seem to have set out to censor all avenues of communication, shut down all economic activity, physically imprison all civilians in the world in their homes, whether to stop the pandemic - or use it to implement a global totalitarian government.

This day is more interesting than yesterday, politically speaking, and tomorrow will be more interesting yet. Believing we have met the challenge of preserving our community and can relax is as dangerous and naive as trusting @ned turns out to have been. I think if we don't implement far more effective security over decentralization of governance than we now do, Hive won't last long.

I believe we're being targeted by the CCP, China, the enemedia, the WHO, and basically all governmental jurisdictions. The 'Art of War' by Sun Tsu says:

"18. All warfare is based on deception."

"19. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near."

We're not safe, and we'd better bar the door quick if we want to become safe - if we can become safe. I am unwilling to give up just because we are faced with opposition. I knew many forces in the world would oppose my free speech because I have been banned or blocked many times, and people have tried to kill me to silence me permanently.

I don't want to end up like Jamal Kashoggi, but I also wanna live forever, and TBQH I am gonna die sooner than later, and how I die doesn't matter as much as how I live.

Sorry about the lengthy rant, but I wanted to illustrate specific cause to seek greater security of Hive than was ever believed necessary for Steem. Steem was fatally insecure, and if Hive goes down, I don't think we'll be able to fork over to Pond because our enemies will be ready for that.

tl;dr please do everything in your power to consider how Hive can be better secured from Sybil attacks, and particularly those that require nothing more difficult to get than money, because the forces seeking to censor Hive can conjure money out of thin air. China and other opponents of free speech are creating $>1T/day out of nothing to prop up stocks and enrich stockholders, while creating debts taxpayers will be held responsible to repay. Looking at stake from that perspective means that stake alone cannot be the mechanism to influence or secure governance, because opponents of free speech have bigger wallets than the Hive community.