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The upvote paradigm: a brief philosophical approach.

Upvote paradigm

Recently through X (twitter) a very interesting debate was generated. Thanks to a post by @lordbutterfly where he mentioned his appreciation of UPVOTES in Hive. As soon as I read his words I did not hesitate to quote him in my profile as it seemed to me an insight that we should consider.

Before expressing my opinion, I want to express in the following lines what this debate made me reflect. I consider that Upvote is a transversal axis in Hive, and I intend to make a philosophical approach. Without claiming to be right, I wish to continue the debate that has arisen by providing as critical a view as possible and then if you will know my opinion.

Of Hive it can be said that it is a blockchain with its cryptocurrency, with a predetermined protocol that hosts an ecosystem of applications that have been built on the blockchain. Many of them social networks, in these, creating content makes you unreadable to receive incentives through upvotes.

Technically, the upvote is the mechanism through which stakeholders can access what is known as the "reward pool", which is composed of the Hive that has been allocated for such a pool. The DPos protocol of Hive when issuing $HIVE in each block, this is distributed among the reward pool, APR per stake, rewards the nodes for the service.

Now, the upvote in social networks is basically an approval to the product delivered, many (for a long time I thought the same) associated the upvote to the quality of the content. And although it may be an obvious association, really and above all philosophically the upvote goes beyond that.

It is at this point where I want to stop, as a lover of philosophy it is inevitable to look at things from a certain point of view. I want to quote Lordbutterfly in his post as he says that upvotes "...a permanently continuous token distribution based on other holders' opinion of the value you bring." In other words, an upvote is a vote of confidence by a stake holder, since owning stake gives you the power to be able to award coins to others.

Strictly speaking, incentives are not necessarily related to the quality of the content, and I know this may be uncomfortable to some ears, but it is the most honest thing to say. What is really amazing, philosophically speaking, is that Hive's stake is a way of distributing power, since when receiving coins, part of these go directly to the stake.

Those who may call themselves experts in Foucault's philosophy may debate the whole issue of power, I do not intend to go into this in depth, since one line of argument asserts that power is not held, but exercised, and in Hive upvote is a way of exercising that power acquired through stake, and this in turn distributes power.

Power that distributes power!

We are not denying that the content is related to the upvote, but that they are not a relation of necessity and sufficiency. Now, the power to give power is not something that is taken lightly. It is related to the value that is contributed to the ecosystem. As Lordbutterfly comments, this makes it imperative not only to know the ecosystem but also to integrate into it.

How to measure value? This is something really subjective and at this point comes into play the whole debate that may arise about decentralization. Dear reader, have you asked yourself: How do I add value to Hive?

Up to this point I have tried to take a critical stance on the matter. But, as I mentioned at the beginning I want to share a bit of my opinion and for that I have to go back to my beginnings in Hive. But don't worry, it will be brief. Before Hive I didn't know much to say nothing about blockchain and cryptocurrencies. My first steps were with the vision of creating content and receiving incentives, it was pandemic times and unemployment had knocked on my door.

As the months went by, my vision was changing little by little my curiosity led me through paths that made me read and research about cryptos and blockchain. In a certain event we held in my city Barquisimeto-Venezuela called "HiveCreatorsDay" where Hivers from other corners of the country came with more knowledge and experience. When my vision took a really decisive turn.

Although content creation was my focus, now my eyes were on building and building value beyond blogging. That's why I think the vision that Lordbutterfly reminds us of is crucial and determinant if you really plan to develop a career in web3.

Knowing and integrating into the ecosystem goes beyond knowing and using the different Dapps, but implies knowing Hive's philosophy. What Lordbutterfly mentions is just a part of what it implies to know Hive.

I think, having this vision is to really have your feet on the ground, or rather, on the blockchain. If you like to create content, do it, bring value from there, if you like to develop software, do it and bring value, whatever it is, bring value.

In my case, although I don't pretend to give a reason for what I do or don't do, I have dedicated myself and currently dedicate myself to two things apart from content creation, which has become a good habit. The first one is to build projects that grow Hive, get people talking about Hive outside of Hive, that's why I'm part of the HiveTalkproject, and the other thing I'm dedicated to building my career which I like to call "crypto-philosophy" which is nothing more than unraveling the philosophical underpinnings involved to blockchain and cryptos, but focusing on Hive to which I have had several experiences that have been a milestone in my career and at the moment have served me as a boost in this company, experiences such as: Being Speaker at the CaracasBlockchainWeek, being a panelist at the HiveBlockchainSummit talking about the philosophical nature of crypto regulations and having in a couple of opportunities the possibility of being spaker in two philosophy days in the most important in the region of the country where I reside.

At the moment, I try to bring value to Hive and its ecosystem from what I know how to do and anyone can do it. Although, the Hive Upvote paradigm is not perfect, but it is the best you can find.

It is not uplifting to lament when a publication did not receive the incentives you might have expected, remember that evaluation is subjective and that many factors come into play. I think it is even more edifying to ask ourselves: Am I adding value? Remember that regardless of what you intend to do, or are doing, no one is indispensable, so that improvement is something continuous. And perhaps, in these last paragraphs I have gone through one of the edges, but, it is really wide everything that can be behind the Upvote paradigm.

As a paradigm, it is important to know it and reflect on it and all that it implies and encompasses. When I said "This is the best thing you can read today" quoting Lordbuterfly's post, I said it because it is always determinant to rethink paradigms.

I hope my words are not misinterpreted, and I have been able to express my ideas in a clear and different way as René Descartes would say. Any opinion or criticism about this, do not hesitate to leave it in the comments section.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

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