Rewarding need over merit discourages investment and quality content

Merit is defined as excellence, worthiness, "deserving reward or commendation". Blurt is said to be a merit-based platform, where high-quality original content is created, identified, rewarded, and elevated. But recently some influential voices have been pushing to drop this system in favour of rewarding content based not on merit, but on need. The general idea being that people from non-European parts of the world need the money more, and so their content should be rewarded more. Social justice is winning over merit. The platform's whale/investor has been quoted saying:

"The difference between developed and developing countries is huge. I have been clicking on their posts for half a year, I see how they live, what their world looks like and what problems they have. I remember how one user did a power down, sold Blurt and fixed a hole in the roof. It was a very small amount of BLURT. That repaired hole in the roof is the real value of Blurt to me. That's why I vote for their posts..."

While on the outside, this appears to be a generous and kind notion, it is potentially very harmful to Blurt. To explain, here's the situation in my country lately:

Social justice advocates in Canada have been relentlessly advocating for more support (money) for "people of colour" over the past several years. This form of extreme affirmative action has become ultra-prevalent, encouraging not just taxpayer funds be diverted to dark-skinned people, but private funds as well. We have posters up around town, paid for with our taxes of course, telling us to "support black-owned, immigrant-owned, and indigenous-owned businesses". This is thinly-veiled code for "avoid supporting European-owned businesses". And by support, they mean financial, social, and moral support, which is synonymous with quality of life. The goal is to degrade European descendants in Canada, foster division, destroy communities, and chip away at the concept of a free market.

The same thing is increasingly happening in the USA and all over Europe. The narrative is now such that unless you withdraw support (and money) from your fellow fair-skinned people, you're racist. Which is pretty silly, because it doesn't get much more racist than trying to degrade and impoverish people just for being low in melanin. It's the next level of critical race theory. Many have bought into it. Others see the writing on the wall, and pay lip service to the woke mob, avoiding heat for themselves but acquiescing for the problem to continue. Those who disagree are afraid to speak, and silenced or worse if they do. The pendulum has swung. Racism is just as prevalent now as it was 100 years ago, it's just being aimed in a different direction. And we all continue to suffer for it. Now, something similar is creeping into Blurt as well.

What is the opposite of merit? According to thesaurus.com, it is dishonor and worthlessness.

We are becoming a dishonor-based and worthlessness-based platform... and we're doing it on purpose, disguised as virtue. Supporting (encouraging) content based on need is platform suicide.

Imagine if universities gave out "free rides" (unlimited free tuition) based on need instead of merit? Oh, wait... they have started doing that more and more in the past generation or so... and the entire system simultaneously devolved into degree-mills and social-justice-wokeism-indoctrination-centers. The great universities are shells of their former selves. Very little knowledge is being gained in colleges nowadays, thanks in part to them being need-based instead of merit-based. Now instead of finding and elevating geniuses and visionaries, we are churning out masses of button-pushers. (I'm reminded of "no child left behind" policies, which have actually destroyed the elementary school system in North America, essentially being little more than "no child allowed to excel" policies.)

A type of organization that is always need-based is charity. Charities are based almost entirely on need, and they should be. But Blurt isn't a charity. If it was, that would be stated up front, and we would have benefits like tax-free status. Blurt is not a charity, so why is it becoming need-based? Why do we still officially claim that Blurt is merit-based, when it no longer is? The more we support (curate) poor content, the more poor content we'll get. Voting for content based on need is the opposite of good curation.

We are not helping anyone by cramming Blurt with thousands of low-effort low-quality posts. Posts that are only here to gain upvotes, providing little or nothing in return. Posts that once they pay out, the funds are immediately powered down and sold, keeping BLURT near zero forever. Hot and Trending are becoming places to find garbage content about weeds growing in back yards, or blurry snapshots of muddy roads. That content should certainly be allowed here, I'm not claiming otherwise. But I'm pointing out that it should not be elevated and encouraged over all else, which is what is happening now. We are encouraging junk, and we're getting it.

Readers are driven away. Other content creators are driven away. And other investment is driven away.

If our whale/investor wants to grow this platform, and not forever be the only investor here, AND help a lot of needy people at the same time, turning Blurt into a need-based platform is not the best strategy. Why not first help Blurt grow, by curating based on merit to encourage good content and creators, which will drive investment, raising the price of BLURT as we go into the altcoin bull run, and allow him to help FAR more needy people with his huge stake? We can give them all our crumbs now, or we could get our platform and token functioning properly, so we can ALL feast until we're full.

More of my related thoughts can be found here if interested.

Rewards declined on this post - it will not get certain key votes, so it won't reach Hot or Trending. You'll have to reBlurt this if you think the idea is worth discussing. Let's turn this around.

DRutter

PS: Something to listen to as we comment and reply below:

Affirmative may be justified
Take from one, give to another
The goal is to be unified
Take my hand, be my brother
The payments silenced the masses,
Sanctified by oppression
Unity took a back seat,
Sliding further into regression

One, oh, one, the only way is one

I feel angry, I feel helpless
Want to change the world, yeah
I feel violent, I feel alone
Don't try and change my mind, no

Society, blind by color
Why hold down one to raise another?
Discrimination, now on both sides
Seeds of hate blossom further
The world is headed for mutiny
When all we want is unity
We may rise and fall
But in the end, we'll meet our fate together

One, oh, one, the only way is one