There's a Libertarian mindset at the core of the membership of this social media that we are all going up against when we voice our concerns about this kind of stuff. The Libertarian "solution" to problems is to just let it work itself out over time. The market provides enough incentive without human interference in the form of "government", it is thought. That may be the case, but is sure as hell takes a lot longer for aberrant behavior to lose appeal when you just let "nature take its course", so to speak. This is why I am not a dogmatic Libertarian and tend to lean more toward the Progressive side of things because Progressives recognize human nature for what it is and are also willing to use some sort of "force" to keep people in line, and that's exactly what we are talking about when we are calling for removal of an account. That's basically a police action, when you get right down to it, kind of like putting someone in jail so they can't continue to harm anybody. I for one prefer to use some force along the way to increase the integrity of the platform because that turns into real dollars and cents with regard to how many investors are going to be willing to invest in Steem which in turn affects the price of Steem and how much I'm going to get out of being here.
Other than the social benefit I get from being here, which up to this point is still less than I get spending my time on Facebook because I have FB friends who are actually interested in the same things I'm interested in, I wonder if my time wouldn't be better spent just delivering pizza on the side and investing that money into Steem. I'm not sure at this point which would pay off better in the end.
Thanks for sharing @kirbyhopper! I totally get what your saying and like a lot of what you've said, but disagree on one point. From the Libertarian stand point, it could work itself out IF and that is one big IF the steemians large and small had some power or muscle. On steemit the minnows have near 0 influence. In the real world libertarians do have influence. This platform ties the hands of the people that are supposed to be the driving force of the platform. I don't want there to be a police force type action as you mention. Rather it should simply be a flagging system. Every steemian should have the right to flag a post for plagiarism. That should effect no change if only flagged by 1 or 2 people (possibly maliciously), but if a number of(3, 5?) total flags are given from individual users and sources of the original work shown, then they should receive a consequence.
While libertarians do strive to live and let live and want as few restrictions as possible, we are not anarchists. Protection of basic rights are still valued. Libertarians do believe in the rule of law. I'm just talking about giving power to all steemians. Right now we have concentrated power, and that is a recipe for neglect and abuse of the majority.
We might look at the current problem as theft. These plagiarists are stealing from the community funds. As a collective group of steemit citizens we have the right to protect ourselves and each other from theft.
Yes, agreed. I've thought about whether just flagging would work and you've explained very well why it wouldn't. To put another way, certain people have been able to buy themselves into plagiarizing with impunity, and I know some are afraid of speaking out for fear of getting into a flag war and damaged even more than just the reward pool getting raped and losing their miniscule piece of that pie. This is a systemic problem and the powers that be need to be willing to change the system, and in my mind Libertarian ideology is working counter to that. Maybe not your Libertarian ideology, everyone understands it differently, after all, but the aggregate of many people's Libertarian bent, starting with the founders.