Steem: Helping To Bring About Peak Power

We are seeing a world that is rapidly changing. It is easy to fall into the state where we believe that the present system will keep growing. After all, it has been on this path for a number of decades.

However, when we think about it, there has been transition. While it was common for a company to establish a position and maintain control for many decades, that is no longer the case. Today, we see some of the most powerful companies established within the last 2 or 3 decades.

These companies are only growing in power. It seems like there is no end in site. Of course, we could say the same about a company like AT&T. In fact, the United States Government agreed with that and broke it up in the early 1980s. With the introduction of wireless, and the Telecom Act of 1996, within a decade, AT&T was one of the largest wireless carriers around.

Thus, we see how that path tends not to work long term.

Technology does change the landscape. Today, we see companies worth around $1 trillion apiece. One thing they have in common is they were able to leverage users to their own gain by establishing a platform that basically locked people in. Then, by making data scarce, they were able to monetize that for their own profitability.

This is the situation we find ourselves in. We have surveillance capitalism along with a growing surveillance state. Other technologies are enabling centralized entities, such a governments, to gain in their abilities to spy on their own populations. China is the most extreme example albeit not the only one.

While this is all taking place, we are quickly approaching Peak Power. This might seem like an insane concept to many but it is exactly what happens. Peak cycles are rarely seen until after the fact. They often come quickly and without warning. This is especially true when something is in place for long periods of time, even multi-generational.

Central structures are vertical in nature. This is how so few can control the masses. There is a hierarchy which sees more power as one travels further up the scale. This is our structure in most of society including businesses, politics, and education.

There is a philosophy that talks about the "Rhizomic Society". This comes from botany and the Rhizome.

A rhizome is an underground stem from which other plants propagate themselves. Over time, buds for jointly creating a situation that, when charted, looks like a distributed chart. The power of the rhizome is that if you cut the rhizome, not only is death not experienced but several plants form instead of one.

It is easy to see how this philosophy is in direct opposite to the power structure we see now. Up to this point, the challenge with altering the present system was the tools that were available. Realistically, it was only the larger companies that could afford the R&D and top talent to develop advanced tools, which they used for more control.

This is no longer the case. Over the past couple years, we witnessed a great deal of transition in the world of development. Open source was always prevalent in the coding community but it was select in overall usage. Recently, we saw large companies such as Microsoft invest heavily in the open source arena.

At the foundation of this is computational power. As our devices get even more powerful, we are seeing the rise of edge computing. This is something that is going to continue over the next few years. In a decade, I foresee this rivaling the cloud based system we have in place now.

Of course, blockchain and cryptocurrency was a big part of the breakthrough. Part of a Rhizomic Society is the premise that power is distributed to the node level. Thus, any two nodes can operate without interference (control).

This is exactly what we are seeing on blockchains and the development with that. Applications are being created and placed on these decentralized ledgers. Every node, i.e. user, can interact freely with any other. The interaction, thus far, is basically the ability to transfer value. However, as we march forward, we will see other avenues pursued which are presently under the existing power structure.

I look at the idea of gaming on Steem. Over the past year, we saw a number of games crop up. Now, with the addition of NFTs, I expect we see a great deal more. This is decentralizing the gaming industry. Will blockchain based games be the big thing a decade from now? It is hard to tell but I would not bet against it.

Over the past week, I commented on the updates we got out of @threespeak. The goal there is to build a platform (3Speak) on top of the Steem platform which allows video creators to create their own hub. All those hubs that tap into the 3Speak platform will prevent any centralized entity from coming in and taking control. Like the Rhizome, cut off one hub, others appear.

Ultimately, it is all like a giant game of Whack-A-Mole. This is what the centralized entities are facing right now. Most are not aware of the power that is possessed outside their system. What is very important is the fact that is keeps growing daily. With each new application, new user, and additional token distributed, the entire distributed system grows in strength.

This is why many feel we are closing in on Peak Power. The centralized system of control is starting to break down. We might see them hold on for a few more years but it is likely to happen soon. My guess is that it will be evident by about 2025.

Thus, what we do each day on a blockchain like Steem is part of a bigger paradigm shift that is taking place.

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Posted via Steemleo