Make yourself some coffee, sit back and relax. This post is going to be a long one. I had a ton of thoughts brewing in my mind about what to write. I had set up a target that I wanted to write something that was interesting to me; I didn't want to do a chore. I stuck to my plan and decided to write this post which I envision to be the longest I have ever written. I know that not everyone likes to read analyses and commentaries but to hell with it. I write what I love.

Accurate depiction of a Steemaholic.

Introduction to this post: How I came about it.

It was Tuesday's night. I was sitting in the lounge sipping orange juice. I was pondering my existence and life; how did I end up here and where I could've been. It was very relaxing. Until the power went out. Darkness took over, blinding me. I searched for my phone and turned it on. It helped me traverse my way through the darkness and finally reach my beacon of hope, the window. The whole neighborhood was dark. I thought that it was just a temporary thing but the upcoming hours would prove me dead wrong.

I contemplated what I should write on Steem about. It had to be something that fascinated me, something that I was interested in. I gave a thought to writing an article on Bitcoin and crypto-currency in general but I had already done that. Many times but with relatively little success. I grabbed a pen and paper pad and just wrote away what popped into my mind. Half of it you couldn't make out even if you tried but some of it gave me some insight as to what I should write. Unfortunately, it wasn't something that I had liked writing so I skipped that. It felt refreshing doing this, writing ideas on a paper-pad. I suggest doing it sometime, it's a great way to clear your head.

Hours later, I was still lounging on my couch with the pen between my teeth just staring at the ceiling. What should I write?

What about Steemit? It was so simple. Why didn't or shouldn't I write about something that has provided me the platform to, ahem, well, write? I had this sudden burst of a chain of thoughts about Steemit. The whole list of topics came right in front of my inner eye. So many potential articles. I had an epiphany, I knew what I was going to write. And so over the course of few days, I carefully plotted the article, from beginning to the end. I had originally meant to put off writing this article, well, because I'm a big procrastinator. I shiver at the slightest thought of heavy workload. Eventually, I decided that battling the demons of procrastination was much more important. Writing this article would probably take me a day or so. Not just because it's long but because I have to proof-read it and make some necessary changes. Then came the more intricate details that took me a while to get around but I succeeded. And now, here I am, finally writing this.

All's well that ends well.

What about that starts well? I guess that's not well.

Humans and Environment

As man has made progress in different fields of life, his culture and society have adapted accordingly. In the medieval times, men fought with swords and shields while most women stayed at homes waiting for their sons, fathers, brothers and husbands to return home from war. Men raped and pillaged whatever they saw fit during the wars. They raided, razed and burned cities to the ground.

Thankfully the world has become a much more civilized place to live in. Slavery has been abolished, women are given equal rights. A lot of things have improved for the better.

This is not to say that the world is all fine and dandy. It's not. The world is deeply flawed. You and me are flawed. Everyone that lives or has lived in this world was/is flawed. What can we do about this? We can try to be human.

Try is the key word here. We just have to try. When people talk about the human psyche and the world in general, others believe that it's pointless. They believe that nothing can be done to save the world from itself. Or more accurately, to save it from it's inhabitants.

If I said that I have never lost faith in humanity then I'd just be lying to myself. We have all lost faith in humanity at some points in our lives. It may be when someone we knew was murdered or even worse.

Our beloved environment.

Environment

noun
The natural world, as a whole or in a particular geographical area, especially as affected by human activity.

We have slowly been driving the environment into oblivion. The amount of carbon dioxide that is being released into the environment is so staggering that Global Warming is almost inevitable.

At this time, we are releasing about 761 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Per second. By the time I'd have finished writing this article, about 16,416,000 tons of CO2 would have been spewed out in the atmosphere. And by the time you'd have finished reading this same article about 1,369,800 tons would be up into the atmosphere. That's a lot.

It amazes me how many people can just outright deny the existence of Global Warming. We live in a world where people still think that the Earth is flat so it's not even that surprising. People deny climate change. They are too busy in other important things like arguing at McDonald's and whatnot. So much carbon dioxide has been spewed out in to the atmosphere that we are on the verge of the sixth mass extinction event. Scientists argue that some organisms like amphibians are already going through that event.

The Sixth Mass Extinction event is on-going and humans have sponsored it.

We weren't responsible for this one, thankfully.

Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception.

The worst thing to happen to animals is us. Humans. We have been the cause of extinction of so many animal species that, frankly, it's embarrassing. Let me give you a few examples.

Let's look at the Bubal Hartebeest for a second. It's population was drastically reduced after the French conquest of Algeria when the colonial armies slaughtered entire herds of the Hartebeest. Last known herd was in Morocco around 1917. Three of the Hartebeests in the herd was killed by the same hunter. And if that's not enough, the last known Hartebeest was shot and killed in Morocco in 1925. Wow. I have no words really. How humans can be this ignorant is beyond me. It could be due to not being informed about their extinction also.

Hartebeest's aren't the only species to have been pushed to extinction by humans in recent times. Humans have been the cause of extinction of many species, some of which are:

• Javan tiger
• The Quagga
• Golden Toad
• Passenger Pigeon
• Pyrenean Ibex
• Thylacine, also known as Tasmanian tiger.

You'd hope that we'd have learned from our mistakes. We'd be more concerned about the safety of animal life but nope. That is definitely not the case. As a matter of fact, poachers are active more than ever before today.

Poachers are the biggest threat to Elephant population. The population of elephants has been decimated by poachers for their ivory. Although, the sale and purchase of Elephant's ivory also known as white gold was banned in 1989, it has only resulted in it's demand as wells as it's price going up. The two tusks of a male elephant can weigh more than 250 pounds. A single pound of ivory fetches $1,500 on the black market. But why? What do the buyers get out of ivory? Sure they may wear it or do something else with it, but does it justify killing a poor elephant? Does it justify critically endangering the Elephant species?

Same thing is going on with Rhinoceros who share the same mis-fortune with the elephants: the mis-fortune of having an external protrusion. They are poached for their horns which are sold for as much as $100,000 per kilogram on the black market. What do they do with this horn? They use it as a symbol to display their wealth and success. Definitely worth ending three sub-species of Black Rhinoceros, in my opinion.

We have established some sanctuaries for these kind of critically endangered animals but some of them aren't even safe. Poachers attack Elephant sanctuaries with reports saying that grenades and AK-47 are used.

Conservation parks have been established by us for the good of the environment but it doesn't make much difference. The net rate of destruction that humans have brought upon the environment is much greater than the rate of restoration. Fossil fuels can't last us forever. We have to eventually adapt renewable energy sources globally. What will happen when the fossil fuels run out and we haven't adapted to solar energy or wind energy?

If mankind needs to survive, it needs to go multi-planetary. Humans are self-destructive and before they destroy Earth alongwith themselves, they need to colonize other planets. It's far easier.

Think about this for a second. We have caused so much damage, destruction and deterioration to the environment that at this point, it would be far easier to just go out of the orbit and into the stars. It seems improbable that we could ever correct what we have done to this earth.

Earth is just too small and fragile a basket for mankind to keep all its eggs in.

Steemit in the Crypto-sphere

Steemit

noun.
A decentralized social media network that rewards crypto-currency for voting, posting and commenting.

Steemit has gone from a website that almost no one knew about to a growing and emerging sensation in the crypto-sphere. The last few weeks will go down in the history of Steemit as defining moments. This year will go down as one of the most important ones in it's history.

It has posts on almost every kind of topic like a social media should. From crochets to videos, make-up videos to blogs. Want to read a short-story? Browse #fiction. Want to read some travel stories with some tips? Browse #travel. Want to discuss life and philosophy? You guessed it.

Steemit vs. Bitcoin

Bitcoin has a ton of complex concepts that are simply too hard and boring to explain to a regular person on the street. To tell the truth, he is more interested in cute cat videos than your gibberish about some gigabyte coin. The fundamental concepts would seem boring. If you went up to a person in Times Square and started preaching about Bitcoin and how it works, they wouldn't listen to you and think that there is something wrong with you. Now, lets say that someone agrees to listen. You'd start telling them about blockchains, Bitcoin's supply-growth, it's market cap, pools and mining, it's advantages and disadvantages. But would they be paying attention. Not likely. You'd have their attention for what 10 seconds before they go and browse Facebook?

Here's where Steemit takes the cake. It is a social media platform. That rewards crypto-currency. Virtually everyone in the world is aware of Facebook. They know that it is "a social media network." And that's all Steemit is. Except that it also rewards money. Marketing requires simplicity. You need to be able to describe what you're trying to sell in a few sentences. Unlike Bitcoin, you can describe Steemit in a few sentences.

Most people aren't even aware of the existence of crypto. But they know about social media. Therefore, it is incredibly easy for Steemit to spread to the masses.

It is very addicting too, like cocaine or crystal meth. But with only positive side-effects. Well, it makes you a bit less productive but that's about it.

Cocaine. Or is it Steemit? Can't tell the difference especially with that dollar bill.*

Viral

In the past few weeks, Steemit has gone viral to such a point that they had to disable sign-ups to handle all the load. But now that the registrations are enabled, I expect to see an influx in new users. They may be spammers, and they may be someones that can contribute to the platform and the community. Steemit needed to control the amount of spam and they are doing exactly that in the upcoming release on Tuesday.

Let's look at some statistics.

Steemit.com's alexa rank has increased significantly in the past few weeks. It's global alexa rank is 28,883 up from 6,243,607. In the US alone, it's alexa rank is 12,644. That's big considering that not everybody knew about this site prior to July.

According to the worthofweb.com, Steemit.com is currently valued at $1,319,200. It gets 9 million page-views per month and 58,174 visits per day. It's worthofweb rank is VI: Centurion.

It has overtook Ripple and Litecoin to become the third-most valuable crypto behind Ethereum and Bitcoin. It has crossed Ethereum's transactions per day and is tailing Bitcoin in the same regard. All of this in past few weeks.

All in all, Steemit is doing pretty well for itself considering it has only gained attention of the crypto-community recently.

Where to next?

Steemit has skyrocketed so hard that it's basically on the moon now. But that is not the end. It is just the beginning.

Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.

Steemit still has a long journey ahead of us before it can take on Bitcoin. Sure the journey will be full of bumps and falls but that is what success demands.

Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.

Steemit has a promising future, but only time will tell. The real test the Steemit has to face is the test of time. Then again, it's the biggest test that we all have to face, is it not?

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It felt pretty good to write this article. It was a product of a few days of brain-storming and writing. I'm glad that it turned out great. I hope you enjoyed this article as much as I did writing it.

Hope you had fun. Good night, and good luck.

#life #steemit #culture #cryptocurrency #environment #bitcoin #analysis #commentary