Every single day I come across multiple topics that I like to write a post about for three reasons mainly.

1. Because I think it is an interesting topic for our HIVE community and adds value in one or the other way;
2. Because I believe it will invoke interaction and engagement;
3. Because I like to share my knowledge and (sometimes) also my thoughts and opinions with the side effect that it'll drive engagement.

For reasons I'll explain down the bottom of this post, I bring to your attention a few items I wasn't able to write a classy post about. Five in total, while the sixth is more personal of nature.

### Topics in this post
1. Dan Larimer's book "More Equal Animals" now available for free download.
2. "Digital nationalism: Understanding the role of digital media in the rise of ‘new’ nationalism", a recently published scientific article.
3. "Anti-intellectualism has little to do with intelligence", an article published in "Psychology Today" discussing the question "Are American's Just Stupid?"
4. No Brainer improvements by Governments: Seriously?
5. Micro Blogging service by our own Leo Finance team.
6. Why I wasn't able to write 'cool' posts last so many months?

<center>![](https://i.postimg.cc/0jT5HfFK/photo-2021-01-17-21-03-40.jpg)
<sub>somewhere in my neighbourhood</sub></center>

<center>![](https://i.postimg.cc/DyvFYQkJ/qsounds-divider-000gimp.png)</center>

### More Equal Animals
Dan Larimer, the visionaire of the decentralised society and tech guy that launched Bitshares, Steem and EOS, decided to offer his book "More Equal Animals: The Subtle Art of True Democracy" published back in 2019, as a free download. You can find the link in his recent HIVE blog post *["More Equal Animals Book Released"](https://hive.blog/democracy/@dan/more-equal-animals-book-released)*.

In case you are interested in the blog by Dan around the topic of this book, you can visit it *[here](https://moreequalanimals.com/about/)*.

<center>![](https://i.postimg.cc/DyvFYQkJ/qsounds-divider-000gimp.png)</center>

### Digital Nationalism
Last week I discovered a great article exploring the level of influence digital media in general, and social media in particular on the renewed rise of nationalism. I immediately wanted to read it, so I skipped lunch, and dropped a not so important meeting with a bunch of colleagues.

Two hours later, I felt much better informed. I also came to the realisation the perceptions we have regarding the influence of digital media and social media, cannot be more than just opinions.

This paper shows clearly, we can't have real answers yet, since science didn't focus on the complete set of parameters in most of the studies executed till date.

I planned to write a post about this, giving my thoughts on and all. Maybe I still do so. In case you cannot wait, or not interested in my thoughts and opinions, you can read the article *[here](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/nana.12685)*.

<center>![](https://i.postimg.cc/DyvFYQkJ/qsounds-divider-000gimp.png)</center>

### Anti-intellectualism has Little to do with Intelligence
In light of all recent events in the USA: the elections, the behaviour of the current US President Trump, the violence in and around the Capitol, the banning of Trump from all social media platforms; It becomes apparent the US doesn't show it's best 'face' to the rest of the world. I hear the question: "Are Americans Stupid?", quite often. An interesting article I read recently (*[here](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/our-humanity-naturally/202010/are-americans-just-stupid)*) discusses this question. The subtitle of this article is quite interesting: "Anti-intellectualism has little to do with intelligence".

<center>![](https://i.postimg.cc/DyvFYQkJ/qsounds-divider-000gimp.png)</center>

### No Brainer Improvements by Governments: Seriously?
A few days ago, just months before general elections will be held, the Dutch government stepped down from office. Something to do with some tax law implemented a decade or so ago, and the subsequent actions of our tax office, resulting in 10's of thousands of families and individuals falling victim.

I was baffled to read the five improvement points they came up with *([source](https://nos.nl/collectie/13855/artikel/2364532-goede-voornemens-toeslagensysteem-geheimhouding-en-racisme-aanpakken))*.

> 1. The effective results of a new law must be tested and reviewed one year after its introduction: "Does the policy work as intended?"
> 2. People must be supported more easily by the Tax Authorities by phone and on location.
> 3. People shall be supported at all times. If someone calls an authority with a question that is not for that authority, that person will be supported to be connected with the right authority: "There shall be no wrong doors".
> 4. Laws must include more "powers with discretion and hardship clauses". Translated: if a law is disproportionately hard on someone, (local) authorities must be allowed to make exceptions and "decide in favour of the citizen".
> 5. A payment scheme must be created if "well-intentioned citizens get behind on their payments". The fallen government also states: "A (small) mistake may never lead to the mark of a fraudster."

In my opinion, all of these improvements are no-brainers. Something that should've been in place in the first place. But apparently, they were not. I'll just make a generic remark since I don't want this topic to become dominant in this post.

I'm baffled none of these improvements was a topic for our lawmakers, authorities, institutions and politicians before. How algorithmic, mathematical and inhumane the Dutch government has become over the recent years, is beyond me! It seems we've managed to create a society equivalent to a fully automated factory. The robots are the lawmakers and implementers thereof. The humans are degraded to objects, those being created and controlled by said robots. No exceptions allowed. Those who fall outside the box, simply discarded. Unbelievable!

<center>![](https://i.postimg.cc/DyvFYQkJ/qsounds-divider-000gimp.png)</center>

### Micro Blogging service by the HIVE based Leo Finance team
Leo Finance is developing services with lightning speed! The other day information reached me the Leo team is planning to launch a microblogging service. Something similar to D.Buzz, but better in my opinion.

The Leo team will not mix this microblogging service with their own (longer form) blogging service. The Leo microblogging service will be totally separated: from user interface perspective as well as from the rewarding side of things. The upcoming service will get its own content and curation reward token and will get its own governance system. HIVE will be used to store the content, but the rules of the service will be implemented in a new decentralised side chain to HIVE.

The recent post/video (*[here](https://leofinance.io/@khaleelkazi/sjkvyxma)*) by @khaleelkazi, the founder of the Leo Finance community, gives a good insight in their upcoming plans. Nice to watch and it'll just cost you 20 minutes of your time only.

<center>![](https://i.postimg.cc/DyvFYQkJ/qsounds-divider-000gimp.png)</center>

### Why I wasn't able to write 'cool' posts last so many months
Due to my efforts last months to drive engagement in our community, I didn't have time left to even try to create a 'cool' post. That said, I had many really nice conversations going; I woke up more than a few users; I got others to use other HIVE ecosystem services; And along the way, I believe, I increased the fun levels in the comment section of our blog posts (very subjective statement 🙃).

Due to my love for music as well as my daily curation rounds in this side of HIVE, it was this section hat had to deal with my presence mainly. Not sure if the artists and fans liked it, but I did 🤣.

Though I'm not really competitive, all these efforts got me in the top ranks of "The Engagement League" week after week. For those who don't know this league, it's one where the engagement levels of subscribed HIVE users are monitored and reported. The league is managed by our own @abh12345.

Being competitive or not, I urge everybody who didn't sign up yet, to do so. It's great fun! Just leave a comment to the most recent Engagement League post (*[here](https://hive.blog/hive-167922/@abh12345/the-hive-engagement-league-9zajn#@edje/re-abh12345-2021117t10556373z)*), or send abh12345 a message on Discord. He'll add you to the list for sure 🙃 BTW, he is also a very nice and helpful guy, but that aside 😉.

<center>![](https://i.postimg.cc/bYF5sjr3/qsounds-divider-003gimp.png)</center>

<center>a HIVE original
<sub>all images by edje unless stated otherwise</sub>
<sub>**qsounds music & story library** | [A...K](https://peakd.com/musicdiscovery/@edje/your-bedside-companion-music-and-stories-part-1of2) | [L...Z](https://peakd.com/collection/@edje/your-bedside-companion-music-and-stories-part-2of2) |</sub>
<sub>hive curator for curie</sub></center>