Thanks for reading through the post and giving your detailed insight,the first two comments were already spam, the guys did not even read what i was saying in the first place. they just upvoted and left an automated comment.
Now coming to the discussion i would like to state that i am an objectivist and reason is my guiding light. i have no problem if someone posts stupid things, i have problem when those stupid things are rewarded with a shitload of money and that stupid work gets advertised in trending section.
Communism is the kind of system where people compete for being lousy. i used communism word because similarly in our case, if people are earning thousands of dollars for posting shit then why the new users on steemit or even the existing one will want to create anything apart from shitposts like that.
Coming to your next point, i think conspiracy theories that you pointed as well as the control thing is merely an illusion whether on our part or government's part. governments and centralization have not fallen from sky, it is us who brought them upon ourselves, democracy was also thought of as giving power to the people but see for yourself how we did with that. you complaining about centralization in democracy already says a lot how well that system has worked.
so nothing is good or bad, good or bad is something we decide to make of it. i do not agree with perceiving AI or any new technology as threat and that blockchain people are trying to overtake AI, on the contrary i think a collaboration between both these two is imminent in future, that will be good or bad based how we decide to use it.
I agree with having lights does no harm and you can even add some fireworks, but if you decide to add a real bomb in your celebration after getting really high, then that might be too much, and i think i deserve to complain before dying from the bomb.
Further i would like to point that votes are not like disco lights at all, they were not meant to be sold and should never be. the vote value is counted as personal that is my issue.
only the curation money that a voter or SP Holder receives is his right and nothing more according to the design of steemit. thinking that having larger vote value entitles you a payout for voting is similar to a politician asking for bribe every time he decides to do some public service, and he will vote on any proposal in parliament provided he has been paid for voting.
The more you treat votes as disco lights, more you are going to project steemit as a system which has already been gamed by its users and days will be near when the dollars being showed up on posts mean no value, no matter how many digits get printed there.
finally i will say that you are free to swing you stick on the road with all your freedom but only to the point where someones nose starts.
People are always going to make money off stupid stuff. You can try your best to try to stop them from making money for stuff that you may disagree with or things that may or may not be worth any or some or a lot of money. But how do you even determine what is more valuable and what is less valuable? That debate can take us down the path of subjectivity, relativity, progressive liberal democratic leftism and so on and so forth. Like I said before, you can try to minimize the alleged spam and crap. But is that the kind of life you want to have? Do you want to focus on being a Steem cop so to speak or would it be better to focus on the posts you do like? You can and I do not totally disagree because I kind of want to do what you do here.
I agree and I may not like some or most of what trends.
The trending posts may or may not encourage newbies to shit out junk as well, to some extent, but that is life is it not and that is what freedoms and choices is all about? How many are encouraged to play basketball all day each day for years and years and maybe too often and too much on the hope they can be in the NBA someday? That is one example. There are many examples.
Your Worst Post Badge can be rewarded to Nothing Burger Trending Posts and people may be encouraged to see that they shouldn't upvote those posts perhaps and some people will agree with you with the badges you give them or whatever you want to call them or whatever you may do and do do perhaps. So, I am not totally against what you do and try to do. I am just questioning the foundation to it and it can work maybe to some extent. It can be tough to do it depending on how you do it but it could catch on and go more viral as more people follow you to create Nothing Burger Badges or Shift Holes.
Where and how do you draw the line between what is personal or not? In capitalism, in business, you make money and you do whatever you can maybe to make money at work through services and through goods, products, etc, and that may or may not include bots it seems. Bots are part of that economical system, right? If bots are part of that, then does that make it personal or too personal? And does it matter if it is personal or not? The voting is a money thing. And money may or may not be personal but does that matter? We find ways to make money. Does that mean we deserve the money? Who decides who deserves how much money? Do I decide how much you deserve? Do you decide how much money I can get or cannot get? All of this can and might become too subjective and relative through opinions and perspectives of our views on values and principles. People believe and value things differently and therefore see some things as more valuable and other things as less valuable. Look at the auctions. Look at the antique Road Shows. People can spend thousands of dollars on paintings and old spoons and old coins and all kinds of things. If I had an original Star Wars item from 1977 or around that time and somebody buys that item for $8,000 USD, you might want to give me a Stupid Badge maybe and you could say I do not serve thousands of dollars for one small item. Like maybe a metal Star Wars lunch box from the 1970's or something assuming there were some. And assuming you are not a big fan of Star Wars. But this is just an example of how something could be considered maybe priceless as a masterpiece or maybe not as art and beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
I believe in making a lot of money even on the top of other people. And that can appear to be scary and ugly and not fair. There might be a difference between taking bribes and asking for bribes. And it also may depend on how you define the word "Bribe" as well. I say, let it be. Each person is responsible for who they may or may not vote for. And if a thousand people vote for a Nothing Burger Post to make the payout $800 USD for example, then maybe it is the fault of each voter, each upvoter, rather than the fault of the Original Poster (OP), the poster, the author, the writer, the content creator. Yeah, maybe the creator sucks too but each user has some voting power and has the right to waste and to even vote up themselves as well. And yeah, people can vote up crap. That is what people do. They have the right to do that but can be wrong in it. I agree that they might be wrong in doing so but it is part of life and the pursuit of happiness and humans are lost in depravity as well. And George Soros is a scary man.
http://DrudgeReport.com
thanks joe for engaging with me, i gave a lot of thought to your points.
And To some extant i agree with what you are saying about judging people, that is the point that ii did not consider. thanks for helping me sort out a few things.
awesome