I don't understand the vote buying or self-voting either. Would vote buying be acceptable in the real world? Were you not sure if you approved of your own post until after you posted it? I didn't put as much stock in game theory before I came to steemit because I didn't think your average person was really that reductionist and greedy. Maybe it is just a small percentage of bad actors and maybe I've insulated myself from 'the real world', but the arguments I've seen, mainly 'other people do it, so it's ok' don't fly with me. I try to vote for quality posts and quality videos, sometimes ones I don't even personally care for but think add value to the site and life in general.
I really want this experiment to work. The way it has been unfolding is shocking and educational at times. I have deleted most of my outrage replies before sending them and refrained from downvoting because I try to ask myself, 'Does this add value?'before making a move. I think that sort of self-censorship is good because hopefully it is changing my focus to positive, long-term thinking and helping to keep negativity from propagating on the platform, but it still bothers me that people get ahead with low quality by trickery and deceit. I'm not a money guy or someone who wants a following, but I value knowledge, truth, and integrity and want to see those values prevail. It sucks that low quality uses those sorts of tactics, but I don't see it as a reason to employ those tactics too. I'm just going to try to do my part to promote quality and let the chips fall where they may.
Is @grumpycat the solution? Do I believe in a god-mode character righting the wrongs? I don't know. I think that probably just proves my naivety, but I also think being a dirtbag to get money is naive too. Ultimately, they could bankrupt the forum by making it as corrupt and low quality as the institutions in the real world we're here to outshine. In the intermediate, @grumpycat may be necessary to protect the seed of hope we have here before it is able to blossom on its own.
Also, it's tough to decide whether the problem is the gamers or the game. I would never even imagine a thing like a voting bot, but to some people it seems like an obvious necessity. In that respect, steemit and any other decentralized platform is just going to be a microcosm of any other human market or system. Maybe the human condition guarantees that in the aggregate we can't have nice things because of relativism. Maybe I'm deluded in thinking this site can be an idealized version of a public house. I mean, @dan has the same sort of delusions, and he left.
For now I'm going to stay and continue to see how things unfold and @grumpycat gets my stamp of approval.