Well, karma is not a perfect tool. It is good at keeping good stuff above zero and bad stuff below zero, by distributed effort. It is not good at quantifying how good or how bad the stuff is.
It is a good tool for removing homeopathy and ugly kittens. Without it, we would probably have more of those. So despite all the disadvantages, I want the karma system to stay. Until perhaps we invent something better.
I think we currently don’t have a formal tool for measuring “important” as a thing separate from “interesting” or “pleasant to read”. The best you can get is someone quoting you approvingly.
Tangential, but my immediate reaction to your example was “ugly kitten? All kittens are cute!”, so I searched specifically for “ugly kitten” on Google and it turns out that you were right! There are a lot of ugly kittens even though I never saw them! This probably says something about society..
Well, karma is not a perfect tool. It is good at keeping good stuff above zero and bad stuff below zero, by distributed effort. It is not good at quantifying how good or how bad the stuff is.
Solving alignment = positive karma. Cute kitten = positive karma. Ugly kitten = negative karma. Promoting homeopathy = negative karma.
It is a good tool for removing homeopathy and ugly kittens. Without it, we would probably have more of those. So despite all the disadvantages, I want the karma system to stay. Until perhaps we invent something better.
I think we currently don’t have a formal tool for measuring “important” as a thing separate from “interesting” or “pleasant to read”. The best you can get is someone quoting you approvingly.
Tangential, but my immediate reaction to your example was “ugly kitten? All kittens are cute!”, so I searched specifically for “ugly kitten” on Google and it turns out that you were right! There are a lot of ugly kittens even though I never saw them! This probably says something about society..