It’s not like money because it’s not scarce. I could generate karma easily by saying the right things on new posts, if I ever felt the urge to, which I never will because it’s accreted anyway with no specific effort toward that goal. I’ve abandoned two other accounts to change my username and the reset to 0 karma didn’t affect me one bit; I’ve never tried giving away all of my savings, but it would probably change my day-to-day life a lot.
Karma is a numeric representation of how people reacted to your post, including the votes by people who don’t feel compelled to respond verbally—a substitute for the voting by attentive gazes or intentional ignoring that would serve the same purpose in meatspace. It’s body language for the internet.
It’s not like money because it’s not scarce. I could generate karma easily by saying the right things on new posts, if I ever felt the urge to, which I never will because it’s accreted anyway with no specific effort toward that goal. I’ve abandoned two other accounts to change my username and the reset to 0 karma didn’t affect me one bit; I’ve never tried giving away all of my savings, but it would probably change my day-to-day life a lot.
Karma is a numeric representation of how people reacted to your post, including the votes by people who don’t feel compelled to respond verbally—a substitute for the voting by attentive gazes or intentional ignoring that would serve the same purpose in meatspace. It’s body language for the internet.