Some arenas devolve into full-blown contests of self-interest and strategic game-playing. Politics, stock markets are pretty important so it's not too surprisin

Some arenas devolve into full-blown contests of self-interest and strategic game-playing. Politics, stock markets are pretty important so it's not too surprising that it happens. But as humans we don't spend all our lives trying to mislead others and scraping for small edges. People contribute to this forum, and contribute to open source, and vote, and contribute to their communities. We are tribal, and hierarchical, and violent, but we are above all social. Somehow we figure out social structures that work, that help people arrive at more or less objective truths and common ground. Obviously, if a lot of people want to tear everything down, democracy and most social activities don't work. In the words of Madison "To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea." Cooperative social activities only work to the extent people believe the social institutions that coordinate them are legitimate. People only devote their lives to build, and risk their lives to defend, organizations and systems they see as legitimate. HN has a pervasive community ethic and ‘pay it forward’ karma and reputation ecosystem that rewards people for sharing quality and burying fake news and garbage. It's also a lot of work from dang and the HN team. The question HNers can be asking, is there a market design and technical affordances that can restore legitimacy to news? Tools to let people signal quality and build credibility and fight the noise machines? Or is the current market design the best we can do, and are we going to constantly see successful hijacks from all sides?