IMO, the popularity metrics are the cause of the Lord of the Flies dynamics you so often see on Reddit, X, etc. Popularity metrics facilitate popularity contes

IMO, the popularity metrics are the cause of the Lord of the Flies dynamics you so often see on Reddit, X, etc. Popularity metrics facilitate popularity contests. And popularity metrics facilitate mob rule. Lone voices of dissent get steamrolled. Reddit is especially bad, IMO. It's almost like it was designed as a confirmation bias engine. The frustrating part is that voting systems also solve a genuine quality-filtering problem. HN does a good job of balancing the costs and benefits, but I suspect there are other viable approaches.