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Absolutely. It makes it better--usually. Karma, the way it is used here, kills off some normal parts of human conversation, such as the making friends-by-agree
by ericb 18y ago
Absolutely. It makes it better--usually.
Karma, the way it is used here, kills off some normal parts of human conversation, such as the making friends-by-agreeing and making mundane conversation part of socialization. From the perspective of a reader, though, those parts of conversation are very dull if I'm not the poster or respondee.
On the other hand, it encourages conformity. You "win" psychologically and karmically by saying things you know everyone will agree with, and you are rewarded with a tangible boost in your score. Granted, many of us try to upvote good arguments regardless, but there's a natural human tendency to regard opinions you disagree with as flawed.
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- jwesley 18y agoI agree it makes my comments better. It leads me to be more polite and try my best to explain my points so comment raters understand the argument. By the way, this is the only site that I comment on and come back multiple times to see how people respond. Smartest, most sincere community I have found.
- bmelton 18y agoIt's interesting that you feel that way. Perhaps it's me, but when I agree with something, I just kind of nod along quietly, and unless I am in some kind of uber-agreement trance do I usually respond. In fact (and I'll chalk it up to personality flaws) I usually only respond to disagree, or start an argument, or correct a wrong, or basically be objectionable (note, not trolling.) To answer the original question though, I'm motivated more by starting discussion than karma. I guess that I'm usually expecting to be downmodded when I post (no idea why I feel that way, except that I'm new here,) but if I get good discussion as a response, it's totally worth negative karma.