https://i.ibb.co/5jqBfXP/Alexander-cuts-the-Gordian-Knot.jpg

Based on a user’s stake, the code allows for both downvoting and drawing rewards from the pool. Now If you own a ridiculous amount of steem power, then with your vote you can assign a super fun amount of rewards to your post. Dependent on the quality of the content you rewarded, people may or may not see this as reward pool rape and downvote it. If they downvote it, you may or may not see that as theft. The main point here is the code considers both acts as legitimate no matter where they fall on the human morality scale. To deny that one exists is to deny that the other exists. If flagging cannot be theft because seven days, then the reward pool cannot get raped because it’s done with legitimate stakeholder power. If we are honest with ourselves: either neither exists -or- they both do. According to the code, neither exist. If we look to our morality, either or both, exist. Some people will pooh-pooh flags, and this has something to do with whether they have the steem power or influence to defend against it. Whereas others might be more dismissive of reward pool rape. That is where I fall on the morality scale. The reason I think this way is that if I put myself in the shoes of a steem investor, then why would I invest if I can’t use my steem to capitalize off of the blockchain? I think many people buy into steem so they can have those larger votes and therefore draw more value from the pool than a non-investor can. From the perspective of a content creator and consumer, the only thing a larger vote does is to allow one to reward or punish posts to a greater degree. If you reward your posts too much, someone might call you a god-damned reward pool rapist. If you downvote someone’s content, somebody will call you a thief. From the perspective of one who looks at the blockchain from within the realm of social media only, my best advice for escaping this Gordian Knot is to not invest. This is because no matter what you do, you’ll most likely get criticized for how you wield your investment. If that’s the case, why even bother, you’ll have a poor experience and get roped into meaningless drama. You could let your money sit in a bank and collect an APY hassle-free. From a financial perspective, one could always buy steem to delegate to one of the many businesses on the blockchain. For example, many blockchain games offer micro-transactions. These games generate wealth for investors because games with micro-transactions exploit people’s tendency to get sucked into addictive behaviors. Even though I might be talking with a smarmy tone on this, I’m not one to judge, because I too, or #metoo if you will, am addicted to one of these games. But are these businesses more moral or virtuous than something like a bid-bot business? I don’t have the slightest clue and wonder if the question is even worthy of asking. Games have a utility, that is to entertain. Bit bots also have a utility, and that is to allow people to get noticed via advertising. Somehow we’ve gotten to this weird and tenuous place in the world where people virtue signal and try to sanction or cause harm to each other for what they did or didn’t do, because nobody can seem to mind their own business. It used to be we lived in a world where everyone was trying to do whatever they could to make a buck. And so long as this action wasn’t causing people direct harm, it was acceptable. I look at the blockchain economy as I do the world economy. People will do what they do to make a profit. Are some people’s profits ridiculously high, yes, but that is the nature of the game. Is it my job to police these people, so that they do not earn too much? Would it make the world a better place? I don’t think so. But what say you, what is the right thing to do? Is a Robin Hoodesque massive downvote on an overly rewarded post tantamount to a dusty upvote for everyone else? If so, how much good does it do, and is it worth it in the long run? Now I know we could argue that if everyone does this, “everything will be so much better” and this is what hard fork 21 tries to do, it tries to get people caught up in the drama of manipulating people’s fiscal behavior through the punishment end of operant conditioning. And although punishment may work well with children, it is not received well among adults. So despite the culture that is being pushed from the top down, I think we need to ask ourselves what kind of ecosystem we want on the platform. Are we pushing for the social justice warrior type of atmosphere in trying to punish people for what they say, or how they reward themselves with their stake? Should we never rest until there is parity in all things, or is that and has it always been a pipe dream? I’m sure folks smarter than I will figure this out one day.

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-------------- ^{_The image above is public domain via_ [_Wikipedia._](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordian_Knot#/media/File:Alexander_cuts_the_Gordian_Knot.jpg)}