It IS BS,  I've made a lot on here and I've Earned It!  Invested a lot too, but I am not so much a "content creator" as providing a maker's space, and support for the newby makers  ;)

>The answer to shit posters is to break out your flag.

Someone put that in the FAQ somewhere.

Huge problem on Steem is that people are too afraid to use the flag. It is a very sadly underutilised resource

No one is telling anyone what to do with their stake. What critics are doing is pointing out the effect they think delegating to bots in such a high percentage will have on the platform and is having right now. 
You may think bots are doing a great thing to Steem, others do not agree. Those that do not agree are in majority number and minority in stake. 
Its basically a futility crusade at this point since none of us critics can do anything about it but get a flag here and there for speaking up and watch Steem crumble in the silence of our gray blog page.

It was a very wise choice of yours not to debate me if you believe - on any level whatsoever - that any three of those points have any legitimacy in this context.

I don't think you need me to tell you why they are entirely nonsensical, but for any readers who are buying this bullshit, allow me to briefly explain;

> Applause! What right does someone have to tell a stakeholder what to do with their stake? (none)

If @ned posted speaking of his desire to use steem funds to hire assassins to murder every first born child in the city of shanghai- would you feel that you have the right to object to that?

You should, because what he would be attempting to use his stake for is immoral and has adverse consequences for many. As does vote selling.

> How dare someone decide who can purchase a product that is for sale?

If  someone tried to sell you a recently snatched toddler, who the fuck are you to dare decide whether that person should be able to sell that child or not?

> The product is the Voting Power which is derived from the stake.

No. The product is the stake(and also the content). The voting power is a function of the stake, and therefore it is simply a use of the product. Just as murder is one potential (but not ideal) use of a gun (product)  so too is the selling of votes an adverse use of the stake (product).

To any who are still not clear on this. The daily reward pool (not voting power) is what is really the issue here. The reward pool is  - funnily enough - for distributing rewards. Are rewards something that you sell? No. That would be a purchase. Therefore, the reward pool is for rewarding.

The voting power in this example works as the fruit of the trees does. It is a finite - yet self perpetuating - resource, that was intended for those in the world to use as sustenance.  In terms of Steemit, it was intended to reward both the best content creators, and the best curators, to keep them coming back.

The trees, however, have now been seized, and now the fruit that everyone was using to sustain their selves is for sale. The reward pool is being auctioned off, and there's no selling that as acceptable from  my perspective. Not after reading some of the pro-bidbot arguments on this post. I realise now that you're all either lying very blatantly to everyone else, or lying unwittingly to yourselves.

To anyone reading this who has been on Steemit for a while and made 10,000+ STEEM, and haven't had to sell any of it to survive, so you still have it all, and can sell it when steem goes to $100... Let me ask you something;

#### How much fucking money do you have to earn before you can afford to buy a spine? You have made plenty. You can't have it stolen from you now. A flag doesn't impact your wallet. So why the fuck do you still have your tongue up someone's arse when you've got more than enough money to live on your feet? Seriously, think about what the fuck you are doing. They might have gammafied the site in order to pit us against one another, but this is not a fucking game,  and the "losers" in this very real situation, they starve. So perhaps we ought to start trying to be on the same fucking team.

>Applause! What right does someone have to tell a stakeholder what to do with their stake?
(none)

So what is downvoting and upvoting and what do you think Dan had in mind  when he said that they were working on a moderation system apart from Curation? 

What right? Every right, and some we are patiently waiting for still. 

>How dare someone decide who can purchase a product that is for sale?

Without thinking twice about it,  that's how. Why should they is the real question?  Because they don't stand for  acts that endanger isolationist positions on a Social Network, voturbation is a product that pollutes and renders the community toxic. 

>The product is the Voting Power which is derived from the stake.

I'd nuance it more to a service than a product but regardless, the service is abuse of a function, a function that is rendered useless by the abuse. 

>The answer to shit posters is to break out your flag.

This was never about shit posters,  but then again you'll find out what this was about when moderation is the main topic,  and the day when all shit people who support isolationist self voting in any of its forms, their sphincters will make the snapping closed sound in global unison.

Obviously anyone can do with their stake what they want. But when stake is only used to make profit and not reward actual content, then steem loses what makes it unique and it will be just another inflationary coin. [post](https://steemit.com/steem/@frdem3dot0/selfvotes-circlejerks-and-steem)

I posted some posts not on this subject!!
I hope you take a few minutes to look at them.

I agree, if you don't like when someone used bid bots, just power up a ton of Steem and downvote them if you disagree with the rewards. 
It seems most of the people who complain about this are stuck on a social media site with limited control. The Steem blockchain was designed to run on an automated system that corrects its own problems, most of the problems have a solution.
-If you think the interface on Steemit is shitty and you think the Trending and Hot pages are broken, you can program your own Decentralized App like Busy.org or Zappl and make your own Trending + Hot algorithm and interface.
-If you think someone shouldn't earn that much or be able to use bid bots, go ahead and downvote but it wont affect their payout much unless you have a large enough stake of the network.

I'm not disagreeing with you Silent, not really... but the problem is not "the evil whales". I guess I would accept the idea of "the evil whales" more if I saw no dolphin or minnow delegating to bots and participating of the bid-bot buying too.

This reminds me a bit of how prohibition "worked". If we have a culture that wants it, then we can't effectively ban it, not really, we just create black markets for it.

Delusion Examples.-
"Yes, the solution to people smoking pot is that we make pot illegal and they will stop smoking the devils lettuce for sure"

"Yes, the solution to drunk driving is that we put them in jail if we catch them, and then nobody is ever going to drive drunk ever again"

Hence my approach on changing the culture, because unless the constituency is more educated on the subject, unless they understand balance, they will keep on working against their own self interest, due to a myopic short term mentality.

When you say Freedom Absolute is not good for us, maybe what you mean is the blurry lines (at times) where my freedom ends and someone else's rights start.  Which is to say, in the name of freedom, of self governance, I can't go to your house unannounced and eat everything in your fridge for example. Everyone would agree 100% with that statement, but if I felt compelled, entitled, within my rights to go to your house and eat all your food, the problem is with my mental state, my social ineptness, my failure to recognize the harm I'm causing... and not the fridge, not the food you left in there, and sure enough not the door that was easy to take down.

Hence my focus on educating the "young". the new users that come to the platform. We can't eliminate 100% abuse, because there will always be people that will feel entitled to break into your home and eat out of your fridge, but if enough people see that act as fringe, as the wrong behavior, then we can effectively create a cultural norm, or an equivalent of that in this platform.

Granted my example is ridiculous, but I'm attempting to make my point as clear as I can.

ps.- no food from any fridge has currently been stolen.

Maybe you are correct. My main point has been and will be that "code does not fix behavior with absolute accuracy". So when we arrive at the best solution, it has to be simply that... the best solution for the time being. 

Demonizing whales is stupid and counter productive to the dialogue we need to be having.