My obscure nostalgia moment from the N64 was the game Blast Corps, where you had to destroy buildings with a range of vehicles to clear a path for a nuclear missile on a truck. Getting the side-swiper to skid just right was so satisfying.
And of course Banjo-Kazooie, as much for the immersive soundtrack as the colourful worlds.
The problem is one of those evolutionary arms races, for a reason in your observation: if the points are useful in seeing the popularity of a given post or comment, then why not simply create a bunch of fake accounts to boost said post/comment (which is exactly what the OP was complaining about in the first place).
Individual karma ratings allow a weighting for upvotes so that, in theory, contributors who have a track record of constructive interaction can be the ones who have more influence on what rises to algorithmic prominence. But, of course, everything can be gamed, hence upvoting bot/sock puppet-rings like the one OP observed, or people buying accounts on reddit that had pre-established karma to let them astroturf away with impunity.
No idea what the long-term solution is, beyond the vague "build a community of known faces/names" which runs the opposite risk of turning cliquish or closed-off to new content. Or maybe abolishing all algorithms and just sorting everything by new (which brings us back to the ancient commenting issue of a whole chain of people saying "first!" rather than adding any meaningful observations).
I feel like there's a bit of cart-before-the-horse thinking here; as you acknowledge, a lot of it is organic. What makes a social site like this is the people, and specifically, the dynamic/active people who become the hubs of content or who are known characters - for instance, shittymorph (with their incredible talent for weaving fabrications before the inevitable twist) or poem_for_your_sprog who had a natural flair for both poetry and snark. Without individuals with personality, a place just becomes a noticeboard for the posting of memes or information, driven by algorithmic calculation rather than human spark. The downside is that one can never really create such a place from the ground up (hence the collapse of GooglePlus). It emerges over time from the cascading actions and interactions of diverse individuals who come and go over time.
We can certainly set standards and rules and metrics, but to actually ensure community survives and flourishes is an unknowable alchemy. Anyone can say "this will be our official meme format", but whether it takes off or is replaced by one throwaway line from a random person can only be known after the fact. All we can really do is post and interact and try to be the people who would live in a constructive community.
That's a good question, and probably too early to know for sure given all the shifts and changes currently happening. I'd say the platform could go either way, and probably will oscillate between the centralised/decentralised extremes over time.
On the one hand, the idea of it is obviously focused on decentralising and letting everyone have their own instances; on the other hand, people tend to cluster, we like to see and be seen, there's a thrill of pride in having people acknowledge and react to your words and a converse feeling of emptiness when you make a brilliant observation and no one is there to notice it. It's that desire to be part of a larger group that will inevitably lead to some centralised nodes in the fediverse and a bunch of ghost-instances floating around with one or two dedicated/lost individuals posting into the void. Within those busy nodes is where the same cycle of push-pull between "everyone gets a say no matter how unhinged" vs. "I'm in charge here so I decide who gets to speak" will play out.
Yes, on par I lean towards it being a good thing as publicly available information rather than shadowy mud-slinging. I had one post downvoted by someone who apparently has done nothing else before or since, which takes a bit of the sting out of it. There will probably be debates about it at some point, and probably the occasional tit-for-tat attacks around the place, but overall I think it does link a bit more identity to the person who does the up- or down-voting which creates more of a community feel instead of hiding behind total anonymity.
Absolutely, power has been agglomerating in larger and more consolidated bodies over the past few decades in the western world (notably right-wing parties fuelled by rage and the tech behemoths fuelled by cash), so it's a question of whether there'll be grass-roots energy pushing back to claim more power for people or whether it will end in a more forceful consolidation of power, either by oligarchy or would-be king (though the latter seems unlikely, as there's no one both charismatic enough and driven enough to claim the crown, but who knows).
Fingers crossed that the end result brings us a better world.
I wonder how much of this stems from that announcement a few weeks back that Wagner was going to be subordinated to the MoD? I haven't heard anything about it since it was announced (since my main source of information was that front page of the internet which just descended into its own civil war...) From vague recollection, Prigozhin said he was refusing to sign any contracts formalising such arrangements but Putin was backing the defence minister Shoigu on this one, to presumably try and rein in Wagner a bit and keep the game of musical chairs going as Putin's underlings all vied for influence without anyone being the clear heir apparent.
Looks like it may have backfired spectacularly if so, because Prigozhin had to have known it would have meant his end if he'd accepted Shoigu's control, and, as Sun-Tzu warns, a cornered animal (or army) with no way out will fight to the death.
I'm on the fence about it. On the one hand, the memes (at least the ones I've seen) were heavily influenced by the article in The Atlantic a week ago about orcas attacking yachts, tapping into the justified vein of resentment against out-of-touch billionaires - a label which can apply to three of those on board the Titan. The fact that these people paid $250,000 each to go down and sit near a shipwreck that they couldn't see (portholes would be a dangerous pressure-point) instead of using that money to actually benefit humanity in a time of widespread hardship is questionable at best - and what does the company they gave this money to spend those millions of dollars on? Obviously not quality-controlled safety tests.
On the other hand, there is the human dimension of the teenage son who was terrified about the trip and only went as a Father's Day bonding experience with his rich dad, or the French naval expert who was genuinely knowledgeable about the Titanic and had recovered many artifacts from the wreck over his life, which represents a genuine loss of expertise.
So I smile when I see the pic of orcas banging pans and saying "billionaires, it's safe to dive now!" But I don't go out of my way to find those memes or exult over the deaths.
I'd like a remake of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri with the option to not go into all the psychic stuff, just building on a new planet having to take into account rainfall for farming and such.
And apparently it is adult-themed and explores millennial angst and disenchantment, because reasons. Yes, really.