I am fully aware of the circle jerk, and in fact, HF19 was made because of people's bubbling rage against this injustice. Because of the architecture of an open, distributed system like Steem, with no moderators, and the difficulty of identifying sock puppets, there is no intention to address this issue because it is outside of the scope.
It is completely natural for people to cluster into affinity groups, and indeed, the necessary corollary of this, of the conflict between different groups, is precisely what is taking place between you and me now. Both dynamics have their place in the process of developing a community, and establishing the rules and customs in that community.
So, maybe now I can follow your track of thinking and say you were misleading in your answer about friends naturally voting up each other because you didn't mention it.
I didn't think it was necessary to repeat myself. In the original post above, I pretty much lay out everything, if you read it right through. In fact, there has not been an argument or point that I am aware that I didn't already address in the original post that you have raised.
That's a dare, on my part, for you to find a hole in my logic. I want you to do it because I don't want my logic to be faulty. The pushback against this idea means that I have also plenty of self doubt but as I continue to develop the complex of reasons why this is the right way to look at it. Some people have indeed already hurled ad hominem attacks against me, and anyone who wantonly does this does not deserve a civilised debate: they deserve to be ignored.