I'm not against the effort but in the real world the game will always be rigged because of "voting rings" that contain actual people.
I work with 4 other people who are on HN and we added it up a few weeks back and found we represent over 7,000 karma points. So we could easily get something on the front page if we colluded to do so. We specifically make an effort not to but I'm sure many (http://bit.ly/aUKFwc) aren't as honest.
To me that's no different than having bots do it for you.
The problem is poorly phrased. As you point out, it has nothing to do with bots or humans. There's still benefit to inhibiting rings of users (real or otherwise) that frequently vote together. Maybe some kind of diminishing returns?
I work with 4 other people who are on HN and we added it up a few weeks back and found we represent over 7,000 karma points. So we could easily get something on the front page if we colluded to do so. We specifically make an effort not to but I'm sure many (http://bit.ly/aUKFwc) aren't as honest.
To me that's no different than having bots do it for you.