The prime example that the merit system is a joke and serves no purpose is the fact JayJuanGee has a high level of merit.  None of those systems promote any honest or factual level of discourse.  All it is is someone posts "HURRR Bitcoin will go to $5 trillion each by tomorrow" then waves of mindless scammers give him +merit.  Things like merit, flags, and everything else are then nothing more than gauging who is most heavily pump and dump shilling.  This is why people like Trollgoossens have high merit as well, for doing nothing more than pump and dump shilling.