Right but if enough people find it interesting it finds its way to the front page. I think it makes sense in the context of saying that if X people like this, more than X other people will probably like it too. And that's the point - find stuff that the audience likes.

I think that's pretty healthy. It means that Paul Graham gets an article to the front page one day, and the next day a rebuttal to that article goes up right next to it. Doesn't matter if all the people who agree with one want to downvote the other - as long as it's good, we all get a chance to judge for ourselves.