I wouldnt call it dumb overall. It definitely has good sides.

For example the karma race aka who posts a news first. That leads to communities being very up to date and discussion can happen very quickly.

Also it creates some incentive to post good comments, because its fun to know people value your opinion

But ofc there is also the other side that people post dumb memes and do reposts.

But acting like it has no worth at all is stupid as well imo