I think making curation rewards higher is a great idea. However, we must remember that a self-vote also gets rewarded depending on where it is placed, right?

I'm against requiring outside validation. I feel new users especially, should be able to use at least 1 vote on themselves per post; just like every other media site in the world. Self-worth is not selfishness unless you're making 10 posts a day and using all your votes only on yourself, then in my opinion it's not greed. Even for the greedy, I have empathy enough to know that some very sharky people in business are incredibly warm loving caregivers to who they taking care of-- their family for instance.