by your own words, since SEO is tied to appearing relevant, penalizing SEO peanlizes apparent relevancy.
and since SEO is abused for pageviews i.e. apparent relevancy, this penalizes SEO abuse.
and since SEO is abused for pageviews i.e. apparent relevancy, this penalizes SEO abuse.
The venn diagram between SEO and user satisfaction is gradually being compressed into a circle by Google as they improve their algorithm.
SEO is already basically human oriented now- anyone selling mumbo jumbo SEO magic now is a crank. It used to actually work quite well.