The reason for creating another account is to separate my active profile from the witness profile, which will be used for other automated activities in future. This also generates separation between my personal funds and any funds the witness generates through the minting of blocks. I want this witness to follow the example set by @lukestokes, delegating any SP it may generate back into projects that build up the Steemit community.
With regard to your claim of parasitism, neither of the platforms I believe in and pour myself into are 'parasitic':
Steemit is a platform that supports an exponentially growing community, able to govern and pay for itself. This platform enables untold things covering science, the arts, sharing of quality news, blogging, and even just unwinding and having a good laugh together. The content creators are rewarded, and the maintainers of the blockchain are too.
Gridcoin is a blockchain not dissimilar to the Steem blockchain, except it rewards contributions to open-source science made by donating compute power. The Gridcoin compute network has outgrown the most powerful supercomputers in the world, and is advancing many fields of research at a phenominal rate. Contributors work on literally everything from mapping the Milky Way to curing the Zika virus - with success! The researchers (classically referred to as 'miners') are rewarded, and the nodes securing the blockchain are too.
Clearly, on their own these platforms are beneficial to their communities, and humanity as a whole. Combining the two yields even further benefits. The Gridcoin community already has a strong presence on Steemit, and I witness daily crossover. Steemians become researchers in the Gridcoin network, and Gridcoin researchers become active members of Steemit. Both communities are extremely altruistic in their aims, and they are building each other up.