No, no. I was drawing a parallel between downvotes (a tool) and social media (another, larger tool that encompasses the smaller tool of downvoting), and I was saying that downvoting is a neutral or even generally positive tool, and not inherently bad. My point was that you can take any neutral thing (such as social media or even humanity more broadly) and see how it is often weaponized against minorities, but that doesn’t mean that the thing itself is inherently bad – it just means that, in those contexts where it is being weaponized against minorities, it is being used incorrectly or in a bad way. Does that make sense?

Turning off downvotes can meet some needs, but it also fails to meet other needs. For example, a racist cannot downvote a person of color, but it’s also then the case that the person of color cannot downvote the racist. Pros and cons. Expressing disapproval of a post or comment is not an inherently bad thing at all, it really depends on the context of the situation.

But anything can be weaponized against minorities. You could say that we should ban social media, or even kill off humanity entirely, because it tends to be weaponized against minorities. The solutions are not to get rid of the tools themselves, but rather to use the tools correctly as much as possible.

Downvoted. This is a low-effort, low-quality post. Sometimes downvoting can serve a positive purpose, such as keeping junk out of our feeds that wastes everyone’s time, as can be seen here.

I think you make a valid point, in the sense that, ideally, there would be some way for objectively anti-social and toxic content to be removed by the force of popular opinion. However, the trouble is that we can’t trust anyone in particular to be the flawless arbiter of such a standard. Mods do their best, or do what they like, but they can be wrong, power-tripping, or simply confused, etc. The masses or people in general also do their best, or do what they like, but likewise can be wrong, power-tripping, or simply confused, etc. Popular opinion cannot always be counted on to go the right way. There are many situations where what is popular is actually deeply disturbed and irrational. The best that we can do in the current social media landscape, is to choose the mods that we trust the most, or at least distrust the least, join their instances, rely on them to do the basics of keeping garbage out of our feeds, and report or block whatever remains that they don’t catch by the time we see it.

I personally chose to block UniversalMonk after checking out their profile just now, because apparently this person thinks that Luigi Mangione is a scumbag. Maybe there’s a wave of additional UniversalMonks that I will find over time, and I can block those as well. Is it tedious? Sure. But it’s not like I’ve found an instance that is both capable and willing to handle that for me, so it becomes my job.

Others in this thread have made valid points as well, as to why using downvotes as a form of control isn’t a good idea.

I personally think that using downvotes to mean “disagree” is not necessarily a misuse or abuse of downvoting. But it often is. It’s complicated.

I was advised by a group therapist, when having “cold feet” about commitment in a relationship, to just think about how bad the alternative might be. She had a friend who had reservations about getting married, and then thought not getting married would be stressful too, so she went ahead with the marriage. It was terrible advice, especially from a therapist providing guidance for some very troubled people. The only good reason to commit to a relationship is because you really want it, not because you’re afraid of what will happen otherwise!

I’m sorry this happened to you! Yes, I think workouts need not be painful. It’s best to ease into it and ramp up according to what’s comfortable until you hit your goal, rather than trying to make drastic changes real fast. It would be good if more people were aware of this. I’m sorry you had to learn the hard way!

You probably don’t actually have NPD (although there’s a small chance you do). The majority of diagnoses of personality disorders and mental health disorders are not realistic, but just labels given by a deeply disturbed medical system that looks at the tremendous pain caused by bad social and economic conditions and blames the person as being “ill” instead of identifying problems in their environment. The world we live in is rampant with narcissism – if you happen to personally reflect that sometimes, that makes you more normal than abnormal.

I’m guessing your actual problem is that you’re stressed, for reasons such as: an unhealthy upbringing, a shitty job, poor educational resources, lack of money, low-quality healthcare, lack of supportive relationships, uncomfortable living arrangements, etc. – take your pick and think about what’s relevant to you. It is a crazy fucking world we live in, and just in order to get by, people often adopt narcissistic and selfish ways of thinking and acting even if that is not how they feel in their heart of hearts.

I don’t know what age you are either (and I’m not asking you to tell me), but the younger you are, the more likely you are to get caught up in misleading notions that you’re crazy because people are giving you shit information. Just work on being healthy and improving your life and treating others with respect. You do not need a label, nor do you need to worry about what people will think of you because of said label. Fuck labels. You’re a human being. Doctors may be able to give useful information about illnesses with evident physical markers such as diabetes or multiple sclerosis, but in most cases, they have no business talking about what’s in your head.