[19eightyfour]

Oh no I didn't mean it in a retaliatory sense specifically, I meant it like everyone having the option to do it, or no one except the few ( the mods? the ones who have objective standards ) having the options.

I meant like they can downvote me, and I can't downvote them, or anyone, at any time, because I don't have that whatever the requirement is ( mod level, karma level ) yet...so it's like this asymmetry that doesn't exist in the real world.

I don't feel any restriction talking to any human in real life. Nothing they can do to me I can't do back to them. So it's balanced. I'm safe. We're equal. I understand other people may feel differently, this is how I feel.

But on HN, I can't downvote. So there's this asymmetry. To me, it's a perversion. Because in the real world, only the State has a monopoly on legal violence. Only the state can use violence, legally. But on HN, downvotes don't only come from mods or police, they come from whoever has accrued sufficient karma -- and I don't equate this with a sort of objective, regulated, principle-based State level power.

So the state has a (correct, IMO) asymmetric monopoly on legal violence and can dish it out to people as it sees fit, but people cannot do the same, without either expecting to get the same in self-defense, or getting consequences from the state. But on HN, any random Jo with enough karma has the analogous asymmetry power.

That's what I meant. It's not necessarily about retaliating, it's about having that option on the table, rather than some people having it and others not having it.

Or no one having it except the State ( the mods, I guess ).