[pickingdinner]

I have had previous accounts. https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=unabst

So now my parent comment is +5 and the comment you responded to is 0. Of course, though shall not mention downvotes is one of the cardinal rules of this club, so warranted again I am sure. Guilty as charged.

I appreciate the empathy. If more people would just lay out their counterarguments and objections, that would be discourse. But so long as downvotes are used the way they are, any discomforting or nonconforming facts will continue to simply be downvoted, which is no environment for challenging existing ideas. An environment for whatever these environments are.

And as long as any system relies on dictatorship and censorship, as all of these systems do, there will never be true intellectual discourse.

Yes, there needs to be a way to encourage responsible behavior. But that is not done through censorship. Not even through democracy really... as modern politics shows.

Then what would? Not a topic of discourse here. Sadly.