I Downvoted Because
Good lord.<p>You know, a lot of downvotes are rooted in &quot;You and I come from vastly different backgrounds and will probably never see eye to eye&quot; and it&#x27;s a giant, giant, humongous, painful can of worms to dig around in that. A downvote (or ten) is the least painful way to let very different people &quot;say&quot; things like &quot;Wow. I think you are stupid because I&#x27;m a racist&#x2F;misogynist&#x2F;classist asshole and the way you said it tells me you are the wrong color&#x2F;a woman&#x2F;poor.&quot; or &quot;I&#x27;m from a different country or culture or religion and, good, god, there is so much baked in implicit assumptions that it would take weeks, months or years to sort out why we don&#x27;t agree.&quot;<p>I mean, if you participate regularly and remain civil, some of that may get sorted over time. But it&#x27;s not going to get sorted <i>today</i> because you submitted the downvote equivalent of a &quot;bug report.&quot;<p>Downvotes are annoying. And they are often kind of like that saying about democracy: &quot;the worst thing ever....except for all the other options.&quot;<p>(Edit: I wish there were a word that meant simultaneously misogynist and&#x2F;or misandrist. I don&#x27;t mean to suggest it&#x27;s just &quot;men hating on women.&quot; (if only because plenty of women hate on other women) I just have been up all night and I&#x27;m failing to find the elegant way to say that in a more gender neutral or even-handed way. Sorry &#x27;bout that.)