Meaningless Downvotes And Meaningless Suffering
I consider random, meaningless downvotes as Steemit's bad fruits. They trigger Adrenaline, Cortisol & Norepinephrine the three major stress chemical messengers in the body. Needlessly.
You're gonna need fire, water, air, and salt placed in a circle and then summon a spirit to decipher for you as to what it really means when somebody has, without any apparent reason, downvoted a harmless post.
Jokes apart, downvote is not just a negative vote. Because it has its negative psychological implication as well. The psychological toll will differ from case to case (or from person to person). To wrongly assume a neutrality of its affective valence is to overlook its latent, lurking evil.
The body keeps the score:
Steemit as a growing, vibrant community might have to have someone who gives answers on all things downvote. Why don't we have a go-to-person or team or discord or telegram or a dedicated Steemit community, to talk all things downvote? To give answers to those in need of answers as to why the trauma-giving downvotes have visited upon them, when downvotes happen?
The Steemit community, "Steemit Feedback" — which is "open for communities and steemians to report bugs, ask questions, and submit feedback when using steemit.com" — is still too broad, and that the downvote niche deserves its own separate and dedicated, go-to steemit community experts.
Normal Steemit users (at a glance) UNDERSTAND this:
Normal Steemit users are PUZZLED (even after a five-minute-long deep thinking) by this:
And this:
You can't expect the average Steemit user to be a mind-reader. So, in a healthy world, downvotes should be accompanied by an explanation or some kind of an alert message. Or at the very least, when asked, an answer must be given. The communication serves two purposes: 1) the recipient of the negative vote will learn and grow, and 2) the bystanders will also learn and grow. otherwise, in the absence of any explanatory alert message, the downvote is amoral.
This comment
...is a generous, free advertisement for "one size fits all"-a priori. And it assumes the infallibility of a bot. The author could have had been more detailed: in order to be more helpful to those of us earthlings who don't do professional mind-reading.
Barring the shockingly bad actors, the normal Steemit users, at least a good portion of them, may not know what war crime they have committed to merit a downvote, on receiving one.
He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how. — Friedrich Nietzsche
Human beings are all about 1) living in the known world, 2) exploring a new world previously unknown to oneself, and facing and overcoming life's challenges in the journey and in the forward movements. We stumble. Here and there. Fallible we all are. Learners we all are. And we all need a priest or guide. We all need a savior figure. We all need a chance to learn and grow. We all need a Steemit priest to teach us (to explain to us) on all things downvote: We all need a Steemit temple that we can go to, to take our prayers to, to ward off the evil of downvote.
We want people to fall in love with Steemit; but when people come, we only scare them off: downvoting here and there without an explanation. When somebody falls in love with and starts using Steemit, should we--in an attempt to retain them--downvote them so out of the blue without any apparent cause? And then refused to answer as to why they'd been downvoted?
Some Steemit users have been living for a while in the "explored territory," so to speak; however, understandably, just as they discovered an "unexplored territory" or rather that they'd been downvoted for no apparent reason, they would ask and want to ask WHY. Human beings hunger for answers and for making sense of the world one lives in. We all thirst for making sense of the story we live in. And when we found a psychologically unexplored territory and found oneself amidst its chaos, our anxiety level goes up. And we start asking WHY, WHY, WHY things appeared cryptic, vindictive, and dramatic. to ask WHY is to stop assuming omniscience. To start asking WHY is to attempt at turning the unknown into a known territory. And to explain things, lovingly, to someone is to play the role of a priest or healer. downvoted Steemit users are not asking WHY thunder and lightning occur in the sky. They are simply asking WHY they have been downvoted without any apparent reason.
When a downvote is illegitimate, it's akin to the psychology of killing with a remotely piloted aircraft. Dave Grossman warns that 1) people have continually moved farther and farther away from the point of physical engagement — when it comes to hurting people — from the ancients to the present. And that this resulted in 2) physical and emotional distancing between the attackers and their targets. And that the distancing, in terms of physical distance and emotional distance, has 3) removed the natural barrier to hurting others
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you. — Friedrich Nietzsche
I have read somewhere of a story of a rape victim suffering from childhood trauma. Her trauma has its many weird manifestations. While dating with a charming guy whom she considered a nice catch, her childhood trauma manifested in the form of attacking the guy during an intimate session. the guy left her. She, on her part, narrated the event to a researcher on trauma. She said that she herself didn't know what transpired her to attack her "nice catch" and made him flee from her to safety. The guy didn't know why she attacked her, and she herself didn't know why she attacked him. the case was resolved by an expert. That's why we need a niche expert on every niche. In the same token, lest we inadvertently create a bad egregore, Steemit community may need a community support to raise questions on all things downvote.
References on health:
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, by Bessel van der Kolk