how anyone is silenced by downvotes

My comment:

I don’t think downvotes should be a thing at all tbh. Just silences anyone discussion.

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you have no idea if those people who downvoted were ever going to respond

That’s not what I said:

People have a tendency to … dismiss any opinion … with -1 votes or less instead of properly responding to it

People dismiss it either because it has low visibility since it’s downvoted so people wouldn’t see it, or because of our tendency for big numbers.

Taking out downvotes would allow for less popular opinions (that do not break rules by being hateful or spam; you’d report it in those cases) to have higher visibility and discussion since the majority can’t just downvote it, just because they slightly disagree with it or are biased against it, and silence discussion.

People who do agree would also be able to show it through upvotes, and it wouldn’t be eaten by the downvotes.

Thanks for your comments actually. Got me to think about the benefits more clearly. Discussions are great.