>or just coincidence that they see the world very differently from me and therefore just happen to strongly disagree with many things I say

But they are not supposed to down vote for strongly disagreeing. Down vote means "this person is not contributing to the discussion". Down vote is supposed to discourage the person from doing what ever they did again. So what message does the current environment send? Think like everyone else or you're not welcome here? Seems like exactly the opposite of what a start up oriented site would want.