The issue stems from the constitution - and perhaps general understanding and present moment psyche of what an act of war constitutes or looks like - didn't have the foresight of understanding cyber/information warfare at the efficiencies and relative cost the internet provides.

It would have been great to foresee and design to counter what Facebook's structure exposed and allowed bad actors to take advantage of; it's not surprising however as Mark Zuckerberg. not understanding why the Harvard version of Facebook being developed was taking so long, thought he could do it faster: because they were actually working through privacy, security concerns, and such - whereas Mark's level of care was "break things fast" in comparison.

Enough of us have hopefully learned our lesson to swing back the yin-yang cycle and to manage and counterbalance the allowance a system like Facebook created, to prevent these overly efficient systems in spreading lies, propaganda so easily - without easing into censorship and the pitfalls inherent to silencing anyone.

My comment was bringing attention the current climate of Trump-Russia, and counter-balancing that with bringing up security services that protect the constitution of the US - which is the foundation of the parent comment. Perhaps you're aware of this yin-yang counter-balance in the system, however others reading may not have realized that? I am sure there is more people could take from it, though I'm not them, so it would be difficult for me to brainstorm it all - and I shouldn't be naive enough to think I or even a group of people would get all of the possibilities down if we tried to write a list of value a person could get from a comment (and strangely enough in the context vs. what value does a downvote create?).

You can call it complaining - I call it protest. Shallow downvotes allows people who don't even have the will nor willing to put in the effort for critical thought to turn a negative impulse/feeling into more than a single click of a downvote. Does that level impulsivity have any place in civil discourse? I don't believe so. If there truly isn't interest in a comment, and there were other more interesting/upvoted comments/discussion in a thread then they'd be upvoted and reach the top - or if something said is so "barbaric" then someone could comment with words to give context to the dislike vs. rewarding more impulsive, lazy people.

To continue, user emodendroket left a thoughtful response, to which I just replied.

It's an interesting premise that a comment is expected or desirable if it is to teach someone something. Perhaps part of that learning process is a comment leading to a reaction in someone - however requiring them to turn that reaction into a worded response that helps everyone reading (especially who they're replying to) understand the reasons why they've have that reaction (which they'd otherwise simply turn into a single click of a downvote, and then we're only giving our best guess based on the amount of effort we're willing to give in a moment - like you gave) - so then it's an opportunity for people learn, especially the person being responded to - instead of reacted to negatively, lazily; or to continue the opportunity for someone to learn, as your written response allowed me to respond and share my deeper views.

Also, my edits were are meant to continue to trigger people who are more impulsive - which of course has the very high probability of triggering a cascade of more impulsive downvotes. What better way to show the ridiculousness of impulsive downvoting than "holding a sign" that highlights the ridiculous of downvotes - that instigates more downvotes? I think it's a disservice that the HN community has downvotes, at least how they impact structure and visually as they do now; training people to be impulsive over learning/practicing non-reaction or towards contributing with words if the urge is strong enough - which will help others better formulate their own understanding and words they use, as a positive exercise - assuming everyone involved is working towards being civil, and as long as there is forgiveness, compassion, and the like within the community.

Whether my comment leads to a review of downvotes or an understanding/compassion from my perspective, I don't know, that depends on a lot of factors about the reader, the organization they are in and the acceptance/compassion/fluidity (vs. stagnancy/rigidness) of said organization and its people, etc.

Thank you for responding though - I deeply appreciate it.