Yeah, I really hate this. I have some relatively unpopular opinions (e.g. I believe that porn, strip clubs, and prostitution are the core problem holding back equality of women) but trying to express these opinion penalises me. The downvotes eventually hide my opinion.
I don't know if there is a better model for human discourse on the internet. Maybe it's a good thing that unpopular opinions get silenced, unless they're phrased in very careful, smart-sounding ways. I have to go through great lengths to convince my voters that I'm not a complete idiot for believing some things, and it's a lot of work. It's just easier to express unpopular opinions very selectively.
edit: Wow, there's a very good-looking response to this by lostcoyote which is marked as dead and will probably disappear. What a weird coincidence, very à propos.
> I believe that porn, strip clubs, and prostitution are the core problem holding back equality of women) but trying to express these opinion penalizes me
It's particularly bad because of the dominance of males on this site, who unsurprisingly are on the whole far less sensitive to the issues of equality of women. How HN tends to respond to women's treatment in tech is a good example of this. HN is far more apt to attack Apple than attack misogyny[1][2].
Recently I've made some posts questioning the morality of advertising[3]. But, as Upton Sinclair said so well, "It's difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it." My comments were quickly down-voted.
I expect this comment itself to get down-voted quite a bit.
I don't know if there is a better model for human discourse on the internet. Maybe it's a good thing that unpopular opinions get silenced, unless they're phrased in very careful, smart-sounding ways. I have to go through great lengths to convince my voters that I'm not a complete idiot for believing some things, and it's a lot of work. It's just easier to express unpopular opinions very selectively.
edit: Wow, there's a very good-looking response to this by lostcoyote which is marked as dead and will probably disappear. What a weird coincidence, very à propos.