Only through bringing up thoughts we can have (a bit of) influence. I understand your doubts about downvotes. It's complicated I guess. But I don't agree that self upvoting is important to whales. Seriously how much more do you need when you're already in the top :-) ... Still thanks for your article though because only through thought and imagination can things be made better!
I know I can write some good stuff, but only when inspiration hits. That's not often enough to rise on steemit. So steemit basically tells me to engage bots and post crappy atricles. That's not encouraging for me. I like your focus on participation and quality. These are things that work.