"I have no idea why when we talk about downvotes you get so unhappy with me."
I do not mean to cause you to feel that way. It isn't how I feel. I do not judge you for having different views than I do, but when I disagree I seek to provide reasonable, even irrefutable reasons to support my understanding. It is difficult to do so in a way that people don't feel is a personal attack, and I appear to have failed to express my disagreement without you feeling like I am unhappy with you. Please believe me when I state I am not unhappy with you.
I actually like talking about these things with you very much, and perhaps that has caused me to be overly harsh. My attempts to make convincing points has neglected to take into account that my points are about things that affect you personally, and I have offended you by neglecting to consider how you would feel when I said those things. That wasn't my intention, but it is what I did, and I apologize for neglecting to consider how you would feel when what I said was directed at you personally. I know you want to grow Hive, and I hoped that what I said would convince you that there are better ways to do that - not to make you feel I condemned you or was unhappy with you. I am appalled I gave you that impression. I also appreciate you making me aware of it so I can stop being wrong, and change what I do so that I am actually achieving what I want to do.
"I just feel like other things have happened and that is being projected onto me."
That's certainly possible. I have been DV'd for a very long time before, and it did inform my views, views I am expressing to you, and addressing to you personally. I can try to be wary of projecting my prior experiences on you now that you bring it to my attention (I did not mean to do it, and did not realize I had until you mentioned it). However, the above comment that offended you was made two days ago, and I made a lot of comments two days ago, before I realized I might be projecting my past experiences on you. I hope when you read those comments you are able to take them in stride, as my purpose has not been to offend you, but to make the strongest arguments I can to change your opinion based on new information.
I will try to be more respectful, more aware of my prior experiences coloring my approach to subjects that you have no responsibility for, going forward.
"I do not agree that a downvote is theft. The person has not received the rewards yet."
I understand that is your present understanding. I think I can make an argument that will enable you to reconsider that understanding, and it will not be directed at you personally. I have had jobs before, and my paychecks were held back for two weeks, so after I worked a month I got paid for the first two weeks. Even though I hadn't been paid for that pay period yet, the wages I earned were still mine. It is a bit ironic that the reason paychecks are held back like that is so that payroll can deduct taxes from pay before the net wages are paid.
When curators upvote content, their intent is the value of their upvote inures to the creator they upvote. I don't think it matters if it takes a week to pay out. The curator has dedicated that VP to that creator. Barring a reason to prevent them from directing the inflation they control with their VP that overrides their right to do so, I feel that preventing them from exercising their authority their VP gives them is unethical.
I am not using the phrase 'taxation is theft' because you might feel I am calling you a thief, and I can understand how that would be offensive to you. It is not my belief that you have ever set out to steal anyone's rewards. Clearly DV's you apply to someone's post don't put money in your pocket, like a mugger stealing from you does. I am trying to rephrase the argument so as to not make you feel I am accusing you of doing something bad intentionally, but because I believe you don't want to do anything that isn't good, and, like me, if you realize you are wrong you will change your mind and become right.
I do not like to be wrong. Being wrong about things has done me great harm, almost killed me more than once. It's not because I want to brag or praise me, nor even to get others to say how right I am. I want to be right because being wrong is bad for me. I think when you're wrong it's bad for you, too. I don't try to make strong arguments you are wrong to make you feel bad, but so that if you consider what I say objectively and come to agree that you have been wrong, you can change your mind and become right. I don't make these statements because of the past, but for the future, when you can avoid being wrong and avoid the harm that could do you, just as being wrong has harmed me before.
"I think downvoting people who primarily extract from the HIVE ecosystem is legitimate.
"If everyone does it the whole thing collapses. If witnesses are not paid a profit to run nodes everything falls apart."
I think that logically what you are saying is true. But KE ratio is not a dollar amount. KE ratio of 3 for a whale might show they have extracted a lot more money from Hive than Karen's ratio of 46. The rewards she receives are a fraction of rewards whales receive. Further, whales often receive Hive in other ways than rewards, such as interest on loans, that Karen isn't likely to be getting. Also, given the lower rewards she receives taxing what she receives is far more impactful on her than on you (I had put me there, but I learned she has ~4x my rewards, LOL).
Protecting the rewards pool is definitely something we all should do diligently. All manner of threats to it exist. If Karen is bringing in >$100 per post, is posting daily and powering down all of it, that is a significant drawdown of the pool. If she's making <$1 per post, only posts once a week, and powers down all of it, that's a negligible impact on the pool. Additionally, the curators that upvote her have the VP to assign rewards from the pool. That isn't a threat to the pool. That's how it's designed to work.
Whales will almost always have a lower KE than minnows, because whales just have more money, both on and off the platform. If a minnow spends $100 worth of Hive and that is all the rewards they have accumulated in a year, it's going to give them a terrible KE ratio, but their drain on the pool is negligible. If a whale spends all the Hive they have earned in a year, it will be a considerable amount of Hive. The whale earns much more per post than the minnow does. Because the whale has much more stake and much higher rewards, if they take $100 of their rewards off the platform it will not appreciably affect their KE. They're also much less likely to need their Hive for real world crises because they almost certainly have more money off chain than minnows too.
Finally, Karen has earned her stake by authoring unique posts. It's hers. She isn't operating a scam, isn't doing anything that isn't within her rights. I do not see that the KE matters ethically or practically to the rest of us, enough for taxing her income here to be justifiable. She has ~4x the author rewards I do, and she's been here a year longer than I have, so she's been pulling in <5k/yr. Galen has ~4x the author rewards she does, and has been here almost as long as I have. She must be a far more engaging blogger than I am, as must Galen. I do believe our value to society is much more important than our economic value or our financial worth, but that being said, the writing she does must be much more highly valued to her audience than mine is to my audience.
None of these things I mention are a demand of you to do anything. Just in the same way Karen's stake is hers, so is your stake yours. I do not mean to tell you what to do, to think, or to feel, and while I may have technically not done so, I believe the comment I made you replied to above shows that I did not consider the impact of my words on you fully. I don't want to do that again, so I'm trying to carefully explain I seek to use facts and events you are personally acquainted with to persuade you - not to coerce or badger you, or make you feel disrespected or bad - that you would better achieve your goals by not doing what you have been doing and do something different instead. I do that only because I believe that you want to be right. I am convinced you sincerely do not mean to be harmful, have no intention of harming Karen, Galen, or I, but intend to use your Hive to benefit all of us and everyone on Hive. I don't think long time users leaving is the impact you want to have on Hive. Indeed, you have said to me you want to increase the number of users of Hive. I hoped to persuade you that what you have been doing hasn't been working to achieve that goal, to convince you there are better ways of achieving that goal. Such as creating an investment community, which can bring people here to participate in that community.
I am falling asleep lol. I wanted to give this 100% upvote but I am low on mana cause I am getting too many good comments 😅
I need to read it a few times before I respond better. I would say though, I do not think a lot of your analogies work because they are based more on capitalism.
Unfortunately, and I am being sincere when I saw unfortunately, I think the reward pool is more like socialism.
Also, I think you have had a bad experience watching other people get downvoted. You clearly have thick skin and I am sure it bothers you to get downvoted but I do not think you are passionate about it for you. I think you are passionate about it for other people. You do not like seeing people being abused and you take it personally when you interpret that as what is happening. I do this myself so I could be projecting on you now 😆
I blew my VP up some days ago following your conversation with KillerG, and upvoting good comments, and I can't get it back up above ~20%. That's why I haven't been able to upvote your comments either LOL
You are pretty astute when it comes to money. I think socialism is just capitalism + lying by the overlords that take all the money. Anyway, get some sleep.
Will do! Chat tomorrow. I left plenty of comments for you 😄