no, I'm not here to defend anyone ;)

That's good because you are terrible at that. Not horrible, just terrible. You wrote:

You don't know if, for example, behind his need to get rich is the need to get out of debt that someone has gotten him into or to help a sick family member. (I'm not saying that's the case here, I'm just saying that sometimes we judge people badly because their appearance is bad but it's the result of internal problems and cries for help...)

The problem with that is that I do know. I do have the necessary information. You assume my judgement is misplaced but I have watched his now private YouTube video for his post "I have a feeling that I might become the richest man in the world." If you watched just that one video I am confident you will agree with me that his drive for promoting crypto scams and his own LasseCash is not based on anything honorable like trying to get out of debt or make his family financially comfortable. There was no cry for help in the video, just greed and narcissism.

So, year. You would be terrible at defending him. Good thing you weren't trying to defend him in that thing you wrote that I quoted, huh?

I'm here to be a pain in the ass for downvoters :P

Fair enough but I am not just going around randomly downvoting Hive users for no reason. I don't enjoy downvoting him. I strongly disapprove of his behavior on Hive and expressing my disapproval as a downvote. I am not downvoting you because you aren't behaving in a similar manner as he is.

Downvotes only serve to satisfy the need to fight with people who we don't like for some reason

If downvotes magically disappeared off Hive that still wouldn't change the fact that I disapprove of his behavior. It wouldn't stop him from promoting crypto scams and pseudoscience. There are no downvotes for the DHF proposal system and literally nobody voted to support either of his proposals.

I wouldn't be surprised at all that only 10% of all downvotes are used to fight spam and over 90% to fight with politically incorrect content, disliked people and to demonstrate one's superiority :P

Interesting hypothesis. The Vybranium tribe doesn't have downvotes for VYB token. They do still allow replies though. @lasseehlers can test your hypothesis by starting to use the Vybranium tribe tags and see whether he gets upvotes for his crypto scam, pseudoscience and low effort YouTube video made by someone else posts with just his "You heard it hear first" added. I don't think he will do that though because he knows his ego can't take the fact that the replies he would get will still act as downvotes.

Now are you revealing your true face by misinterpreting what I mean.

So it's not possible that I just misinterpreted what I read because maybe you didn't word it in a way that I would understand better or I simply didn't pay close enough attention to what I read because I was busy and trying to finish a reply before I had to get off the computer? Interesting. Well, since it's in my head as memory of what I did can you now explain how you expect me to prove to you that you are wrong and I had no malicious intent? Or am I now misinterpreting "Now are you revealing your true face by misinterpreting what I mean."?

When I said mute him, I didn't mean for the ENTIRE platform, but for you to mute him so that you won't be bodered by the things he writes

This might shock you. You may not believe this. I have standards and ethics. My downvoting @lasseehlers is based on and informed by my standards and ethics. I run MemeHive, Hive Images and Political Hive. I haven't muted @lasseehlers in any of those tribes because this isn't Minority Report. So far he hasn't tried to shitpost and/or spam in any of those tribes. I don't enjoy muting Hive users just like I don't like downvoting Hive users. I do it though because legitimate reasons override my preferences.

but for you to mute him so that you won't be bodered by the things he writes

Let's think that through. So I mute @lasseehlers. I don't see him promoting pseudoscience or spamming his crypto scams. So I just go about business as usual on Hive. La, la, la...Oh, wait. in a few months there's a post I see not by @lasseehlers but by some other user. A user like @weedbook who has lost money investing in a crypto scam that @lasseehlers was promoting. After all, nobody was playing Devil's advocate and @lasseehlers claims he is a "crypto expert" so that "This Shitcoin Will 10000X" post must be a sure thing.

Insert meme here of Peter Parker ignoring the burglar and Uncle Ben being murdered by that same burglar a few hours later and text "WITH GREAT DOWNVOTE POWER COMES GREAT RESPONSIBILITY!"

Or just point out that the cure for bad free speech is more free speech.

This is what lies beneath the desire to defend Downvote.

O.K. So you are just ignoring any legitimate reasons I might present and just assuming any downvote I make isn't done in good faith.

I know you aren't here to defend @lasseehlers. Like I pointed out before that's a good choice because you are terrible at it. Also, I would suggest that you never try to do Christian apologetics. Telling nonbelievers that they know you are right and they are wrong because Romans 1:18-20 proves they know you are right wouldn't work out well for you.

if in turn there was some theft or fraud, there are institutoins that deal with it and they are the ones who determine the facts. Of course also never completely impartially but certainly more impartially than you.

Oh, gee. I must be misinterpreting again. So no point in me pointing out that Hive is decentralized so there isn't any "institutoins that deal with it" and "the ones who determine the facts" are each and every user who gets a vote. Hive dealt with the proposal scheme to manipulate the price of LasseCash by not voting to give him 60,000 HBD and downvoting his post while giving reasons for the downvotes in replies to the proposal post. I know Hive is decentralized. You know Hive is decentralized. So moving on...

From your attitude I see that what you are saying may be just as likely an attempt to defend your position in this whole situation because you yourself have shown, even just a moment ago, that you are definitely not standing here as a innocent and were not a passive observer, but rather wherever you could, you tried to fuck the guy up ;]

See Condescending Wonka meme above.

Such a circus is called escalation and in the end it is often not even possible to determine who is to blame

I am happy to have people look at my replies and @lasseehlers replies and judge for themselves.

And this is precisely what downvoting leads to - escalation

So far I haven't caused World War III with any of my downvotes. Probably not even a school shooting. Is it possible that you are attributing more power to downvotes than they really have?

Just in case let's encourage @lasseehlers not to move to the Middle East. That's already a powder keg and my one single downvote might end the world. If picking a flower in "Out of the Trees" did it then...Dear God!