Thanks for the kind words about my oration skills and recognizing my attempt to show both sides.

I'll take a moment to clear up my stance on a few things:

being silent in response to such a thing can build internal toxicity to unhealthy levels because it stifles one's expression of discontentment.

I believe the spirit of my post was in full support of speaking out, in fact, it was 14,000+ words of non-silence on the matter. :) My stance was against complaining. The whole point of the article is that complaining can't and won't and never has and never will create the solutions or shift the power structures in the desired ways. There are many other more effective solutions, as Emma learned.

If someone needs to 'vent' in order to prevent their internal toxicity, I suppose that's valid, but it's necessity is a totally other discussion. :)

That's just something I heard Dave Chappelle speak to when he came out against ViacomCBS

I have thoughts on the whole Chappelle situation, but I'll reserve them for another time, suffice to say, Dave should probably read Emma's Dilemma.

One of the reasons was because they couldn't control the abuse factor,

This was heavily addressed in my post. No one, since the beginning of civilization, has ever been able to control the abuse factor sustainably. Which is why the only solution is to increase one's own personal power and influence. Period. Has always been so.

We can try and normalize downvotes until the cows come home.

You're clearly a smart person, so I'm sure you can tell that my post wasn't advocating for or against downvotes, but simply acknowledging them as a natural by-product of human power structures that have always been around. Whether its guns, nukes, downvotes, prisons, whatever... they all flow out of social hierarchies and power structures as groups make their best attempts at sustainable self-organization. :)

Anyhow, I think HIVE needs a constitution

This is a common, solution for self-organizing hierarchies, and it wouldn't surprise me if it happens sooner or later.

It can be either a dark or light quality, good Sir! I hope you wield it well, as a mage of your caliber is no material for the dark side.

Not sure if this was intentional, but this line about my writing approach also mirrors the earlier thoughts about downvotes and guns. They can be 'light' or 'dark', indeed. :)

I'm not a rich guy; I cannot financially incentivize this for you.

You're certainly rich in thought, and even a single upvote from you technically does financially incentivize me, so... thank you for both :)

I'm so new to Hive, and know little about the Leo community, but I'm eager to learn more. And once I learn, my natural tendency to enlighten, clarify, and teach to the best of my ability will likely manifest itself. So I'll add it to my (growing) list of things to research, and I highly appreciate the tip-off.

although I do have the potential to, given a good teacher.

I love this sentiment, because I love learning, I love teaching, and I believe it's time for an 'era of teachers', and my instincts say more and more are stepping up, perhaps in part due to the blockchain.

I think that you may have mentioned other Steem forks in an attempt to conflate their lack of downvotes with a failure to launch.

Hmm... not that I'm aware of. I know very little about Steem and the history of Hive, so it's natural to avoid that territory in my post. That said, my post was a substantial textand I may have miscommunicated something that gave such an impression. Apologies if so.

Regardless, first mover advantage is definitely noteworthy, so I'm glad you brought it up. That said, I'm sure Facebook higher-ups often look at their bottom-line, or their dollar-value in the market and concludes "well, our actions must not be hurting our users or lowering our value", but this isn't really a clear view for them to take, and will eventually create an undesirable result.

That doesn't mean I'm arguing for or against downvotes though. My post is, and remains, primarily focused on understanding power, influence, censorship, freedom of speech, and Emma's own options to deal with downvotes and other such events that occur in all societies, Hive included. If it isn't downvotes it will be some other form of shadow-politics.

I hope what I've offered here adds further clarity and now it's my turn to praise your writing.

I loved how fast you whipped this up, how tightly written it is, the inclusion of various memes and video clips from Dumb and Dumber to Ievan Polkka (Society Of Irreverent Link Spam indeed, last thing I expected to see, lol.) Your post here is well-written, whether it's turns of phrase like "sadomasochistic whale barnacles", bold formatting, or compelling comparisons to the wild west. On top of that, I also loved your insights and perspectives on all of this and the way you presented them civilly and respectfully, and it's all definitely food for thought.

I got a lot out of your writing here and it'll give me a lot to think regarding my time here on Hive, as well as Hive's future. I appreciate it. 🙏

P.S. When I'm not trying to rap Eminem's Godzilla, I sing Zombie by The Cranberries more often than most, lol.