Let's be honest for a moment. In your downvote activity, you're not voting where you want the rewards to go. They are safe and sound in the reward pool and haven't gone anywhere. What you're doing is voting where you don't want them to go, and that is punitive
That's the same thing and no I don't see it as punitive. Voting where they don't go means they go to others. They don't get taken by the downvoter.
I know that you are not "taking the rewards," but you are not allocating them either. When you diminish the earmarked rewards for a post, you are, in effect, invalidating the upvote actions of others who've mindfully read and resonated with the content. Your bold assertion that leaving it in the rewards pool is like giving all other upvotes a tiny increase is rather obtuse. I say this because people know without a doubt that you didn't read all of those thousands of posts to determine whether or not they merited the imperceptible boost in value. That said, some of your downvote activity has more of a harmful effect than anything else because you're handing out demerits to content you don't like instead of allocating rewards to content that you do. I want you to know it's a very demoralizing experience to be on the receiving end of a smooth downvote, but I think you know this already. I think you enjoy this aspect of your stake power. But mark my words, one day, life will downvote you, and I say this because it happens to us all eventually. Shitty things happen all of the time to good people and bad people alike. But whenever life deals you a sour hand, take the time to reflect on your past behavior and how you got off on doing shitty things to good people. Many of us on HIVE genuinely care about each other, so much that people will blog about their hard times or a bad experience, and we receive and give words of support and encouragement to each other. But I can't help but wonder when someone sick like yourself runs into hard times, if you have someone to go to, or if you've burned all those bridges down and to the ground. I had better quit right now. You're going to end up having me talk me into feeling sorry for yourself, and I just don't have that kind of time or energy for you right now. Get well, get gud, stop breaking HIVE, you're stinking up the joint!