That was a beast of an episode but finally got through it!
Downvoting may be a necessary tool but I get why people feel attacked if they get one. It’s one thing to NOT to receive a reward, it’s another to have those rewards erased with the click of a button by one or two whales. It reminds people who can't afford to buy much hive of how powerless they are against large stakeholders and is very reminiscent of the powerlessness people feel in the current system.
The best solutions I can think of are to find a way to de-incentivize too much massive downvoting by whales, perhaps a kind of counter-downvote system, or a something like a complex decaying downvote or even a separate kind of reputation system that can influence downvote power. Until we figure it out, I think we need to encourage a culture on the chain where, as Dan said, whales don’t make a habit of downvoting 100% or even 50% unless it’s obviously spam or abusive content.