> This whole thing seems like flamebait rather than a sincere attempt at curious discussion. It's supposed to be lighthearted, though I suppose the downvoters

> This whole thing seems like flamebait rather than a sincere attempt at curious discussion. It's supposed to be lighthearted, though I suppose the downvoters I refer to as "Dark Helmets" won't appreciate the reference. I personally am judicious in my downvotes, while the Dark Helmets seem to vote down anything they don't agree with. Besides COVID-19, there's a lot of group-think on other science topics that might not be right. We're human, it's what we do. > Why do you care so much about your HN downvotes? The 1% rule is such that only a small percentage of a forum's users comment [0]. I myself tend to comment only if I'm relatively early AND I have something unique to say that probably couldn't be said by someone else. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22623162 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22623162 If I cared about downvotes I wouldn't post comments that I believed were likely/certain to elicit downvotes. AFAIK, there's no way to tell if your downvoted comment was appreciated by some. I posted against another variant of science-faith recently, where I told one of my most favorite taxi driver stories that was highly relevant. I watched that comment's score carefully, and noticed it oscillating up and down. That comment finally ended up with a negative score. I wouldn't have noticed the oscillations if I'd only come back to look at the final score ~48 hours later. > Why did a few downvotes turn into this screed? This wasn't my first downvoted comment that challenged the conventional wisdom. I think there are plenty who agree, they just don't comment here. > Isn't there a better venue for this, or maybe just someone in real life you can vent to? Another purpose of this poll is to get people to consider whether it's actually settled science that oxygen is highly toxic when used in excess, that ventilation has been studied for pnemonia and found to not help, and that there's a simple antidote for oxygen toxicity that would completely change how 100% of the severe COVID-19 patients are treated, if only Medicine™ hadn't forgotten.