> Has the fear of losing your HN karma ever stopped you from expressing yourself? "Fear" is an unnecessarily adversarial way to view it. (After all, what bad

> Has the fear of losing your HN karma ever stopped you from expressing yourself? "Fear" is an unnecessarily adversarial way to view it. (After all, what bad thing happens if you lose all your HN karma? Do you lose your lunch?) My take is, "Is this going to make some people sufficiently angry that they will downvote me?" Sometimes the answer is yes. Sometimes I don't care. Sometimes I do, because: (1) Maybe the issue was debated to death and I'm adding no value. Why bother? (2) Maybe I can rephrase it to make it less aggressive. Hopefully that will also make my argument more persuasive. (3) I can see exactly what kind of people will be upset by my comment and I just don't see us ever agreeing. I have better things to waste my time on.