I think that I was being downvoted because people found what I said unpleasant. A certain fraction of people assume that the reason for saying something unpleas

I think that I was being downvoted because people found what I said unpleasant. A certain fraction of people assume that the reason for saying something unpleasant is that you must support that. Which makes it easy to incorrectly jump from my saying that history is full of a specific set of attitudes, to believing that I must support that set of attitudes. For example, consider reading a biography of a scientist who studies links between IQ and racism. If the scientist finds weak links, most people will judge the scientist not racist. If the scientist finds strong links, most people will say that the scientist is racist. I encountered this example in https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691190808/the-genetic-lottery https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691190808/th.... HN tends to be better about this error than most communities. But it is still not immune. Come to a conclusion that people don't like, and people tend to jump on you.