>here we are engaging in social-engineering through votes.

Engineering implies some kind of plan. This is just people projecting their individual opinions in aggregate. It looks like social engineering because the majority of people's opinions in a group like this don't differ all that much.

It's all a stupid game. People say "I know I'll be downvoted but..." to make themselves seem brave against the overwhelming oppression of people on the internet disagreeing with their opinions. Then other people see that and think "that is a brave person, have an upvote." All of this relies on implicit buy-in of the notion that bad things happen if people know how your opinions are different.

Especially in the West, it's very easy to opt out of this game. Just stop worrying if people in your network like you. The people close to you will love you regardless of your stupid opinions and character flaws. There's not much reason to worry about anyone else, especially with how fast people cycle in and out of social networks.

I always disliked those comments. That's just cowardice.

Same here. I always flag those kinds of comments here, and when I see them on Reddit, I always report for vote manipulation.