The reversal test is with respect to the norm, not with respect to ways of handling a fixed norm. So imagine that the norm is the opposite, and see what will happen. People will invent weird things like gaging popularity based on number of downvotes, or sum of absolute values of upvotes and downvotes, when there are not enough downvotes. This will work about as well as what happens with the present norm. In that context, the option of “only upvotes” looks funny and pointless, but we can see that it actually isn’t, because we can look from the point of view of both possible norms.
When an argument goes through in the world of the opposite status quo, we can transport it to our world. In this case, we obtain the argument that “only downvotes” is not particularly funny and pointless, instead it’s about as serviceable (or about as funny and pointless) as “only upvotes”, and both are not very good.
The reversal test is with respect to the norm, not with respect to ways of handling a fixed norm. So imagine that the norm is the opposite, and see what will happen. People will invent weird things like gaging popularity based on number of downvotes, or sum of absolute values of upvotes and downvotes, when there are not enough downvotes. This will work about as well as what happens with the present norm. In that context, the option of “only upvotes” looks funny and pointless, but we can see that it actually isn’t, because we can look from the point of view of both possible norms.
When an argument goes through in the world of the opposite status quo, we can transport it to our world. In this case, we obtain the argument that “only downvotes” is not particularly funny and pointless, instead it’s about as serviceable (or about as funny and pointless) as “only upvotes”, and both are not very good.