Re plain language movements, in the UK there were Gowers' "Plain Words" books from around that time (link provides links to full texts). I read these a very long time ago, but I don't recall if he spoke of sentence length, being mainly occupied with the choice of words.

But now they’re gone! I didn’t expect them to be real, but still, owowowowow! That’s loss aversion for you.

I notice that although the loot box is gone, the unusually strong votes that people made yesterday persist.

I got the Void once, just from spinning the wheels, but it doesn't show up on my display of virtues.

Apparently I now have a weak upvote strength of 19 and a strong upvote of 103. Similarly for downvotes. But I shall use my powers (short-lived, I'm sure) only for good.

What is it with negative utilitarianism and wanting to eliminate those they want to help?

Insanity Wolf answers your questions:

SEES UNHAPPY PERSON
KILLS THEM TO INCREASE GLOBAL HAPPINESS

IT'S A THEOREM!
YOU CAN'T ARGUE WITH A THEOREM!

We do not know each other. I know nothing about you beyond your presence on LW. My comments have been to the article at hand and to your replies. Maybe I'll expand on them at some point, but I believe the article is close to "not even wrong" territory.

Meanwhile, I'd be really interested in hearing from those two strong upvoters, or anyone else whose response to it differs greatly from mine.

Rough day, huh?

There you are — more psychologising.

Seriously though, you’ve got a thesis, but you’re missing a clear argument. Let me help:

Now condescension.

This looks to me like long-form gibberish, and it's not helped by its defensive pleas to be taken seriously and pre-emptive psychologising of anyone who might disagree.

People often ask about the reasons for downvotes. I would like to ask, what did the two people who strongly upvoted this see in it? (Currently 14 karma with 3 votes. Leaving out the automatic point of self-karma leaves 13 with 2 votes.)

a system that lets people express which issues they care about in a freeform way

We already have that: the Internet, and the major platforms built on it. Anyone can talk about anything.

allowing us to simply express our feelings about the issues which actually affect us.

If the platform is created, how do you get people to use it the way you would like them to? People have views on far more than the things someone else thinks should concern them.

You're still comparing a real situation with an imagined one. For such a large aspect of one's life, I do not think it possible to have such assurance that one can imagine the hypothetical situation well enough. Whatever you decide, you're taking a leap in the dark. This is not to say that you shouldn't take that leap, just to say that that is what you would be doing. You won't know what the other side is really (literally! really) like until you're there, and then there's no going back. (As I understand it, and my understanding may be out of date, the sort of drugs you are considering have permanent effects from the outset. Even a small step down that road cannot be taken back.)

Even in the case of blindness, I have read of a case where sight was restored to someone blind from birth, who ended up very dissatisfied. Because if you've never seen, it takes a long time to make any sense of the restored sense. Not to the point of putting his eyes out again, I think, but there was no "happily ever after".

But then, there never is.