If upbears are removed, I will use the site in exactly the same way as before, except instead of clicking the bear, I will write a new comment or reply that says "+1".

Reactions to GitHub issues were added because before that, threads were becoming unreadable by being slathered in "+1" comments from people who agreed or also had the issue. Collapsing a sea of agreement that doesn't add anything to the reading experience into a single counter is better for the readers.

There are counter-arguments to this, like lowest-denominator content reaching the top of the front page and users obsessing over maximising their account scores, but I think Hexbear successfully avoids these issues with its algorithm. This is one of the only social media sites that I am cognitively able to use. Vote systems on other sites sapped my brain far too much.

I've been a day 1 lurker and I saw the removal of downvotes. That helped the site be more "good faith", I think. I like how it is now.

You have good arguments in the thread, some of which I do individually agree with, but I ultimately think the bears do more good than harm.