I'd disagree here. I think the "likes" are pretty useless, and would vote to remove them altogether. I use them because they are a feature of the site, but feel it would be better without it.
For one, I can tell you specific examples when I've discussed a topic and a person was like "oh but you liked Post X, that's your true position", when it had nothing to do with what I was saying, when I liked a post because I thought something in it was funny. Twice off the top of my head when I liked posts from TCK, who I rarely ever agree with, but appreciate his contributions. This also happened with a meme I liked in the meme thread that I thought was funny, and also a like with a poster who is always funny, and it was used in an arguments against my position, with people "liking" the posts arguing it. That's about as LolWut to me as it gets. People monitoring what you "like" and judging you on it is the most ridiculous part of the forum.
Also, it creates too much of a hive mind. The same people liking the same people's posts is 80% of the posting. Sometimes you can tell a post isn't even of good quality, or a post that another poster would never post themselves given their history, but then you'll see the same people "liking it" since they have to show their "support" of the other person. It's schoolyard level.
That's not exclusive to this forum either, it's the mentality it brings. The more like/dislike/etc stuff you bring to discussions the more you bring regression to it imo.