I hate World of Warcraft but I will use that as an example. If you just start out and you pick a fight with the opposing factions NPCs, you will die because you are too low levelled. Skyrim had that too, where if you choose to piss off the NPCs you suffered the consequence.
It's the same here. You can see everyone's attitude to you. If the number is lower than -45 they will hate you on sight. It's the consequence of you choosing the traits/actions you did. If you are too low levelled you will die; if you are stronger than you can choose to kill them all and take a reputation hit.
It's the mechanism of the game and isn't necessarily stupid just because you don't like it.
