[xerxespoy]

It depends when you ask. Most times checking this thread it's been dire. The current top 3 commenters, comprising the first page of comments:

"The problem is that it's not totally clear whether Giuliani believed any of his crazy-talk. It may actually be the case that Giuliani is just off his rocker."

"I think it's nuts for a modern democracy to allow for anything but open source software being used to count paper ballots with chain-of-custody records, voter ID validation, biometric markings, and redacted ballots being published on the web for all to view and count independently."

"I hope whatever happens with these lawsuits it chills the baseless accusations of voter fraud used to undermine voter confidence in our democracy"

It's the definition of polarisation, entirely one-sided views, and each side demonstrably not thinking impartially. The first and third threads are largely echo-chambers with heavily-downvoted opposing views (which are often reasonable). All threads have some useful discussion, but its divisive opposite comes in seemingly combative/reactive waves that are stark in their coordination.

A community rooted in computer security (and AI) shouldn't be reliant on the naive idea that each anonymous online forum account represents one real person.

The suggestions made initially might go some way toward mitigating harm resultant from this reality of our current internet, which - thus far, almost exclusively for some specific political matters - HN seems to pointedly ignore.

[wvenable]

What comments are you expecting to see? This is not the medium for long form balanced well researched essay comments.

[xerxespoy]

In general: long-form, balanced, well-researched essay comments are exactly what's exhibited on HN, and precisely the reason many frequent the site.

It is starkly obvious to frequent visitors when comment threads deviate from this norm into highly-polarised, emotional and often baseless and yet miraculously-synchronised agenda. That this only occurs pertaining to particular topics, and reliably so, reveals to incumbent readership that those engaging in this activity, whilst possibly attempting to blend in, are actually standing naked in full view.

Indeed, in some cases this ineptitude suggests a low level of social awareness possibly consistent with that of a language model.

Regardless, tools to assist genuine readers in filtering such content and reversing its own filtering is a suitable mitigation, largely without negative side-effects.