IMO The tone of HN comments is teetering over the edge of decorum, similar to the atmosphere of Reddit prior to every new nadir of commentary there.
I'm not going to look through rose-tinted glasses and suggest "things were better in the good ol' days". Contrarian reactions to top posts are the bread-and-butter of a healthy message board.
However, to me it feels like the quality of these contrarian takes have gone down. People seem far more 'committed' to pushing their positions to incense others with overgeneralizing karma-clickbait. This causes the dialectic to become more of a debate instead of a deliberation, and to me the latter is far more useful and engaging.
With that said, I also know that my tastes change as I get older, so this could truly be my own delusion.
I'm not going to look through rose-tinted glasses and suggest "things were better in the good ol' days". Contrarian reactions to top posts are the bread-and-butter of a healthy message board.
However, to me it feels like the quality of these contrarian takes have gone down. People seem far more 'committed' to pushing their positions to incense others with overgeneralizing karma-clickbait. This causes the dialectic to become more of a debate instead of a deliberation, and to me the latter is far more useful and engaging.
With that said, I also know that my tastes change as I get older, so this could truly be my own delusion.