Comment by dredmorbius

Speaking for myself:

One is a personal attack: "we're living in 2 different realities", etc. HN's trigger for this is pretty light, and any time a comment verges onto "you" statements in an unflattering light this tends to be the case. I'm writing this comment carefully considering I pretty much have to use "you" and am considering how it might sound. As dang's explained many, many, many times in the past, how a comment is received is often orders of magnitude harsher than it is written. (I know he's expressed this many times, I can't remember how he phrases it or I'd link instances.)

The other is a nationalistic attack against "America's superior moral compass". Again, the trigger is lightly loaded, reason being that such comments tend to derail discussions.

(Not an HN mod, but I watch dang's mod comments closely and generally understand his reasoning, even where I disagree with it.)

You can make your points more substantively without those swipes. A recent example of my own:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41578060>

I addressed the factual aspects of the comment without taking the bait from others. Directly quoting a credible third-party report.