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The infighting you fear is more a problem when most users are teenagers or just unthoughtful

• Mz 17y ago
  My experience has been that the majority of human communication is about pecking order, saving face, protecting one's ego and other types of "social" motivations. (There is likely data out there which backs up my view, but I wouldn't have a citation off the top of my head.) If that weren't true, I doubt you would see so much discussion and criticism on HN about the voting system, how things get on the front page, etc. So call me cynical if you want, but if your observation is true, than the vast majority of people are simply "unthoughtful" the vast majority of the time. (Which probably is true in some sense, unfortunately.) (Ironically, I accidentally upvoted your comment and can't undo it. Perhaps bad form to mention it, but it seems funny somehow, given the context of the discussion.)