For me, it doesn't have anything to do with karma. Maximum when people disagree with me I get a little peeved that I spent time on what I thought was a thoughtf

For me, it doesn't have anything to do with karma. Maximum when people disagree with me I get a little peeved that I spent time on what I thought was a thoughtful comment only to be down voted but it happens. I think the problem arises when thoughtful comments, maybe from people playing devil's advocate, are buried at the bottom on the thread or even worse highlighted in light gray. To be honest it probably is the exceptional case, but it's disappointing the times it does happen that those comments miss their opportunity to generate interesting discussion especially when the rest of the thread is, no offense intended, the usual hacker news echo chamber.