I mean, when you say: >>a weird mix of passive aggressiveness, disagree-based-downvoting, "cite paper!"-ness, minutial edge case-oriented pedantry You are bas

I mean, when you say: >>a weird mix of passive aggressiveness, disagree-based-downvoting, "cite paper!"-ness, minutial edge case-oriented pedantry You are basically describing software developers. They are passive aggressive because they don't like direct confrontation. They downvote when they disagree because if they disagree that means you are wrong. They nitpick on edge cases because edge cases are what they deal with everyday in their code, so they can't help it. So really, it's not HN you have an issue with, but the developer crowd. ;)