I thought the parent commenter was describing a conflict between the interests of the court and the interests of the researcher. That may be a very narrow subse

I thought the parent commenter was describing a conflict between the interests of the court and the interests of the researcher. That may be a very narrow subset of the more egregious problems you mentioned, but it's a narrow subset that doesn't share most of the dangers of ideological echo chambers. If Eric McGhee and Justice Alito sat shared a train ride, I have no doubt they'd leave knowing more about each other's field than when they started. Replace them with two HN commenters who started out calling each other a bigot and an SJW, respectively, and I doubt they'd learn anything.