Speaking of being cynical and conspiratorial, I think you're making more out of this than there really is. HN is hosted in the United States and that's where m

Speaking of being cynical and conspiratorial, I think you're making more out of this than there really is. HN is hosted in the United States and that's where most of the readers are. It's natural for a person to use their own country as a comparison in discussions about governments and countries that are foreign to them. There's no conspiracy, and the same thing happens on any discussion site where a majority of users are from a specific country.