I have doubts about what exactly the signal is you're receiving in any case. Superbowl ads are popular. Agatha Christie is popular. Racism is popular. Many, man

I have doubts about what exactly the signal is you're receiving in any case. Superbowl ads are popular. Agatha Christie is popular. Racism is popular. Many, many awful things - indeed, most awful things, are very well liked by most people. As I see it, the only possible content of votes is popularity - which, when it comes to quality, is a very bad metric. In a relatively small, educated group like HN, it's a little bit less diabolically awful than it might be if it was in, say, 1930's Germany, but it's still the same metric.