"Power without transparency inevitably leads to power that is abused" is true only for some value of "inevitably". You can have a benevolent dictator; you can't

"Power without transparency inevitably leads to power that is abused" is true only for some value of "inevitably". You can have a benevolent dictator; you can't have three consecutive benevolent dictators. So long as we don't expect HN to outlive pg, we don't need to be all that concerned about serious abuse. The question is whether the cost of potential abuse is greater than the cost of trolls being able to create new accounts when they get banned.