Despite a lot of bad stuff, HN does comparatively good job of allowing free thought without descending into some kind of ideological or troll cesspool like most

Despite a lot of bad stuff, HN does comparatively good job of allowing free thought without descending into some kind of ideological or troll cesspool like most "free speech" oriented forums. It's definitely not perfect but at least contrarian opinions exist alongside regurgitated mainstream stuff, vs say reddit (with which I have little familiarity, so maybe there are niche subreddits but I see lots of places that basically say you can't post anything that doesn't conform to groupthink) or big tech that just censors things that go against their agenda. HN is much more balanced, if still imperfect.