HackerNews tends to attract professional, technical-minded individuals that are typically open to outside ideas and countering points of view. This results in b

HackerNews tends to attract professional, technical-minded individuals that are typically open to outside ideas and countering points of view. This results in being able to politely and articulately defend your opinions because HackerNews wants to enforce this polite society (I've gotten warnings from @dang before). Now to compare anyone here to Hitchens is near flattery, but there are some comments here that you could see Hitchens saying. There are some very smart people here. With respect to Reddit, it is a cesspool. It is as simple as that.