There's something about the direct democracy upvote/downvote system that hyper-polarizes the whole forum. Marginal (read: interesting and crucially under-apprec

There's something about the direct democracy upvote/downvote system that hyper-polarizes the whole forum. Marginal (read: interesting and crucially under-appreciated) voices are silenced & made to disappear, only reinforcing the absence of marginalized voices. On Reddit, it's done for overtly political reasons. And on HN it's done under the pretense of expertise (a loose proxy for majority "respectable" political opinion of the relatively wealthy tech industry social class).