You've clearly and concisely stated what I've been struggling to verbalize for several years now: that heated emotional flamewars aren't discouraged/forbidden o

You've clearly and concisely stated what I've been struggling to verbalize for several years now: that heated emotional flamewars aren't discouraged/forbidden on HN because emotion is bad (which is a strawman often brought up), but because HN is not the place for that, because we optimize for intellectual curiosity. Just like programming languages - HN is neither the only forum in existence, nor does it need to serve the needs of every human in existence.