It's obviously just my subjective impression, but I see lots of examples of people arguing for quite abhorrent positions on HN in a civil and carefully articula

It's obviously just my subjective impression, but I see lots of examples of people arguing for quite abhorrent positions on HN in a civil and carefully articulated manner. Rather than pointing to specific HN comments, I'll pick Richard Hanania as a recent example of the same phenomenon. The guy writes long blog posts that are (for anyone who can make basic logical connections between ideas) openly racist and sexist. Recently, it turned out that he'd spent many years, even into his late 20s, writing extremely uncivil racist and misogynist claptrap under a pseudonym on various internet forums. But because in public he presented essentially the same ideas under a veneer of civility, he was taken seriously by many 'intellectuals' who should have known better (e.g. Steven Pinker) and amplified by several mainstream media outlets (e.g. the Washington Post).