> the best advice I've read is to think of 'points' as currency to spend on unpopular opinions. After a certain point, you can 'afford' to say whatever's on you

> the best advice I've read is to think of 'points' as currency to spend on unpopular opinions. After a certain point, you can 'afford' to say whatever's on your mind (within reason). That's not really correct; downvotes on HN hide your comment and it eventually becomes dead (it can also become dead if super-users flag it); then it will only be visible for users who are logged in and have explicitly opt-in in seeing dead comments. So no, you can't use your karma to go against the hive mind on HN, your comment will just be flagged and hidden completely.