In theory, HN should be easily manipulatable. Why should I automatically trust it as a representative of what the crowd thinks? You should open (at least) two

In theory, HN should be easily manipulatable. Why should I automatically trust it as a representative of what the crowd thinks? You should open (at least) two threads in your mind. In one of them, it is a representative of what some crowd thinks. In the other, it is a representative of one or more third-parties performing to a smaller crowd. It's a very simplistic example, but enough to get started. TL;DR your boredom can be manufactured.