That is exactly it. We're all here to discuss the same thing and as a result you begin to see traits of an echo chamber within the comments. It's unavoidable re

That is exactly it. We're all here to discuss the same thing and as a result you begin to see traits of an echo chamber within the comments. It's unavoidable really. What I think HN's biggest problem is story repetition, which can lead to the echo chamber being enlarged. It's not a problem today, but when Snowden's news began to hit HN for days on end, it would have been nice to combine the discussion for all the news stories in order to avoid having other stories drowned out. I am certain that other important news stories were drowned out when the front page was effectively 100% Snowden. This isn't to say that Snowden's story wasn't important (it was and still is), but similar stories from other sources should be able to keep it at the top instead of having multiple discussions on the same topic coming about.