On second thoughts given people are downvoting this as a low quality comment rather than responding on the ways they disagree this audience would descend into the exact same problems on Reddit. My position is thus reversed, it is not something that HN would use properly.
Yes, it is frustrating that rather than make an argument, people downvote thoughtful comments as if it was a low quality post. Perhaps the downvoting feature is actually part of the problem.
Frankly, my subjective observation was that downvoting without responding just for disagreeing with a comment increased significantly at the start of the first Trump term.
