HN has become per-thread view-enforced. It's pretty obvious now what the "correct" views are for any given thread, any dissenting comments are downvoted to death. When the next thread comes along, the opposite view might be the "allowed one". There's a particularly egregious amount of veiled partisanship behind a lot of posting too.

This could be a group think phenomenon, or it could be botting. Hard to say. I'd say in at least a few cases, it's someone with access and interest into bot downvotes landing on a thread and using that to suppress dissenting views.

I think the title or the author of the posting tends to draw a certain crowd.

For example, I recognised the name because the author also has a famous guide on network programming. Thanks to his reputation, I was curious what he has to say about learning CS.

I agree. Thank you for pointing out a skeptical view.

It's unfortunate that considering supposedly only "seasoned" participators of HN can downvote, it runs deeper than a surface issue. You will be downvoted without comments replying with the counterarguments.

Scientific viewpoints often make way to hope and cope engineering here. This will only work as long as the people involved are insulated from the direct effects of their actions.

It's a shame. HN felt like one of the last bastions of the old internet where techies came to discuss tech, science, and occasionally important worldwide news, in a technical and objective way.