I understand the fun in painting what people are doing in the blackest possible colors. It's a parlor game and gives a buzz to both the writer and reader. But in doing so, you smear black paint all over the parlor. We're trying to make HN a better place to be than that, so please don't play that game here.
I believe additional HN abilities are granted based on an account's karma number.
I also don't think it can be easily ruled out that there are additional, higher karma thresholds upon which an account may be bestowed with additional powers (rate-limit loosening, for example).
You on the other hand have levied a substance-less complaint about a user's attitude. Who is really undermining discourse here?
Pessimism ought to be welcome here. If you need protection from other people's attitudes go join a university safe space.
We could compare it to a company that makes a good product (in this case, a good point about funding and the politics of research) while polluting the local environment (the community here). The solution isn't to ignore the pollution, nor to justify it.
Fortunately for all of us, it's not only possible to make the product without polluting, but the product comes out better when one does so. But this doesn't happen by default; the default is the opposite. That's why I post moderation comments, at the cost of off-topicness. In the long run, the plan (and the unsolved system design problem!) is to get the desired effect without posting such things, which are as tedious to write as they are to read.
> It's a parlor game and gives a buzz to both the writer and reader.
Uh...
I agree that it's a rude and pointless comment, but there's really no reason to go so far with the armchair psychoanalysis.