Generally speaking Hacker News focuses on upper middle class American issues. When we talk about the less well off its generally from the top looking down. Watch next time for the comments of the form "I'd gladly pay more taxes so XYZ wouldn't have to go through this". Few commenters ever truly see themselves personally getting into one of these situations.

In terms of politics this site is heavily westernized. Communism and the Chinese system does have some nice features (along with the bad), but its rare to see threads here explore the benefits.

None of this is necessarily bad, and I'd argue this site gives you a broader view of the world than reading traditional news. However its far from a zeitgeist of what's "really happening" in the world.

The quality of the downvotes depends on the quality of the community.