There is indeed a balance. If one of my two word comments results in 50 upvotes, I feel the need to balance it out with some trite anti-HN-hero comment that'll restore order.

The Internet: You aren't interacting with people. You're interacting with a model of the average personality on sites you frequent. People end up falling into manipulation bundles. "If I do X, bucket P will do Z. If I do K, bucket M will do A, ..."

Want to try it out? "DHH sucks!" -> bucket A: "Yeah, he kinda does." bucket B: "NO! He's our HERO!" bucket C: "Well, he's good at what he does, but he panders." bucket D: "What? It's nice outside. I wasn't paying attention."