There’s a huge influx of new HN users. Like, a massive spike over the last few months. I don’t think it’s worth worrying about voting patterns until they’ve had time to steep in HN’s culture. I’ve noticed similar fluctuations in pretty much anything remotely controversial I’ve posted.
The more alarming aspect was the shrillness of replies, which seem to generally go unchallenged. I don’t like the idea that people think HN is for loudness. But thankfully that seems to be a minor fluctuation.
The sibling reply from Freedom2 is right too — your comment (other than the downvote complaints, which I know is hard to resist) generated some good discussion.