As a hacker on Hacker News you're not a typical user.

Don't get me wrong, I feel like a lot of animation is unnecessary but if you did what Hacker News advised every webpage would look the same in Lynx as it does in Chrome. Animations can serve a purpose - to focus the user's eye, to give them a sense of where something is going to and from, etc. etc.

They're not universally bad, and this is a fascinating library - it deserves more credit than "animations are bad".