Hacker News is a discussion forum. Not only that, but it's one where the culture is defined by a contrarian-yet-intellectual spirit. It's the last place anyone should come to share opinions without expecting a response, likely a critical one.
> It's the last place anyone should come to share opinions without expecting a response, likely a critical one.
Sure, but this topic is "special" in the sense that the response GP is complaining about is about the most uncritical, non-contrarian, obvious possible one. If you view conversations as a multiplayer gradient descent, then making an accusation - even an implied and/or non-specific - of racism, sexism, bigotry and associated "sins", is like making a huge sinkhole on the optimization surface: a very deep local minimum, nearly impossible to walk out of.
It's so easy for anyone to do this, and the effect is both immediate and so obvious, that when someone does that, it's hard not to see it as a deliberate attempt at shutting down the conversation. It's equivalent of someone pulling a gun in the middle of what the other person thought was friendly sparring.
