> HN is sometimes one of the more progressive wings of the geek community.

I'll respectfully disagree with that. I think the rules set up in HN around both manual and automatic flagging mean that controversial stories quickly get buried, and only very straightforward, non-controversial articles get visibility.

Many users think this is a positive feature. I'm deeply ambivalent about it, but have come to accept that HN is simply not a place where controversial things are discussed with any measure of success. But don't mistake that for HN being a progressive haven.

EDIT: prophecy fulfilled. This submission got flagged off the homepage.