True, but there's at least something to which comments end up at the top. My sense has been that "programmers need better ethics" almost always tops out the "programmers worked with the government" stories, and outside of this chain "programmers are being self-righteous and unpatriotic" has had basically all the top slots in this thread.

I suppose the easy guess is just that people who disagree with a story are more likely to come argue in the comments than people who read it and agree, so every story gets its opposite upvoted.