Have you been a reader of HN comments for very long?

A common trend in mutating discussion is to resort to oblique rhetoric, such that the reader is forced into a mindset of doubt, before participating.

Example: Open Source Politics

Rhetoric: Is it really a good thing that distributing free, open sourced software promotes innovation in the manner it does? What if this removes the incentive to profit from true innovation? Wouldn’t the best innovators be smart enough to accept payment and restrict distribution and reverse engineering on their best work? What if open source stifles the best software preventing it from ever seeing the light of day, because the best inventors cannot earn a living?

And so on.