I'm certain that impression is intentional. They're using it as a conversion page, which is of course why it was the page posted to HN. Dark pattern in action.
Of course the page was built with conversions in mind, for the good of the project I want to spell out the benefits and convince people to sign-up but certainly not in a dark way.
I've added some more links including the logo, a view all discussions button and a browse as guest down by the bottom CTA to communicate this better.
After poking around a bit, I felt like I could use a very brief introduction, like "what should you do first" suggestions.