I hate this assumption that everybody on HN is stupid. We're not. HN is one of the smartest communities on the internet.

I'm not saying that everybody here is completely immune to what you're talking about, but this isn't digg. We're not just going to heap on the downvotes because we're trying to follow the pack. In fact I've found the opposite to be true; HNers seem to be really good about correcting downvotes. Compare the bottom comments here to the bottom comments at reddit if you don't believe me.

And what you're saying isn't fixed by hiding vote counts, downvoted comments still appear grayed out.