Hacker News is social media.
Social media becomes a body politic snatching parasite when it generates unique, algorithmically (engagement-driven!) views for each individual.
By all means, use it to rank things, but showing the numbers just triggers the wrong behaviour. Both in terms of creating addiction in the users, but also in terms of poisoning civil discussion and incentivising clever comebacks over good-faith debate.
Except for dissenting opinions, obfuscated in light gray.