Come now, let's not be obtuse. People naturally behave differently in different social contexts, a thing that is totally normal and expected.
For instance, consider how you'd behave in a professional situation, vs when drinking with your friends, vs when catching up with your grandmother.
Having different standards in different online communities seems no different.
In other words, there appears to be no reason why HN and Reddit folks should behave differently when on the opposite platform. These behavior differences are artificial and ad hoc (i.e. 'we want to keep HN free from obtuse memes.. because we said so!')
The site rules would be a pretty obvious reason why people should and do act differently here vs Reddit.
I like that HN is a learning resource. I like that I can read perspectives from people in many different fields and across the various economic classes. I also like reddit - I like the memes, the in-group culture (when it's funny), the bots, the one-liners, what have you. But I don't want humor and generalizations to dominate HN comments; I want educational content to float to the top so that authors are rewarded for sharing their perspective. I can find funny takes on HN headlines on reddit already.