It all depends on whether you summarize a thread by its best or worst comment. At best, HN is way better. At worst, while hardly 'warm', it rarely ruins my day, which I appreciate.
This. HN is all about keeping a high signal-to-noise ratio. Noisy "reddit-like" or "twitter-like" comments are typically downvoted, and this seems to help reduce flamewars & negative emotional responses. This leads to a much more pleasant experience for HN readers.
Whenever I want to investigate a technical topic that is in the news, my process is to first read several articles from decent publications to get grounded. Then I come here to go over current (and past) discussions of the topic. I am almost always rewarded with a better understanding. Very often we get comments from people directly involved. Keep it up Dang.
It also depends on your timezone. I live in Germany. When I get up in the morning, most heated discussions have cooled down, a consensus has been found in some way or another. I hardly ever see the most toxic comments, because they are downvoted.