This story is also of interest to the 'classic' HN votes, so it's not like one can argue HN "has changed": http://news.ycombinator.com/classic

Snippet-stuff that makes you rethink something has always been a part of HN. (That said, I prefer it to be a majority of tech stuff myself and usually only submit tech stuff: http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=timf )