Who on HN said that with enough confidence and credibility to do enough damage to the conversation such that it would be better had the conversation not happen at all?

Did it "obfuscate the truth"?

The truth was only discovered because the hype made a lot of scientists investigate the material.

The interest and intrigue around LK-99 made science cool. There will be all kinds of positive knock on effects of this - least of which is that we got down to the bottom of LK-99 years before it would've happened if the preprint never got published.

Strawman argument - You are reducing the comment to "Hacker News" when thats not at all what they said, they said "The hype".

For sure the hype caused a lot more focus on reproducability attempts than it would have got otherwise.

Do you honestly believe HN discussing this had ANY affect on ANYONE?