You're free to turn on the "showdead" setting to read comments that have been heavily downvoted or flagged. I had it turned on for a while, and then turned it off after confirming to myself "yep, didn't miss a thing".
I find it funny that regularly you hear people specifically avoid calling this place a "social network" or "reddit-like". It's a wonderful ode to the dunning-kruger no-coder. There's an implication of pseudo-intellectual superiority in this community that can only be described as the merger of terminally online redditors and big tech. A meta-criticism of the fundamental scoring behavior of this website is met with downvotes and out of the 5 I've received I've gotten 2 comments. Neither explicitly countering my point, and none of them providing the "spirited debate" OP suggests exists here. The website is a hivemind. Period.
Absolutely hilarious. Sometimes points demonstrate themselves. At least slashdot required you to have modpoints. Power tripping terminally online crybullies dominate every website scored by points.
You've certainly gotten more than 5.