I'm not the OP, but I'm very curious why people are downvoting this comment.
Is it that they don't agree that "the New World [...is...] much more welcoming [...of...] all sorts of productive folk"?
Is it that they don't agree that "the New World [...is...] much more welcoming [...of...] all sorts of productive folk"?
There's a faction of HN commenters who are somewhat reflexively anti-American, anti-capitalist, or both. In my experience they're also censorious by nature, and like to downvote and even flag comments which are perfectly polite, and simply express opinions they don't agree with. I consider the latter specifically to be very bad form, I vouch for comments which fit that profile almost daily now.
This has been exacerbated by the recent election, which has, understandably, upset people.
Dang has said that downvoting for disagreement is allowed. Whether this is a good practice or not is probably a personal opinion. I don’t know how you would even correct for this if you wanted to. If someone is making normative statements especially, and you disagree, a downvote seems entirely appropriate?
There's a difference between downvoting something substantively wrong, fatuous and/or cantankerous, bad faith, and so on, and simply doing so to punish the sort of person one doesn't like for speaking their mind. That difference is subjective, but I know it when I see it. There's no need to police this, or any way to really, but I think rather poorly of such behavior and would be gratified if they would knock it off.
As an example, I'm fine downvoting an opinion that I find morally gross or anti-social, even though others (such as the person commenting) might think it's fine, and even agree with it.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/10/30/sort-by-controversial/
I didn’t mention flagging, which I reserve for guidelines violations.
I personally try not to do this too much (unless something is egregiously, probably wrong), but it's a thing that I think we should just accept as a norm.