I do feel that some tweaks here and there could be useful, and I suspect that this is happening on a somewhat regular basis. My own pet peeve is that down-votes ought to cost you something and that down-voting should require a comment. Down-vote comments could be hidden by default so as to not pollute threads too much.
We are all guilty to some degree of adding pollution. This is a group of human beings, not algorithms. It will happen. And this is normal.
As a libertarian and real working entrepreneur who has founded and run several companies, succeeded and failed, I tend to react negatively to very liberal views and views not necessarily rooted in real entrepreneurial experience.
On the political end, some of the younger minds on HN have been politically polluted by the liberal bend of our universities and mainstream media. Until they have a collision with reality they then to simply parrot what was driven into their heads because that's all they know.
On the business end, there are a lot of people posting on HN that have never actually started or run a real business, leased space and equipment, hired and fired, had to deal with the various corrupt liberal labor boards, had to deal with taxation and regulation, the agony of business problems and the exhilaration of business success and a myriad of other real-world forces that a business has to face on a daily basis. Yet, they'll come to HN and think that because they read the internet they understand business.
All of this is OK to some degree or another. As I said, it's human nature and this is a group of human beings.
I like HN and want it to remain a high-quality source of interesting discussions relevant to the tech entrepreneur (and not just about which LISP is better!). I'll do my part and try to refrain from reacting to some of the aforementioned posts unless I can truly add valuable insights. Maybe others should also take a moment to re-examine their behavior patterns and see what could be improved. It's probably that simple.