Sometimes I have a tendency to read the top comment before clicking on links. Most of the time the top comment is a contrarian comment if it's a news article or blog post. So that makes me view the article in a different way, which can be good but might also be a self-fulfilling prophecy that causes me not to form my own opinion. On the other hand, regardless of what I read first I side with the HN commenter's point of view over seemingly uninformed articles.