If there are sock puppets around here they are probably native internet crazies or maybe lazy covert software salesman. Most of the posters just represent the wide variety of opinions on a planet with 8 billion people competing with each other. There isn't much evidence of it and political propagandizing of HN through bots is pointless anyway - most readers have practically no money or power, there aren't that many of them and they aren't trying to coordinate to achieve anything politically interesting.

> The radicalization of, e.g., Marc Andreessen was very useful to some group, so there is no reason they wouldn't try more of the same in this venue.

He's a billionaire. They come pre-radicalised and detached from reality by default. A body don't get to be a billionaire by just going with the flow and not having any particular interest in influencing the world around them.