I dunno, I am commenting on it mainly because I find the intensity of the anger and accusations of bad faith to be pretty out of proportion with what's actually happening, and I kind of value pushing back on such things to try to moderate the tone of the discussion (not as a devil's advocate thing per se, but more I am more likely to comment if I feel like the average vibe is unreasonable).

The HN guidelines specifically ask you not to do what you're doing, and say what to do if you have a genuine concern:

> Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents, and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email [email protected] and we'll look at the data.

I'm not sure that HN is that influential that buying up a few accounts would matter. To what end?

> I've seen a lot of what seems to be inorganic defense of this, including one post from an account that hasn't posted in over a year.

It’s just a standard Pavlovian response of a bootlicker, it can also be triggered if you mention “tax the rich” and “regulate AI hyperscalers”.