alt Hacker NewsAh yes, the internet where we had polite conversations on the merits of Vim vs Emacs, and women wanting to participate were warmly welcomed with a friendly "tits or gtfo"...
Shitposting, trolling, and harassment has been around since the very beginning of the public internet. If you didn't see it, it has to have been because you were (unconsciously or not) looking away.
The "ideologues and political commissars" didn't ruin your "friendly technical discussions", they merely pointed out how toxic a lot of those communities had always truly been.
If anything, if you really want to focus on the technical details, you should welcome their attempts to make it a friendlier and more professional space!
I didn't see any shitposting on the internet in the 1990s or the decade after that, nor anything remotely like "tits or gtfo" before I saw it on 4chan (which started in 2003).
I did see a lot of trolling and a little harassment (not of women or other disadvantaged groups).