Fair enough but on a site inhabited by intelligent, skeptical people it’s hard to follow those rules when the topic has become “was pg being disingenuous, willfully blind, or simply naive on that day, 6 years ago, when he announced partnership with his mysterious Russian money man?”

It's always hard to follow those rules, most of all when a topic activates one, and we all get activated by something. It happens to hundreds if not thousands of HN users every day (including yours truly on a good measure of those days).

Self-restraint is required at such moments. We all need to contribute our share of this if we want HN to survive as a place for substantive discussion.