I certainly think it's possible to clear 500 karma by playing to the echo chamber, but I don't remember having had much difficulty doing getting 500 and most of my comments have either been technical or about niche policy-ish stuff like urban planning or energy. I think my personal views on particularly echo-chamber-y things are probably at least somewhat different from any normative HN values that may exist, and that hasn't really been a barrier.

(That said, I almost never downvote.)