"Stupid" comments are one thing, "stupid" questions are another. With "stupid" questions you at least demonstrate a willingness to learn and not just spew political talking points, biases, etc.

I self-censor because of this and think we shouldn't mind. I end up writing comments I don't submit, but I consider the exercise worthwhile because forcing myself to write my thoughts out and then judging whether they're truly helpful/insightful teaches me what knowledge gaps I need to fill eventually and where I'm just falling back on preconceived notions/biases to form my opinions.

So if you think you'll be down-voted ask yourself why. If you don't know why, then re-formulate your post as question to understand others' reasoning.

On second thoughts, I have to agree with you re the differences between "stupid" comments and "stupid" questions. Good point.

Can you clarify the kinds of self-censoring you're doing?

Some of it is really a very good thing -- namely, "am I asking a question that would be trivial for me to answer for myself?"

There are plenty of "stupid" questions that are important to ask of yourself (and are part of the learning process for all of us) but need not clutter up a good discussion.

If everyone self-censors by asking "will this increase the value of this discussion for other readers?", I think that's a good thing.

I think you're talking about self-censoring based on "will this comment reveal my ignorance and harm my karma?", which isn't the same thing. A question or two along the lines of "I don't know much about this, but it's interesting and seemingly not well-covered online -- does anyone want to give a quick high-level explanation?" are normally welcomed.

Be polite, be on topic, don't ask something that's trivial to answer for yourself, and consider the value of the question to other readers... and you don't have to be already a wizard on the given topic to discuss it.

I think self censoring is largely a positive - it means people will actually take the time to think through their post, rather than just responding emotively. Whilst I'm sure there are times that valuable comments are lost because people are too cautious, I think the overall effect on signal-to-noise ratio is hugely, hugely beneficial.

But "in physics" sounds like a university class where people are paying money to learn.

Is Hacker News about teaching people things? Or does it have some other goal?

Agreed. Punishing people who make stupid comments seems like it causes resentment and anger and thus more stupid comments.

I wonder if there a parallel with the whole punishment vs rehabilitation aspect of the justice systems. In essence, a justice system is a social tool to cause people to act a certain way. Some techniques are better than others.