> if I violated HN guidelines, so have you, by calling me out in turn.

In a mild way, yes. The guidelines actually say to flag and not comment.

However, I didn’t try to insult you, and there is a difference.

This comment of yours result seems to be just doubling down.

> it's so easy to write off large diverse institutions as "fucking bullshit" and poison a discussion before it even starts

The commenter didn’t actually say this. You are misrepresenting them.

Also, they didn’t poison the discussion. It seems to have proceeded just fine, both in the replies to them, and elsewhere.