I'm not objecting to asking questions, I'm objecting to preferring the HN commentariat over at least engaging with the posted content. Asking questions after reading the article is fine - that's part of creating fruitful discussion.

But HN does have a problem in that no one believes reading the article is worth the effort, and everyone prefers to just read the comments. The end result of that is a negative feedback loop of insularity and incuriosity, more people only engaging with the subject (or what they believe the subject is based on their reading of the title) on a superficial level rather than real intellectual discussion.