And it is bad. The concept of hiding what you don't agree to is really bad for discussions. I wish the fading was only due to flagging not votes.

Fading a comment helps to signal that it has already been downvoted enough. This is to avoid going -100 because no one can see how far you're down already.

HN has a downvote system as well. What you describe happens when a comment gets downvoted enough times, which makes it another good example of downvotes amplifying groupthink.

I kinda like that I only have upvote button currently here since I haven't hit the karma threshold. I do feel like the HN crowed doesn't downvote comments unless its spam or way out of the current topic. It happens but not like reddit where it acts like a disagree button.

People downvote for disagreement here all the time, it's a cultural norm.