In the original comment you implied that the parent lacked critical thinking skills and mocked the idea that lockdowns even exist. I hope you can see how that is insulting, especially considering that in a later reply you said "The lockdowns have been hard, yes indeed". It kind of leads me to believe that you are the one arguing in bad faith here.

And I am not saying you are "obligated" to do anything. What I am saying is that by reacting the way you did, you are contributing to the hardening of beliefs and the polarization of this issue. If you want to live in a world where "utterly and obviously false" ideas continue to gain traction, then by all means keep insulting anyone who you disagree with.

I didn't mock the idea that lockdowns existed. I mocked the idea that they were of a nature that could possibly allow them to function as part of a cover up of the sort being claimed.

Lockdowns also took place in nations around the earth with entirely different economic and governmental systems to the US, so unless you're a believer in some sort of hidden global order that managed to get the Chinese, the Norwegians, the Germans and the US to all do more or less the same thing, then the existence of lockdowns seems to A LOT more to do with a virus than some cover up of contemporary capitalism.

There's a limit to how much politeness we need to extend to edge-dwelling ideas. Most people (not all, I know) on HN would include flat earth theory as stuff that doesn't require politeness (though perhaps a little sympathy ... I dunno). The question is where do you draw that line, and my POV, we already draw it far too close to people who have bad-faith reasons for proposing, publicizing and discussing a bunch of ideas.

Ok, fair enough. To be honest though, this quote that you just posted:

"Lockdowns also took place in nations around the earth with entirely different economic and governmental systems to the US, so unless you're a believer in some sort of hidden global order that managed to get the Chinese, the Norwegians, the Germans and the US to all do more or less the same thing, then the existence of lockdowns seems to A LOT more to do with a virus than some cover up of contemporary capitalism."

That makes a ton of sense and is a great argument! I wish you had replied to the original comment with this instead. I know you aren't arguing in bad faith, and I apologize for being a stickler on this.