Your comment about this place is spot on and has been for several years now. Even though it's been a tough year in crypto, one of my personal favorite HN threads and one your summary rings true for is Brian Armstrong's Hacker News post, before Coinbase blew it's top off.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3754664

Another one of my favorites is the multiple times 4Chan has made fun of HN. An example of that:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9788317