Sure, but he's not your buddy, guy.

Chiming I here. “Dude …” is a dumb thing to say in a debate. Please take take that over to Reddit.

Also chiming in here, it's not a big deal at all to call someone "dude", because this isn't a formal debate, it's just a web forum.

… the steady decline of HN over the decades …

The person complaining about saying "dude" already lowered the tone of the drasticaly debate by saying, apparently without a hint of irony, "stop thinking like a poor person." So I agree there's a lot of low quality, revolting posts here but the use "dude" doesn't really scratch the surface.

> “Dude …” is a dumb thing to say in a debate.

Is it insulting?

As a part of a retort in an argument, it’s similar to rolling one’s eyes. It’s also not substantive.

No, but it is annoying and when in a debate it tries to distract and/or claim some kind of familiarity or higher ground.

The comment I replied to had already lost any sort of higher ground at:

> stop thinking like a poor person.