My point was I don't think it's functional to chain method calls in JavaScript. Maybe it is, although I think you'd very easily run into an unintentional issue, i.e. call .sort() on the array which mutates it.
Your post most assuredly got down voted to death for calling "HN" "toxic." That's not constructive at all, and it inflames emotions which is the opposite of HN's goals of technical discussion.
I've taken many positions against the HN herd and yes many people do downvote on disagreement (which I agree they shouldn't), but given a bit of time it will typically even out. The new vouch system helps this even more.
IMO, effectively, it does censor it; not de jure, but de facto. (Hope I used those terms right, IANAL.)
Because my guess is that not many HN users know about the "showdead" setting. After all, not everyone is into tinkering with systems, tweaking settings, etc., even among developers, who I guess form a sizeable percentage of users here. Some of them just want to use the software as needed and get on with their lives, even though they may be technical.