Unfortunately, there really are dedicated and heavy operations by government organizations and corporations to try and sabotage debate. These operations are well recorded, especially corporations such as Microsoft and Samsung who are well known for it. It's just a fact of online forums. Of course, it's also a fact that a lot of people obviously hold diverse opinions. It is just plain impossible to be able to reliably tell the difference between astroturfing, trolling and genuine opinions.

Honestly, the best solution is simply to state your argument and leave as back and forth debating is generally useless. This applies in both the case where you are arguing against someone who appears to be astroturfing and where you are in the position of having an unpopular opinion. You're just wasting both your time and others with pointless arguments. HN is pretty good on this point by having that 'deep thread cooldown'.

If everybody follows the "state your argument and leave" rule then you don't have a discussion forum at all...

I doubt he'll come back to answer you on this...

But you still have the advantage of seeing that point of view stated.

  | "These operations are well recorded"

I'm curious about these, can you provide any links?

If an opinion echos the line pushed by propagandists and PR firms, would you be more likely to be skeptical of it? Would you start looking for the polished turd, the pig with lipstick on? After all, if nobody was influenced to parrot those lines, the PR firm would find itself out of business.

Yeah, sometimes that is true but off topic of the linked documentation which outlines in detail how to derail discussions, much like your point. You are peripherally correct but off topic and easily refutable, so many points! Well done sir.