_r0fz
Can you honestly go look through the comments of any post touching any of those issues and call them kind? It's one thing to say it's out of scope for moderation because they keep it civil and calm. But to say the cruelty isn't there is to choose not to see it.
You can pretty much be as cruel as you want on HN as long as you don't swear or call people names too much.
You can find joy on here sure but it's despite the culture here not because of it.
HN is social media too! I've heard the arguments why it's not but they aren't compelling to me; it is one. The main difference between here and twitter is the tone.
On here there is a cultural expectation that you will perform dispassionate erudition but if you read beyond that at all very few comments are any more intellectually stimulating than an average tweet. Less, honestly, at least people on twitter still seem to value joy and humor and whimsy.
The main thing you seem to be missing though is that the subreddit is not meant to be a neutral ground for people to compare and discuss ideas.
It's a place to get concrete, consensus- and literature-based answers from people with real experience and practice at history. Having people in the comments presenting ahistorical information entirely outside of scholarly consensus only detracts from that goal.
So even if you consider this _only_ a power-vs-speech thing, there's still a strong argument that moderation is the correct step. When conversations detract from the stated purpose of the community they are restricted. Same as right here actually.
Parts of the white evangelicals going hard into it is weird but not completely out of nowhere I guess.
BUT! Anyway the "judeo-christian" thing is just a rhetorical move. I think overall Americans are very ignorant of judaism and think it's a lot more similar to christianity than it is but no one thinks they're the same religion. Uninformed but not likely to mix the two up like this.