You're right about the herd mentality, but that's the whole point: measuring the herd mentality has a value. No one is asking you to put 100% of your judgment in the point count, and you'd be a fool to do so, much as you'd be a fool to believe everything you see on TV.
Showing points does not kill HNers brains. We've already lost if it does.
It has far less value than you might think. When this community was 100% startuppers, that worked better, but now there are so many people who don't have first hand experience that are willing to upvote anything that sounds correct that it's lost a lot of its value. It's now a dangerous positive feedback loop.
High vote counts tend to be very convincing to all but the most discriminating people, it's not the mark of a fool to believe what everyone is telling them is correct, just a sign of inexperience with that topic.
- 1: If it actually fixed the problem, this would mean that quality comments will appear higher on the page, not cluttered by mediocre comments that enjoy the group bump. I pull this assumption based upon the way I use the upvote system. So of course, I could be wrong.
- 2: Maybe the site just feels better to me, because I don't have to see comments get high upvotes that I believe are poorly thought out, or based highly on emotion/fanboyism/or other non logical motivations.
I could see it going either way, but my money is on the first possibility.
All I know for sure is that I now rarely find myself thinking.."Whaat? People think that was a good comment? People thought that added value? People think this guy knows what he's talking about?"
It's just not as self-selecting as it used to be. What worked for the community in the past doesn't necessarily work now or going forward. At least a bit of regression to the mean in the community is inevitable if it grows (which it has, by a lot).
Showing points does not kill HNers brains. We've already lost if it does.