However, in any community where the down vote is used for mere disagreement, there is no room for dissenting opinions. An open discourse requires that people are willing to listen to those whom they disagree with. Down voting liberally is counter to that principle.
I disagree. Downvoting for disagreement is a way of saving time in the discussion from reading lower value comments. To much low value content can mask more thoughtful discussion.
Just because I don't agree with someone's perspective, doesn't inherently make it low value or not thoughtful. I find I often learn much from people I disagree with, even if their argument didn't change my mind.
No the disagreement doesn’t make it inherently make it low value, and I personally don’t downvote purely for disagreement, but for disagreement with argument methods wether I agree with the positions or not.
People forget that Hacker News is explicitly not a forum for free speech or open discourse. It's a forum for curated speech, sometimes aggressively curated, preferring fewer comments of higher quality over more comments of lower quality, even at the cost of open discourse.
It gets on my nerves too but that's Chinatown, as it were.
