If the comments say it's worth it I read it, but often (especially on HN) the top comment starts with a summary of errors/inconsistencies in the article and then I don't really feel the need.
You do you, but hivemind thinking is a real thing. I have seen highly upvoted comments seemingly "debunk" an article where on closer examination it becomes clear they actually didn't read the article either.
It quickly becomes this weird bubble of people just acting on what everything "thinks" the content is about without ever having looked at the content.
I get that is easier, but intellectually you are doing yourself no favors by having this be your default.
That is the biggest problem on this website, people want to feel smart by 'debunking' things they don't really understand. It leads to a lot of contrarian views with poor signal to noise ratio, especially when the topic is slightly outside of average user experience (midwit programming)
But often the top comment debunks what you think is true, and then you learn something.
> It quickly becomes this weird bubble of people just acting on what everything "thinks" the content is about without ever having looked at the content.
That isn't an issue though since the important part is what you learn or not, not whether you think an imaginary article is true or not. If you learn something from someone debunking an imaginary article, that is just as good as learning something from debunking a real article.
The only issue here is attribution, but why should a reader care about that?
Edit: And it isn't an issue that people will think it actually debunks the linked article, since there will always be a sub comment stating that the commenter didn't read the article and therefore missed the mark.
