Historically, if you look at past discussions, we've had great conversations by upvoting any comment that adds a new perspective to the mix.
If an ideal society wishes to eliminate climate change denial, for example, it won't be through silencing and stigmatizing their beliefs; it'll be through respectfully listening and debating.
As an example, I was rather unaware of the debate against climate change until reading a discussion on HN from people who were oft characterized as 'deniers.' One, for example, believed there were more immediate problems to be solved, and the other wasn't convinced by the science. It was a productive discussion, and I feel that everyone is better off having it, yet I fear that it wouldn't be condoned today without a mass of downvotes.
At this stage of the matter, it is quite possible that you fell for exactly the sort of bad-faith 'discussions' that pjc50 mentioned. Two forms of this are the repetition of thoroughly-debunked arguments and the injection of non-sequiturs (as I don't know what you are specifically referring to, I cannot say for certain, but most of what appears in this domain falls into at least one of these categories.)
I agree that there is no point in downvoting this sort of thing, but it is unfortunate if it gets upvoted by people who are not in a position to judge its validity. Scoring arguments on style is not the way to go (even if that is how the SAT essay is scored.)
Some people are down voting him for name calling. Both republicans and democrats suffer from a persecution complex on HN. It's kind of funny.
All sites are agenda driven. But somehow sites with agendas that I disagree with are more guilty of bias. Funny how that works. Fake news, on the other hand, is claiming global warming is hoax invented by the Chinese. I would say only 10% of my facebook friends are conservative and I've only seen them post blatant lies like photoshops of black NFL players cheering the burning of a US flag. The liberals, at worst, get a little too excited about the Russian investigation. Though that has as much merit as Hilary's emails.
> Some people are down voting him for name calling.
I was surprised by the downvotes to a fairly argued comment, and then I read this hours ago and it seemed valid. The most upvoted comment in response now, however, calls him 'idiotic' several times throughout.
When someone says that I cannot discern fake from real, and for my own well being I should be protected from "fake news" (otherwise I'll start to believe that global worming is real / not-real), than I'm being treated like I'm some type of an "idiot", so why hide that word.
Would we still upvote those who deny climate change for discussion's sake, for example?