[the_only_law]

> Honestly, what is happening there?

Despite HN being explicitly not a venue for politics, enough of the userbase has de-facto decided it should be. This of course invites all the sort of internet antics that come with politics which HN users in the past have decried and claimed that the lack of here makes it a more pleasant place in general.

That's when you find these otherwise normal accounts, acting up, accounts that exist solely for flamebating, drive by throwaways attempting to derail threads, etc. And since HN is primarily user-moderated (ironically despite what a subset of the previously described types often insinuate), these sort of behavior can become encouraged if enough people agree the the text or subtext of such comments.