[krapp]

I try not to. Sometimes I'm lazy but I usually try to put in the effort to read the article first, if I think it might be interesting, because I tend to find the articles to be more insightful than the commentariat, and because I tend to complain about people not reading the articles a lot. I think it's important to try to expand one's intellectual horizons and take the risk of engagement in a community predicated on satisfying intellectual curiosity, because otherwise comments tend to feed on each others' ignorance rather than spread insight. Especially for subjects not likely to be in HN's wheelhouse (anything non-technical, or technical but not related to programming) or subjects with any political or social dimension, where the tendency towards the "aggressively ignorant hot take" might prevail. I see little value in reading the comments first in those cases.

Conversely, if I haven't read the article, I try not to comment as if I have.