[ericd]

It has nothing to do with YC "corporate interest" (YC is about as far from that kind of thinking as you can get). It has everything to do with keeping this place a place for calm intellectual discussion rather than debate between sides with deeply entrenched beliefs that are unlikely to change. A lot of online communities devolve into a constant state of that, and it ends up driving away people who want to discuss intellectual things.

PG stresses over how to design the software for this place such that its community doesn't fall into the common traps that online communities usually do. That's not what most people are here for, and in the end, a minority would spoil this for the majority.