There's a fair amount of IRC channels which are nice (and where that's enforced). IRC is a technology, not an ideology, just like the WWW that underpins HN.
Yes, I agree that it's not all IRC channels, but you can see from the average bash.org quote how 'the social crowd' feels about this kind of talk.
WWW is a hypertext transport protocol, so it's not really like IRC at all. IRC is a group communications platform, and when you compare it to every other group communications platform, it's obvious it has a very particular culture. Part of that is inherent to the technical design of the protocol and its admin features. But mainly it's how humans interact in groups, and the features of the protocol being used by that nature, that shifts expected behavior.
The only things I can think of to compare IRC to is YouTube and Xbox Live voice chat. Short messages that are often a running commentary on some subject, which can devolve into unrelated argument, and is often filled with hateful and insulting diatribe. Anonymity preserves the behavior, and the lack of down-moderation of these comments, along with a total lack of consequence, means people get to say whatever they like. And often people have some pretty fucked up things to say.
In IRC's case, the technology can actually encourage the behavior because the ops decide what is acceptable or not. If the ops condone hate speech, it becomes acceptable culture. And due to the 24/7 nature of IRC, there's little way other than bots to monitor a channel all the time. You're right that the technology itself is not the main factor in how people behave using it, but human nature itself - when run amok - can often result in negative behavior. So IRC is a shithole not because of the technology, but because of people.
Bash.org has been up and down quite a few times for the past few years, there's only one real reason that it's interesting and that's for it sentimental value. Who ever browses bash.org for new content anymore? IRC's only used for open source communication and general knowledge channels nowadays anyway, not much fun going on still.
Unless general IRC channels and networks experience a revival there won't ever be a better source for IRC quotes than the internet archive's mirror of bash.org.
Sorry guys, forgot that offering opinions that say something isn't really treating women properly is a akin four letter word on hacker news!
Anyway, my point was that the most recent bash contribution (currently voted -40) doesn't represent what bash has to offer, but that newbies shouldn't be turned off by it.