Let's be honest here. HN is only open to _certain_ dissenting opinions. If you hold others, people will flame you and then dang will time you out claiming a rules violation without any clarification as to which ones and despite honestly not knowing which ones.

Other users flagrantly violate the rules without issue because they hold the prevailing opinion.

It's very rare to find truly neutral moderators. dang and the other mods are just catering to their core audience, otherwise they would alienate them.