Well, I've learned a lot from the various links that have been thrown around (and expect to learn more when I get around to reading more of them than I have), so I don't think it's entirely unproductive. I agree these posts are "Not Hacker News", but not for their content, or for their "unproductive discussions", but for bringing out the side of HN members for whom disagreement ==> downvote, and disagreement-from-majority-view ==> downvote-to-oblivion. It's unpleasant to witness and I have enough outlets for my unpleasant-reality-seeking desires; HN is nice because it's still not overall unpleasant like for instance Reddit.