In that discussion they were not trolling you, at least not intentionally. Instead you were seeing what happens when you combine a strong dose of cognitive dissonance with the ability to downvote.
This is a common effect in HN and other so called "enlightened" communities because they do have higher concentrations of honestly intelligent people, people particularly susceptible to cognitive dissonance.
When you say something truthful that a "normal" person thinks is wrong, 9 times out of 10 they will ignore you, because they "know" you are wrong. Not so with intelligent populations.
Alternatively, he was saying things that were out-and-out factually untrue.
Which, you know. He was. HN voters have this tendency to downvote posts that sound like crazy-person conspiracy theorizing, for some strange reason. (I downvoted him because he was maliciously inaccurate--mistakes happen, but that wasn't a mistake. That was fabrication.)
This is a common effect in HN and other so called "enlightened" communities because they do have higher concentrations of honestly intelligent people, people particularly susceptible to cognitive dissonance.
When you say something truthful that a "normal" person thinks is wrong, 9 times out of 10 they will ignore you, because they "know" you are wrong. Not so with intelligent populations.