HN isn't a good place for discussion in my opinion due to the (explicitly allowed) practice of downvoting comments you don't agree with.
If you'll be penalized for saying something people disagree with, you won't say it, or you'll say it and I'll be downvoted until it's hidden. This leads to HN threads usually being dominated with a few majority opinions and any real discussion being killed-off or buried.
This is basically the same as Reddit. If you want real discussion you often need to sort by controversial.
