It's getting to the point now where people are downvoting on HN not just bad or off-topic posts, or posts they disagree with (which is already pretty close to ridiculous), but even just posts they don't think they themselves would have taken the time to write out. I'm pretty sure this post will be downvoted to a very light grey, for example.

It's gotten to the point where if I see a greyed-out post I just automatically give it an upvote. The environment around here has gotten so toxic that it is more often the case that such posts are better than average anyway.