I don't mind it. Looking at the comments, it seems like a number of people got facts wrong (based on the articles that have been written) and emotions were high. It's just hard to have these conversations and HN isn't necessarily the place to have them.

Point taken, but sometimes 'heated' conversations happen on topics of great importance, and are sometimes the conversations from which we learn the most. (certainly not always, but sometimes).

A non-HN example: often when two people I have huge respect for as intellectuals go at it in debate over something, I can often infer that the topic is of some importance (I might not have ever heard of the topic before), and when smart people differ greatly in their views, at the very least, it's an 'interesting' topic, perhaps warranting further inquisition.

You can't judge this by individual datapoints that you disagree with.

To answer your question, imagine HN's frontpage saturated by stories that you would consider entirely offtopic and sensational. To a first approximation, that's what HN would be for everyone if it weren't for user flags.

Of course the system is imperfect and overcorrects. But the presence of the current post on the frontpage already shows that sometimes—often, in fact—the overcorrection gets adjusted.

Something can be flagged (or downvoted) because people think the topic or discussion is off-charter or incorrect, or to suppress information/discussion for ulterior reasons.

In some forums, tactics like flaming, disinformation, off-topic noise like jokes, upvoting diversions, etc. can also suppress information/discussion.