&gt;<i>Readers: look at this train wreck of a thread and notice how effective the tactic was. Notice how little the subthread has to do not only with the original story --- it&#x27;s disconnection to the story is bad enough --- but to the actual comment it responds to, which doesn&#x27;t even mention violence.</i><p>Are you kidding me? First of all &quot;&quot;I&#x27;m glad I wasn&#x27;t there to witness &lt;loved one&gt; being harassed&quot; implies violence clearly (&quot;or who knows what I&#x27;ve done&quot; etc). I<p>Second, this very subtread began with the suggestion of punching the &quot;the guy in the face&quot;, followed by the question whether &quot;jokes justify violence&quot;.<p>Then there&#x27;s the appalling call to the &quot;Readers&quot; -- as if to say: hey, fellow HNs, come see these wild specimens of unpopular opinion. Let&#x27;s bully them&#x2F;downvote them all together. That, along with name-calling (&quot;trolls&quot;, &quot;MRA&quot;, etc).<p>Because of course, somebody can&#x27;t call against violence to a person who did such a thing unless he&#x27;s an MRA, right? I mean, it&#x27;s logically impossible that someone can be against such kind of violent responses in general, even if the offender had insulted another male or a gay, or even if the offender was a woman, right?<p>&gt;<i>Like I said: I&#x27;m sincerely suspect this is in an actual playbook of MRA trolling techniques.</i><p>And like I often say: people who see trolling in candid opinions they don&#x27;t like are either using the accusation dishonestly to shut people up, or live in an echo chamber.