A much more realistic and likely outcome, and a far less hysterical perspective than yours, is that the needle was way too far one way, now people are learning to cope with it shifting, and if we try to be more empathetic, perhaps getting help when we need to, we can shift it to a better place than it was before.
How do I know this? Because identical dynamics play over and over, change is scary, even if it is for the better, and people have opposed it on similar grounds -- it would lead to absurdities and worst outcomes for everyone involved -- since time immemorial. For example, see some arguments against women suffrage from just over a hundred years ago [1]:
> Because the acquirement of the Parliamentary vote would logically involve admission to Parliament itself, and to all Government offices. It is scarcely possible to imagine a woman being Minister for War, and yet the principles of the Suffragettes involve that and many similar absurdities.
> Because Woman Suffrage is based on the idea of the equality of the sexes, and tends to establish those competitive relations which will destroy chivalrous consideration.
And, of course, women do not want the vote [2]
The belief that we can -- and must -- work tirelessly change the world by, say, allowing humans to fly and even reach other planets, but when it comes to how people should speak to one another, well, that's too difficult to change, there's no point in trying, and if we try then the outcome will obviously be bad, just seems so bizarre.
[1]: https://www.johndclare.net/Women1_ArgumentsAgainst.htm
[2]: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1903/09/why-wom...
> And, of course, women do not want the vote
Please keep this sort of flamebait out of your HN posts. It's guaranteed to make everything worse, and you can make your substantive points without it.
As for how shitty this thread is, I've spent the last several hours posting dozens of comments, feebly trying to do something about that. All I'm asking you (and others) is not to make it worse yet. Gratuitous provocation takes discussion straight to failure modes. We're all worse off if that happens.
How that's a reason not to make substantive points, or what it has to do with SV, I'm not following. The vast majority of HN is far away from SV, all over the world, and I've never seen a correlation between posts being shitty and posts being from SV. On the present topic there is probably a mild negative correlation, just because people in SV have been through so many iterations of this discussion, for so many more years than most places, that they're less likely to get activated with naive outrage.
People who feel strongly on topics routinely use language like "putrid horror show" to justify their own breaking of the site guidelines and making a discussion even worse than it already is. This sort of "why bother" / "fuck it" attitude is a big part of why things are so bad to begin with; it leads people to create the situation they deplore. No one wants to look at the "putridity" of their own contributions—the problem is always caused by other, never by self.
The only solution I can see to this is to prioritize taking care of the commons, regardless of how bad things are or you feel they are.