Even if it did, the guidelines are still company guidelines not community guidelines. That was my point. Calling it community guidelines is a form of social engineering to appeal to many people's natural desire to conform.
> The difference with a cult is apparent looking at the definition. Google gives me this:
I didn't say hn is a cult. I was just pointing out the common tools of manipulation used by both cults and social media sites like twitter, like reddit, like hn.
> You could argue there's a weird veneration of dang, which I do find kind of odd, but most people wouldn't consider "treat others with respect" as strange or sinister.
You are building a straw man. Where did I ever even mention anything about 'treat other's with respect'. You are attributing to me an argument I didn't make. And are hammering at it. I made no assertion about any specific guideline. I didn't say whether they were good or bad. I even went out of my way to say the company has a right to set whatever guideline they want. I was just pointing out the social engineering aspect to it. Whether the guidelines says be 'mean to others' or 'be kind to others' is meaningless to my argument as it is about social engineering. Hope that cleared up the confusion.