The only problem I noticed a few times on hn is that some comments go dead even if they are right on the money. Edgy or not is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things if the content of the comment is correct.
I didn't end up down the oblivion hole just yet but I did see some that had good points... just not mainstream. Like round earth and trepanning used to be. One is mainstream while the other is now gone and considered barbaric. Some things take time to prove... or dissapear.
On the positive side: You don't have to content with baiting and such things for long.
I like Dang's comments on the idea that the presentation of the information is just as valuable as the information itself. Much like your round Earth example, sometimes stating the objective truth isn't enough to win over an audience. This isn't a flaw in HN so much as it is a flaw in the way people behave. We all operate with partial information and when new information conflicts with what we know (or sometimes what the collective authority seems to know) we reject it.
In general there are two options to this. You can fully commit to your views, and get 10 responses where opponents fully commit to theirs. Or, you can consider the general views of the community your in, and adjust your comments to challenge and question without provoking, usually getting a small number of considered replies in return. The latter tends to be the harder of the two and the less noticable. I think this is why larger discussions with more approachable topics seem to turn toxic faster.
On the positive side: You don't have to content with baiting and such things for long.