Right, but that gets into the exact argument that the team is making. When a thread is flagged, that means fewer users are going to open that thread and flag subsequent content or flamebait. It creates a lower moderation environment where those kinds of comments can thrive, which is evident in the same link I posted where you can see what I'm referring to.
If they are flagged, how would they thrive? Fewer people are seeing them as you mention (and even then, many people do have showdead turned on and flag those comments). None of the non-flagged comments on that thread to me (at first glance on a quick skim, anyway) seem like they are "abusive" or "toxic" or whatever other word wants to be used by Asahi it seems like. Indeed, people are pointing out that you can't censor opinions on a forum that you don't control such as HN.
As a general point I agree that it would be better that a flag disables replies to the entire subthread (although it shouldn't [dead] it), just because 99% of the time they're just not good discussions. However, the claim that this is somehow "destroying lives" is rather unserious. Whatever may or may not be going on on Kiwifarms has little to do with HN, and the occasional idiotic comment on HN is ... just the occasional idiotic comment on HN. There are also not really that many of them.
Also, I'll add that whenever I've seen an unflagged hateful comment I've emailed hn@ycombinator.com, and the success rate in getting the comment killed and people told off (or banned) is thus far exactly 100%. This usually happens if someone leaves a comment a few days after the discussion dies down, so few see (and flag) it.
