The problem is more the upvotes than the comments because it's the upvotes that stick a post like the GP to the top of a thread, which creates all sorts of unintended escalations, as well as derailing the thread into offtopicness. But the only way to prevent this from happening is not to post such comments in the first place.

I think you're off base about "trolling" in this and similar cases. From my perspective HN readers just like different things and have different opinions. I didn't see any trolling or manipulation in the current thread for example. Internet users are orders-of-magnitude too quick to jump to such conclusions.