As a user of several Google products, the "cattle-herded" metaphor is perfect. Not a week goes by without my needing to counsel a former Picasa users nursing wounds from the great G+ herding of 2013.
The part I thought was interesting: "If I vote down a story that you voted up, your vote should count less in my rankings of stories. And vice versa. The same holds for comments."
Yeah that caught my attention too. Personally, I really don't want my HN to be different from anyone else's. I come to HN not only to see stories that will interest me, but also to see what's captivating the community as a whole right now.