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Suggesting that mixing HN and politics will improve HN is like suggesting that mixing wine and poison will improve the poison. The political discussions on HN have been typified by flaming, bullying, groupthink, and appeals to emotion, which tends to ooze out into the less-political topics and damage them too. This site is far better off without them.

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I don't know. Even if the flaming and groupthink rhetoric is there, it doesn't mean that there's no one on the other side listening. Maybe they are just spectating and not posting. There is an impact there, but it's not measurable in any conceivable way. That doesn't make it useless though.

I say this as someone whose been that spectator.

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