The way I see it is if a person’s intent is seeking either sympathy or any social value proposition HN is likely not the ideal venue. It’s like the taboo of talking about politics in the office for those of us who don’t live in the valley where that is more generally accepted.
How would you define "talking about politics"? Does it include talking about government? If so, all of the Snowden leaks are off the table.
What about policy? That seemingly covers universal basic income, entrepreneurship incentives, etc.
News stories about tech companies? Most of those are constantly in the news for enraging the entire political spectrum.
What about government clients, as it also relates to policy? We'd basically never talk about Palantir on here again.
I don't see any way to talk about tech companies, entrepeneurship, (technology) business, philosophy, or most other interesting HN topics without crossing into something that most people consider too political for office conversation.
Otherwise if you are perplexed at what construes a political discussion you are most likely looking for any excuse to knowingly engage in politics. This sort of deliberate dishonesty is one reason I refuse to move to the Bay Area where such behavior is commonly accepted.
I don't have one, and I don't think most people do. That was my point.
I have no idea where the Bay Area part come from or why you think I'm being dishonest. Perhaps you interpret rhetorical questions as dishonest?
I've written extensive explanations about this: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu.... If anyone reads those and has a question that isn't answered yet, I'd like to know what it is. Some good threads to start with might be https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21607844 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22902396. Also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869, which shows how far back political discussion goes on HN, as well as the argument about politics on HN.