>- anything US-related since it's almost always irrelevant to me and often political (which invites a lot of bad faith discussion);

That's too broad.

>- most cultural issues being that they are rehashed, never interesting and the comments are usually flooded with people who already have strong opinions (not to mention the stale talking points);

a lot of them boil down to local politics and voting mechanics, it really feels inappropriate on HN unless all you want to say is "building housing is illegal", local residents have solve it themselves

>- crypto (a financial exercise disguised as technology)

There are environmental disaster articles coming every single day/week. Just introduce a CO2 tax and be done with it. Talking about a boom and a crash every once in a while is ok however.