That would be nice! Despite being a CS major, I get so much information from Hackernews on implementation, hacks, industries, motivation. So I believe sites like these would definitely help newcomers get into a completely disparate interest!
Well, while I really enjoy the broad topics on HN, it does present all topics through the lens of technology and tech-work which can lead to the impression that this is all there is to it.
Any decent economics HN is going to have to deal with amateurs kindly but also bluntly. (An amateur dilettante btw)
The place where academic economists hang out is econjobrumors. But it‘s anonymous and not heavily moderated and can be quite nasty.