Incidentally, it now occurs to me that HN is basically my current replacement. Even if I have zero interest in a linked topic, I’ll often find a comment or discussion that’s enlightening and furthers my perspective of something in a meaningful and positive way.
The same crowd has now migrated to ActivityPub. You can find them there still acting the same way today.
To contrast, the FT used to have good comments (and still does on really obscure topics) but overall they've gone massively downhill because of the lack of decent norms around thoughtful conversation.
Good! USA politics are so ridiculous and toxic, it's better to have a place that's free of all that garbage. However, I don't agree that these discussions get "shut down": I see Americans posting their libertarian, gun-fetish stuff here all the time.