What you really need is reddit for adults, a site with an entirely different culture that leaves the memes and unfunny jokes behind in favor of encouraging actual conversation on any given topic.
Politics isn't a good
The best content on reddit that I find comes from niche communities. There are some really subject-specific knowledgeable people on there. You see those posts come through /r/bestof, which is just submissions to those gem comments that people find. It's worth subscribing to, but even that is a lot of noise to signal.
The only main/large subreddits I'm subscribed to anymore are /r/programming and /r/todayilearned. The other 50ish are for specific interests and hobbies.
Side rant: I swear that /r/technology went from a mature community of technically literate and rational people to a bunch of politically-charged kids obsessed with long-range scientific discoveries and product feature announcements in about a year. It was painful watching that happen. The patent war saga of yesteryear was the last straw that betrayed the community for the juvenile crowd it had become.
It isn't just the under18's that post memes you know.