It's an interesting idea for sure, but I'm not sure how or if such a thing can exist. Moderation becomes a headache, and well, a lot of truly brilliant people I've met in life have zero interest in debating it. How do you keep out the YT commenters, Fox News or r/politics commenters, etc?
It would be interesting if HN had some bucket like /offtopic, for things that are flamebaity and removed from the main view, but I fear it would attract the aforementioned people who only ever troll there, and dang probably having zero interest in mod'ing it.
Not OP, but it's not smart/educated that I like to have these conversations with. It's humble, polite, open minded people. For the most part these two axes are usually orthogonal and independent. The one correlation I've found is that if one's lack of education is approached in a way that contributes to them feeling insecure, then they move into survival mode, become defensive, and thus less open minded.
HN tends to attract people from an educational/professional background that encourages critical thinking. Even if the user has a degree in the liberal arts, the application of their mind in technology forces their thoughts in a way that pushes them to think critically and not just accept what is given to them without question - I would think. As with all thoughts and theories, this is a general rule and a hypothesis, I might be way off the mark.
Generally speaking, though, people who have learned critical thinking skills seem more willing to discuss an issue in a reasonable manner and drill down to the truth of it, rather than "dig in" and just decide they're right with whatever information they might have on hand.
I only bring this up as I have a fine arts degree, but shifted into programming as I wrote scripts for different art applications and the transition was natural as I had a background as a script kiddie from my high school days. A large amount of the people I went to school with, however, are absolutely unwilling to apply critical thought to specific subjects even though some have masters degrees.
My net experience on HN, is overall positive. But, most of the discussions are about software/tech things.
When not trying to put a ding in the universe for irrigation automation, I also enjoy a life as a father/husband/grandfather, budding pilot, active faith community participant, water ski enthusiast, snow skier, Lego enthusiast. I have noted that on the occasions when discussions on HN overlap some of these areas, that the “I’m educated so I must intuit more than your life experience informs you” is off putting. I don’t think I would enjoy any but the most tangential discussions about family, romance, marital relationships, religion, engagement in the environment, or child rearing in the HN forums. There are places I can go and discuss some of these with humility and open mindedness and politeness, but it would be a while before I felt that way about these topics in these forums.
Which is not a diss on HN at all. I just think we all have areas in our life where we can find cohorts and feel secure and have polite open minded discussions (if we’re so inclined). And other areas where the context/cohort doesn’t align with the premise of the cohort well.