zlacker

I don't understand how your conclusion follows from the rest. The fact that your "uncontroversial critiques of the status quo" get down voted is evidence that we can't have unbiased and productive political discussions on HN.

>>olalon+(OP)
This ban gives the status quo implicit support by stoping the discussion in its tracks. Our reality includes political discussion and I don't think we can cleanly make a divide between it and other things that spark interest in hackers.

>>mattne+w3
That's why this is a good time to experiment with a ban. The USA is in a transition between two presidents of different parties and the UK has an unelected supremeo with two chaotically contradictory mandates.

The status quo is fuzzily defined at this moment so bias towards it is not as harmful as usual.