I sympathize with the sentiment you express here. In some ideal world where people are purely rational beings this might be the case. However, that's not the world we live in, and empirically has not been the case here on HN. You can see that on any climate change thread (at least any I've seen here). You mention in another comment that anything can be eventually connected to politics. I agree. And unfortunately some members will always make that connection rather than fighting against it to have a civil, constructive discussion. There are plenty of interesting topics that don't slip as easily into inflammatory political back-and-forth. Avoiding those that do seems prudent and which is what the HN guidelines explicitly state. And that's what the detox week is trying to reinforce.