Comment by hn_throwaway_99

> Sounds like you basically want political debate, but only among smart and/or well educated people?

I mean, maybe, although I think there is substantial non-overlap between "people able to have a good-faith, respectful debate" and those traditionally considered "smart and/or well educated".

As a lot of comment responses attest, it seems the answer may just be "it's human nature, it's not possible", but given that I just see these kind of topics more and more and more (i.e. interesting but where the debate ends up getting more vitriolic and going in circles), I'd hope it's something beyond just human nature at work.

Heck, maybe even the possibility to keep interesting upvoted articles without any comments would be worth trying.