Comment by gnicholas

People are likening this to "political debate, but among smart/humble/etc. people". I think this isn't quite right.

I think what people are looking for is political discussion among people who are generally bright but whose identities are not politically-focused. If you set up an internet forum for talking about politics, you would attract people whose primary interest is politics, and whose identities are wrapped up in politics. These people would be blinded by all sorts of biases and groupthink. The conversation would be largely terrible.

HN, on the other hand, has an audience that is mostly technical/startup-focused, and many of whom are quite bright. They also come from all over the world, though there is a clear US bias. Using these categories as filters, as opposed to "I care a lot about politics" as a filter yields relatively more interesting political conversations, at least for me.