There seem to be multiple meanings to "political"; one in a broad sense (things pertaining to social governance) and a specific ideological axis along which certain general topics become polarized. The former is fine, the latter is damaging (at least in high concentrations or some such).

The appearance of a single overwhelmingly-dominant ideological axis is an artifact certain electoral systems produce in the societies that host them. The fewer axes of variation the electoral system supports, the fewer end up significant in discourse in the society.

The "broad" definition is the one in most dictionaries; the narrow one you suggest seems to be the overlap of partisan tribalism with a society with a single overwhelming axis for the reason described above.

In any case, simple utterances of tribalism are already clearly off-topic on HN, whether they are centered on political ideology or not, so clearly an experiment of the type here must be targeting something broader (though apparently also narrower than the dictionary definition of poltiics.)

> In any case, simple utterances of tribalism are already clearly off-topic on HN, whether they are centered on political ideology or not, so clearly an experiment of the type here must be targeting something broader (though apparently also narrower than the dictionary definition of poltiics.)

I think the better explanation is that a lot of tribalism is slipping through the filter, so the filter is becoming more strict for a time.

'"Non-political" just means "aligned with the political status quo"'

Is this a quote with a source? It's genius.

Not directly, but it's inspired by this excerpt of Red Mars: https://gist.github.com/andreparames/37844c65d918c89cce7d76c...

(Unsurprisingly, Arkady is my favorite character.)