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Re:Ultraviolet Irradiation of Blood: “The Cure That Time For... by archagon on Friday April 24, 2020 @02:20PM (#22971328)
Don't you see how if:

* An ignorant authoritarian with an obvious agenda sets the discussion topic

* We discuss said topic without mentioning his ignorance, authoritarianism, or agenda

The topic effectively becomes "laundered"? Much like OP, I've seen this over and over again. Trump (or similar) says something batshit insane, a "well, maybe..." topic gets bumped to the front page, political discussion gets culled from the thread, topic gets somewhat normalized. And so the koo-koo express keeps chugging towards the cliff.

Re:Ultraviolet Irradiation of Blood: “The Cure That Time For... by dang on Friday April 24, 2020 @02:34PM (#22971490)
I partly agree but would put it differently. When an obscure topic (like ultraviolet blood irradiation) is connected to some trigger in the daily news, people will end up arguing about the daily news rather than delving into the obscure topic. So from an HN point of view, that's the worst time for the topic to appear. HN should be countercyclical instead. This case has made that even clearer to me than it already was.

At the same time, HN is not for internet ragewar and users here should know enough not to feed those flames.

Re:Ultraviolet Irradiation of Blood: “The Cure That Time For... by theplague42 on Friday April 24, 2020 @02:22PM (#22971353)
This thread might make me quit visiting this site.