I realise this but the solution is not to wave the don't shoot, I'm with you flag. The real solution is to get the discussion to revolve around the message instead of the messenger. This is a culture change and as such it takes time and you'll have to suffer the (no so) occasional downvote-into-oblivion experience but so be it.

Here comes some ethically questionable but effective advice to stay alive in the HN jungle: if you're low on karma points you just post a few karma-whoring replies to top up the counter. Once you can breathe again you can state your mind freely until that karma counter goes down towards the red zone again after which you need to top it up again. It is very unfortunate that this is needed to stay alive here for those who have not yet built up a sufficient buffer of points but things being the way they are there is no other way for those who like to speak their mind on the edge of the sometimes very narrow Overton window.

Thanks. For me the big things are:

- Journalists and individuals need to use FOIA actions against their state and local governments to see e-mails to see what the true numbers are. That Nashville situation is absurd and we all know it's happening at a bunch of other places.

- Middle class / "regular people" need to start speaking openly and questioning and discussing the lifestyle restrictions and closures.

- A message of safety indirectly spreads a message of fear. Stop with all of the unnecessary post-Covid new normal "safety" things.

- It's about choice and we are pro choice.

I mean, the alternative is to only post on technical topics, where there's a lot less need for the "right" opinions (unless you hate Rust, I guess ;) ).

If only that were true, but political issues have crept into many technical topics in such a way that it is hard to avoid them altogether. Maybe a 'political' flag on politicised (sub)threads can help, together with an option to hide such threads. On some days it will be very quiet here for those who have chosen to hide politics but that only makes them more productive.

I do see what you're saying (and this has been happening since the last US presidential election, so over four years now).

However, I have a bunch of unpopular opinions, and have almost never been downvoted, because I avoid taking sides on political arguments.