We don't try to avoid divisive topics altogether, but we do to try to wait for solid opportunities - the ones where the odds are less skewed to flamewar. Threads are sensitive to initial conditions, the most important of which are the title and the article (in that order). If we start off with something substantive, where there's enough information for the mind to sink its teeth into [1], we're more likely to get reflective responses rather than reflexive ones [2]. In other words, it's best to play the good hands and fold the bad ones.
A blockbuster billionaire story with a sensational title and no additional information will probably produce discussion that burns hot, fast, and shallow. People will react reflexively with their pre-existing associations about the personalities involved and the generic topic (divorce, in this case). That is the sort of discussion that HN is not for. We want the kind that burns slower, goes deeper, and wends through unexpected places.
[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
[2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
It's an improbably clean example of the conflict between modern and traditional religious views of marriage and money, and whether wanting divorce to be less traumatic can actually make it less traumatic. The symbolism is off the charts.
[Churches] all regard divorce as something like cutting up a body, as a kind of surgical operation. Some of them think the operation so violent that it cannot be done at all; others admit it as a desperate remedy in extreme cases. They are all agreed that it is more like having both your legs cut off than it is like dissolving a business partnership or even deserting a regiment.
What they all disagree with is the modern view that it is a simple readjustment of partners, to be made whenever people feel they are no longer in love with one another, or when either of them falls in love with someone else.
-- CS Lewis, Mere Christianity