Well, for starters, switching to a highly divisive topic that has nothing to do with the original story; jacking up the indignation/inflammation levels; snark; and I suppose also the political reference.
> Could you explain to me objectively how the parent comment doesn't fall under the same one too?
I don't know about "objectively" because there's always interpretation involved—but I'd say the GP comment was quite a bit closer to the original topic; did not introduce a classic flamewar topic; contained more information than inflammation; and wasn't snarky.
"Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
Re flamebait: I'm talking about what leads to flamewars in the statistical case. Suppose you drop a lit match in a dry forest. The argument "but it didn't cause a wildfire" is not a good one.
Thanks
P.S.
Alright, now I see, that it would be under the "unrelated controversy" clause. Could you explain to me objectively how the parent comment doesn't fall under the same one too? And actually 40-50% of off-topic comments on HN?
On top of that it is not completely unrelated either, as it is imo globally the second most prominent example of government miscalculation/cover up, the lack of accountability which followed it, etc.