It's entirely possible to have a conversation about all those topics but gets increasingly difficult when your friends fall in the cliche 80/20 category. 80% great people 20% not so much. I think parent poster has more of a problem with those types. You can chill and have fun but certain taboos open a can of worms that nobody wants to deal with especially when you just wanna decompress and have a few beers.

There's a time and place for everything and friendship dynamics get...complicated.

It feels to me that's the crux of it. Friendship dynamics are not universal even within a friendship group. It might be the desire not to "debate" makes the GP author the 20% outlier. It feels a bit like "well that's just like your opinion man".

There is still usually some disagreement, but in many social settings (eg, having a few pints at the pub with people you rarely see), topics of discussion usually are what people have been up to, and other "light topics".

In most social situations "heavy" discussion or "debating" is entirely unwarranted and brings the overall mood down.

There are plenty of discussion groups and meetups if you want to hotly debate politics or suchlike!

There are also "third ways", so to speak, ways to have people feel comfortable without resorting only to least-common-denominator "harmless" topics.

I have been a regular at several places (sometimes coffee shops) across the country where I can sense very real substantive conversations. Sometimes people just need a little nudge to get out of their comfort zone.

Such interactions can help bring people even closer. It takes intention and some experimentation.

one can disagree in open mode (socrates) and disagree in closed mode (Ben Shapiro). If both people are looking forward to learning from the disagreement I find that a lot more fun than if both people are looking forward to appearing smarter than the other person.

There's disagreement and there's verbal battle. Those are not the same.