Whatever else ... who has the nukes?

You are making a rational argument against an irrational and faceless adversary who wrote and continues to defend the guidelines which proscribe political discussion as being contemptuous.

It's simply not the proper venue because the policy admits so much distain and misunderstanding of politics that it can't effectively carve out a proper space for such discussion.

And further, the policy admits it cannot trust either participants or the voting system in place to manage such conversations. As soon as one person with power to flag, that's it.

These conversations inevitably make HN management nervous. Since they can't cope with it, no one else is allowed to.

This war is highly relevant even to a fictional Silicon Valley Tech Elite, as it causes unprecedented inflation, stock market rollercoasters, tech platforms and companies getting banned, counter banned etc.

Many are cyclops and believe that what they can't see can't harm them.

Yes it would. Because it would "be political" and gasp don't talk about politics!

Dong will tell you that this subject attracts flamewars, but then again I think he's just parroting what someone else told him and has really examined how people in HN actually discuss the subject.