I've read through them here, they're not bad at all. There's a majority opinion, and people are disagreeing, but there's real content there instead of campaign slogans and insults. But HN rules say it's not for politics, so I avoid participating.

So what is your non-cesspool forum example that isn't Reddit? Twitter seemingly got taken over by bots early on, Facebook pages were a disaster at least when I was in college, and those are the big ones.

I think its worth saying that its a gradation, some places are better than others with HN tending to the better. But fundamentally, I don't think large non-toxic forums exist.

X optimizes for engagement and as studies have shown, that means optimizing for rage bait.

Reddit optimizes for rage bait too but includes a voting system that hides unpopular opinions, so any person that conflicts with the majority is marginalized. So on top of being full of rage bait, its an echo-chamber and that is before even talking about the powermod problem.

HN is much like reddit in style, so fundamentally HN also tends towards an echo chamber.

And by echo chamber, I mean a cringe circle jerk: a New Yorker article called it "performative erudition".

HN doesn't feel like Reddit, yes there are votes but it's one page and a totally different algo, and different user base. Guess we have different levels of satisfaction with that.

Gotta say though, it's rich hearing this from New Yorker.

You said its rich not wrong.