I think that's being a bit dramatic. In the 4 or 5 years that I've been here there's always been political and ideological conversations mixed in with people's

I think that's being a bit dramatic. In the 4 or 5 years that I've been here there's always been political and ideological conversations mixed in with people's projects, startups and tech news. The tech community has a certain microcosm of political views that makes the political threads interesting reads. The rules against editorialized titles and comment quality here is usually a lot higher making them much more informative. I'm sure if HN was overtaken with ideological posts rather than Show HNs, tech blogs, etc. they would just modify the hotness ranking code and anti flame war code.