"But this post isn’t about politics, it’s about noise." No! It is about politics. Note that most of the examples given are related to political events. The OP

"But this post isn’t about politics, it’s about noise." No! It is about politics. Note that most of the examples given are related to political events. The OP does have a great point (I waste too much time on HN, perhaps); however, the kind of political aloofness desc/prescribed in the post is what, I think, is the root of the biggest political problem (not just in the US, everywhere): the best people who should be involved in politics are not. It is a common adage that the word idiot was used in Ancient Greek for a person who was not interested in politics (unless of course you were a woman, slave, or farmer).