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Sounds reasonable the way you put it and I both understand and agree with it. The reason I went off topic is I saw an unrestricted debate on an off-topic subjec

• dang 3y ago
  For HN purposes it's not a question of the topic, it's a question of the spirit in which you're discussing it, or (if you like) the place you're coming from. What we want is curious conversation. That's the intended spirit. 'Propaganda' and 'censorship' are hard to discuss from a curious place because people mostly use those words as weapons to fight against something they consider bad. If you're posting from a place of fighting badness, it's hard to get into the spirit of curiosity, which is lighter and more playful. Does that make sense? It's not a question of these things being "offtopic", "banned", or "not allowed". It's a question of whether it's possible to discuss them in a certain way. People sometimes think this is about "tone", but that's much too superficial. It has more to do with the state one is in when they're posting—I would almost say their physiological state, but that's maybe getting a bit strange.