These are clearly important times, regardless of your politics. The HN guidelines define on topic as "On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting."
Up-votes are a measure of what is found interesting. Posting the topic and receiving no up-votes (the "posted but not interesting to good hackers" case) means no presence on the front page, which means no one is impacted, aka the cost is low.
Alternatively, pre-emptively censoring something that might have been of interest (the "not posted but interesting to good hackers" case) means no discussion about a topic people would/do find interesting, aka the opportunity cost is high.
The site self-corrects, so we shouldn't live in fear of topics.
There are news stories that are of particular interest and relevance to the type of system designer that makes up much of the HN audience. The community should be allowed to discuss them intelligently and politely.
These are clearly important times, regardless of your politics. The HN guidelines define on topic as "On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting."
Up-votes are a measure of what is found interesting. Posting the topic and receiving no up-votes (the "posted but not interesting to good hackers" case) means no presence on the front page, which means no one is impacted, aka the cost is low.
Alternatively, pre-emptively censoring something that might have been of interest (the "not posted but interesting to good hackers" case) means no discussion about a topic people would/do find interesting, aka the opportunity cost is high.
The site self-corrects, so we shouldn't live in fear of topics.