It's not risk aversion. Hacker News doesn't avoid intelligent discussion about politics, rather this community has proven time and time again that it isn't even capable of it, especially where Trump is concerned, and people are pre-emptively flagging what's likely to be a very high noise, low signal thread.
This is a community whose education on computer science comes from MIT and Stanford, but whose education on politics comes from 4chan and the Unabomber manifesto.
I mean, I would love to see intelligent political discussion on Hacker News, politics is one of the great intellectual pursuits. But it just isn't going to happen here.
but whose education on politics comes from 4chan and the Unabomber manifesto
Being very familiar with both I wish it rose to the level of the worthwhile political content in those examples, but instead seems to sink to the least interesting aspects of both. C'est la vie.
This is a community whose education on computer science comes from MIT and Stanford, but whose education on politics comes from 4chan and the Unabomber manifesto.
I mean, I would love to see intelligent political discussion on Hacker News, politics is one of the great intellectual pursuits. But it just isn't going to happen here.