Later addition because most answers say that this is normal for politics:
Usually on HN for other topics such a primitive black and white thinking is in the minority and will be laughed about or just ignored. Why not if it comes to politics?
The engineering approach would try and decompose the problem without judgement. Then explore the tree of possibilities, apply weights on all the possible outcomes and then take the best possible route, knowing full well that an ideal doesn't exist.
I am sure it's possible to apply many more lenses to a problem, each of then bringing more richness and understanding to the world.
The whole point of the existence of poilitical economy and sociology is th at this kind of decomposition is very hard, if not impossible - without judgement implies that those who practice this kind of thinking, or engineering, are able to adopt a view from nowhere, but the fact is that these people belong to groups in society, they are personally affected by the outcome, and absolutely already have pre-existing interests. Furthermore, you automatically figure this as a kind of balancing game with weights, but this implies that the weighting can be done (how do you weigh two qualitative choices?) and further the utilitarian view that all that matters is the maximum weight. Both of these problems are why there is intense debate in moral theory regarding instrumental reason and consequentialism.
Anyways, my point was that by looking at every argument by first placing it on a left vs right scale removes the interesting nuances that could be discussed. I don't know that the engineering approach is necessarily the best tool to solve social inequalities as this is not my topic at all.
There are many possible outlooks on income inequality and wealth distribution. They don't fit in a line.
But usually on HN with other topics such a primitive black and white thinking is in the minority and will be laughed about or just ignored. Why not if it comes to politics?
which translates to this kind of black and white rhetoric.
it also doesn't help that since the 2016 elections, everything became even more polarized. nowadays, if you vote D and say you like some R policy, people will churn you (and this is valid the other way around too).
but i do think that politics in general turn HN into something that it's usually the opposite (i.e. a lot of generalizations and name-calling).