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Many other things pale in comparison because the "other things that were important" were greatly facilitated by the US hegemony that's well on its way to burning to the ground.
All intellectual pursuit will be negatively affected.
"This is our world now... the world of the electron and the switch, the beauty of the baud. We make use of a service already existing without paying for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by profiteering gluttons, and you call us criminals. We explore... and you call us criminals. We seek after knowledge... and you call us criminals. We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias... and you call us criminals. You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us and try to make us believe it's for our own good, yet we're the criminals."
It's impossible to disconnect from that, it's wishful thinking to expect a place attracting people from this industry to not have political content being discussed.
It's tech who got political, not HN, I hate to see it too, I'd prefer to be living in the era where creating things was the main purpose of our careers but that ship has sailed, the ground shifted under our feet.
The only reasonable grown-up thing to do is to accept the new status quo and deal with it, either by resisting or accepting that bygone era is done, it's no more.