There is precedent for hackernews covering unusually large and important events. Covid, Jan 6th, the start of the Ukraine War. I don't see the problem with some general news of large scale importance, e.g., a hostile mercenary force is a 4 hour drive away from the capital of the state with the largest supply of nuclear weapons
Agree we shouldn't lose focus but this seems rare and important enough to be worth discussing.
From the guidelines of what is off-topic
"Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon."
Slashdot used to get complaints like this all the time (maybe still does, wouldn't know). They would be followed by a recitation of the Slashdot motto: "News for nerds, stuff that matters. This is a story that matters." Usually shut people up immediately. HN also suffers nerds not wanting to hear about anything except nerd shit, but we don't have a handy shorthand to shut down these tedious complaints.
I mean, I get your point that others programmers are not usually were I go for political wisdom. But it's not like mainstream news website have a better alternative for discussion either. Their comment sections tend to be completely saturated with far right incel fanaticism and low brow outrage. HN, at least, is not that.
I didn't know about swiftcentre, or metaculus and I'm fascinated by it. That's exactly the software engineer approach to this topic i like to see when i come here.
Agree we shouldn't lose focus but this seems rare and important enough to be worth discussing.
From the guidelines of what is off-topic "Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon."