This. I don't think it's realized how insignificant to the real world our discussions are sometimes (note: sometimes). They are lovely, intellectual, and interesting, but not as important as you go about your day thinking they are.
Further, discovery of old discussion of topics is discouraged by the HN user experience. The only way for the OP to know it had been discussed is to have HN always tapped in. Since for most of us this is untenable (I hope most people here have better things during the day than to do than camp the HN trending board) the implication is incredibly exclusionary to most of the potential contributing population.
