It's true that drug war articles are fairly off-topic for HN. I'd rather see more mathematics and CS content.
However, I think it's pretty apparent that ending the drug war would benefit more people in much more profound ways than all of the software everyone on HN has ever written. In fact, I'd say only the computer revolution as a whole has benefited humanity more than ending the drug war would.
Yes. Always steer clear of any environment where one is expected to form close social bonds with others in a party situation. The best coworker is the one you communicate with via text, right?
I'd honestly go ahead and bite the bullet and say these students are lacking in an important intellectual capacity if they can't handle that extremely modest amount of abstraction. If they are successful it is probably due to a solid work ethic.