Perhaps for some people -- but on the other hand, it creates an even higher intellectual challenge to achieve accurate understanding. Understanding hard and complicated things in math and science is extremely challenging, but ultimately, you still have fully reliable trusted authorities to turn to when you're lost, and you know they won't lie and bullshit you. In politics and heavily politicized fields in general, there is no such safety net; you are completely on your own.

I've known politics is largely about status signaling (which hasn't caused any reduction of interest in issues which our society politicizes, however, just in elections and the like) since I started reading LW, but I just realized that reading LessWrong makes me feel superior (although I've noticed this before, but it seems hard to avoid) and it's fun to talk about. That's horrifying.