Are people most emotional about things they least understand? I notice a lot of emotion expressed in discussions of topics where people are uninformed or misinformed. Do you think that one follows from the other? Maybe partly an expression of frustration. People want to care but are excluded from informed decision making.

interesting question twitch. I can say that of the people that i know, the folks who are the most emotional, argue thier positions at a retarded level. That is not to say that i don't get emotional. When i get emotional about a subject, i come back to it later. During the time away, i usually stew on it and mostly can get to the principle of an arguement after the emotion subsides.

on the other hand, with some folks, a little information goes a long way. When they are confronted with an arguement that they cannot, or are too lazy to reasonably counter, they turn to insults and hostility. It is human nature.

i'm not sure, however, that one can draw more than a tacit correlation between the emotional debator and the un/misinformed debator. They seem to have periods of outbursts, but for perhaps different reasons. Either way, when one debates emotionally, one debates with less than his/her potential.

just the observations of a nobody.

Thats obvious........look at all the threads liberals start.......

most of them the liberals are clueless about.

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"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche

Yes.

I mean No.

Wait. Oh golly. I can't make up my mind! Oh no! I'm a failure!!

I think people are most emotional when they're stuck on the cusp of decision.

People are most emotional about things they feel strongly about. Things they feel strongly about hold deep convictions. Deep convictions can be extreme. Extreme is always easy to rationally criticize.

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I hate broad generalizations. the stew of humanity contains any combination of the above.

do you hate broad generalizations that also happen to be correct?

I've seen physcists scream at each other over theorems.

now there's a sight, two nerdy types at each other's necks........at least they're used to cleaning a bloody nose and explaining to mom why thier glasses got broken again......

My point is people get emotional about all kinds of things, and people have all kinds of triggers. Level of understanding just isn't a dependent variable, IMHO. Examples are just too easy to dig up - Linclon got all messed up when Meade failed to pursue Lee after Gettysburg. I'm sure Lincoln was well informed on the subject of the Civil War. The threshold where one crosses from reason into emtional response has nothing to do with depth of understanding.

i know, i was just messing with you. it's late and i'm giddy. don't be a buzz kill!

you will however notice that in my post i refered to the folks with whom i've had intercourse and not the general phylum chordata.

okay, grow up guys....there's more than one kind of intercourse

I can't stand knuckleheads who think they know it all, and most certainly don't.

what kind of knucklehead would it take to assess whether another person/knucklehead thinks he knows it all?

how would the judging knucklehead know that the judged knucklehead doesn't know it all, unless the judging knucklehead is also a know it all? or is the judging knucklehead a "know it enough"?

I tend to jump into the fray if I'm comfortable with a subject (doesn't mean I'm right or wrong, knowledgeable or not), and tend to shut up and listen when I'm not. It seems a reasonable formula...

I hate the generalizations and absolutes also. We are so bombarded by them I think we grow numb to them. I have to admit I didn't think through the original post, it just kinda fell out of my head. I asked myself the question so I asked the group as well, it was just a question to provoke thought.