The world is burning. That’s bound to make a few people want to bank the fires.
I see things like this sometimes. What seems to be much rarer is anyone actually changing their mind as a discussion goes on. Consider the Kyle Rittenhouse trial discussion (1500 posts and counting) Has anyone in that thread said “You know what ? I have read your arguments and realize that you are right. He definitely should / should not have been acquitted?” Or did everyone just pick their side and stick with it?
Not me. I bought a camper!
This place is like a Boy Scout Jamboree, everything going on is in tents.
The irony is that some threads on the Straight Dope have in fact changed my mind, but not in the way one might expect. Listening to people argue pro a certain stance has actually made me change my mind against that stance, because the arguments are so flimsy and irrational.
A Rittenhouse-related thread made me aware that I don’t know much about models of guns, and it changed my view of what actually transpired and how it played out in that specific circumstance, and it changed how I view media conversations about gun rights, but it didn’t move the needle as regards my overall position on gun policy, which… is somewhat uncertain, I’ll allow.
dropzone, are you saying that in general you don’t have, and have never had, strong emotions about much of anything?
If so, I think that’s probably unusual; but humans vary in just about everything, so if I stop and think about it, it would make sense for humans to vary in how strongly emotions are felt, just like we vary in, say, how strong a sex drive we have.
But it’s hard to judge how strongly other people are feeling things; you can’t go by whether they sound upset or passionate, because some people become very good at not sounding upset or passionate when they actually are, while others who may not actually be feeling very strongly about something may sound as if they do because that’s what they’ve come to think of as normal speech patterns.
Yeah, I recognize that one. If I’m still talking, I may be angry but I’m not that angry. If I’m really furious, I’ll go dead quiet. (I used to also sometimes cry. That is a massively unuseful response because most people don’t consider that tears can be tears of rage; there is very little more infuriating than having the person you’re already furious at try to comfort you, under the delusion that that’s always the proper response to tears. It occurs to me that I haven’t done that in a long time; maybe I eventually learned how to shut down the response.)
One of the things I like about the message-board style of communication is that, when the only response I can immediately think of to something is “AAAAAARGGGHHH!”, I can go away and think about it. A fair percentage of the time, several hours or a day or so later, I’ll think of a coherent response. Sometimes I wake up the next morning with one. And if I’m posting on a message board, I can still make that coherent response when I’m ready to make it.
I say this from time to time:
Because somebody doesn’t change their mind in the course of a thread, and say so (though I have seen people do that, and say so, on these and other boards), doesn’t mean that they won’t change their minds at all. A whole lot fewer people change their minds in the middle of any given argument than do so gradually, over weeks or years; eventually waking up one morning with a different opinion, or a whole batch of mornings with slightly different opinions, due to the weight of multiple factors working on either their conscious minds or sometimes on the back of their heads.
And one of the things I’ve learned is that sometimes that “AAAAAARGGGHHH!” response means that I have no idea how to explain what’s wrong with whatever brought on the response; and that working it out into coherent language is good, if nothing else, for figuring out whether I think I’m actually justified in being so much in opposition to whatever was said.
I wouldn’t say “never”; it took a long time and plenty of antidepressants to move beyond strong emotions. I feel some jealousy of you Normals, but know that if I drop the meds the lust and anger will come back. It’s funny that I’ve treated it so long and effectively that I’ve forgotten about the old days.
So the correct answer is “emotionally disturbed”. Got it. 
I tend to not get “intense” about much and can’t speak for other Dopers. But I imagine it’s similar to some of my more “intense” Facebook friends (who I actually know well IRL). Their political views range from very far right, far left, libertarian, Trumpist, BLM, conspiracy nuts, anti-vaxers, whatever. Many of them have various ideas or theories they feel extremely strong about. Some of these feelings may be based off of personal experiences.
This is why I don’t bother with politically charged threads at all. Whatever side you have picked, I can no more change your beliefs than I can change your height. Ditto for me. I’ve read some believable articles* that neurologists can determine a patient’s political “side” by examining their brain structure in scans. For these reasons, investing time, effort or “intensity” in online arguments is pointless. I can examine myself honestly and understand I cannot relax my strongly held, lifelong beliefs in such a way I’m actually open to changing them – and it’s foolish to expect another poster to do the same.
*Was in Smithsonian I think, seems to have disappeared now.
One simple reason. Some people like to rant, whether they are experts or not. Sometimes ignorance begets confidence, not inquiry.
I try to confine my rants to subjects that I know something about, and will readily admit my limitations. I know more than the average 3rd-grader about physics (I think), but would never go head-2-head with some of the physics professors on this board if we disagree. It is wise to pick your battles. And it’s also wise to learn rather than rant on some occasions.
That said, there are some subjects that just cry out for refutation. Imagine if you were an auto mechanic for 40 years, and along comes some nut who claims, in all seriousness, that all Ford cars have only 3 cylinders, always did, and he has proof. If you can establish that this is not merely a lowlife troll, it would be hard not to correct him with facts.
It’s only a short step from my example to 9/11 truthers, flat earthers, or holocaust deniers.
YESYESYES! My people! 
<Runs to crush you in a ginormous hug!>
This is me, too.
I’m also intense IRL but not particularly argumentative. I’m just very curious and passionate, feel things deeply, and have a lot to say about what I’ve seen or read or thought about. I had one friend who could and would match me in intensity level, and it was blissful affirmation, but sadly, he died three years ago. Both of us had been told all our lives to “Calm down!” or “Don’t get so worked up!” As @Two_Many_Cats2 points out, that is soooo tiresome!
And yet people do change their minds; sometimes on particular issues, sometimes on general viewpoint. I’ve known people to do both, have seen people say they have on these and other boards, and have done so myself.
It isn’t really all that rare. Consider the general societal shift on same-sex marriage. A whole lot of people changed their minds on what many of them thought of as a major issue. I doubt very many of them changed their minds in the middle of and because of one specific argument; some of them took twenty or thirty years to do so. But it certainly did happen.
Did they repeat such scans through a significant number of people’s lifetimes and see whether such structure sometimes itself changes?
I think people also sometimes misjudge and take ‘really warm(ing) to a subject’ to mean that the arguer must be spending all their waking time with their adrenaline on high about it.
I can be vehement in debate; doesn’t mean I can’t at the same time be patting a purring cat and relaxing into that. If I’m working out what I think about something into a coherent argument, or trying to, while riding around on the tractor or cooking dinner: that’s actually a relaxing and interesting thing to be doing, especially if/when the argument starts to come together. And, if it really won’t, and I’m realizing that I can’t back my particular stance and have to revamp what I’m thinking and consider why I’ve been thinking about it: while there may be a chunk of my head resisting this, there’s a very large part of me that thinks this is Fun.
Compare, maybe, to a runner going up a hill. Yes, it’s work. Yes, sometimes it hurts. But overall it feels so good. And what makes it feel good isn’t any animus against the hill – it’s your own muscles working against and within their own limitations. But you need the hill to really bring that out. And I need other vehement people, both agreeing and disagreeing with me, to properly exercise my mind.