Things like:
-Why I’m not having children
-Keep your *kids away from my **dogs
*kids and **dogs able to be swapped in most threads where they appear together
Roman Polanski, and if [you should | it’s ok to] like his movies.
oh God, tipping. My first pit thread, here.
also considering whether one drinks too much, numerous examples.
Depleted uranium tipped weapons.
Drinking, cats, circumscision, gender issues (I’m not talking about feminism, or transgenderism, I’m talking leaving the toilet seat up, wearing make up, etc), catchphrases and inside jokes, Paris Hilton, allergies, post counts, signatures, calling in sick to work, etc.
I once started a thread about perceptions of stay-at-home moms versus working moms and it got really nasty.
Another hot topic I was surprised about was an employer’s expectation that their employees arrive on time. I can’t find the thread (it was in the Pit), but I believe a couple of people in the thread threw a fit when most of the posters agreed that an employer had every right to fire an employee who wasn’t capable of showing up on time. The argument was that if the “only” transgression an employee made was to arrive late on a consistent basis without bothering to let the employer know, that wasn’t all that bad and it should be illegal to fire the consistently late employee. That made no sense to me since the employee in question was coming in 45 minutes late, not 2 or 5 or 10 minutes late.
File sharing, intellectual property, copyrights & downloads.
Find fault with a moderator or the administration & just count the # of posters who reflexively go into auto-defense mode.
Mentioning the fact schools are closed 13 weeks a year in a teacher-themed thread.
Refusing to hold the Beatles up as the greatest thing since slice apples
Abstract art
Greedo shooting first vs. Han shooting first
Daring to suggest that the Beatles in any way deserve a sausage less than Rock Godhood.
This isn’t a hot button, is it? I don’t think I’ve ever seen an actual debate about this. Everyone just says “Yeah, of course Han shot first, heh, that Lucas sure has popped a noodle or two” and go on to more important business.
Speaking of Cecil, he has a few questions he refuses to answer and man did some poor innocent newbies get smacked down when they, unknowingly, brought one of them up. And then people would come in to defend one or the other. They were quite cringeworthy.
Although I haven’t seen any of those in a very long time.
I nominate anything at all that has ANYTHING whatsoever to do with Communism.
This is a less extreme example, but a while back, I posted a question on Great Debates about why no nation has ever had the word “Communism” in its name (in fact, that’s pretty much what the thread title was).
No debate on the merits of Communism, whether it was used properly, whether it’s better/worse/the same as Capitalism, nothing like that. Just why it’s always “People’s Republic” or “Democratic Republic” and not “Communist Republic”.
Here’s what I remember…
- A number of posters having absolutely no friggin’ clue what I was asking and chiding me for spouting gibberish.
- A number of posters acting absolutely shocked that any nation would want the word Communist in its official title (w/o giving a reason, natch)
- A number of posters rehashing the old arguments about the meaning of Communism
- And the rest, of course, vehemently denying that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was Communist. ( :eek: )
I swear, for a moment there I thought I slipped into an alternative universe.
Ooh, it’s been a while, but anything dealing with the change from Kentucky Fried Chicken to KFC. Bring it up again, and I guarantee you will get approximately 30 million incredibly lame jokes, several links to the Snopes page which everyone knows is completely fake, and maybe one post that actually tries to answer the damn question which might possibly be at least kinda partially correct, maybe.
(P.S.: The answer I got was “It was a marketing decision, and everyone was calling it KFC anyway.” Dammit, maybe I should just write them already…)
I love/hate loud pipes on my bike, or anything that might bring up the subject.
Japanese crotch rockets versus low tech wonderful Hardley Ablesons.
Lane sharing.
Cyclists and traffic.
‘I would like help maintaining/repairing my gun’ always ends up in a classic pro/ anti gun thread.
Anything that has an American-centric view of the universe, to the total exclusion of any other nationality - you can include culture - ie How about those crazy(insert your chosen nationality here)
Stephen Sondheim vs. Andrew Lloyd Webber
Of course, that is dangerous on any message board.
I once made the mistake of starting a thread on the Shakespeare authorship question. I was amazed at how seriously some people take this issue.
And Family Guy vs Futurama - maybe it’s me, but I don’t even see why the two shows are in competition.
In the past, there have been some heated discussions about whether .9… = 1, generally ranging from 4-8 pages.
DKW, I wouldn’t call a discussion about communism “innocous”, would you? That’s definitely a controversial subject!
It’s already been mentioned, but the “picky eaters” thread was the most surprising to me in the level of sheer vitriol expended over such a trivial issue. Who knew that people had such strong feelings about picky eating? It turned out that I had strong feelings on the topic myself that I hadn’t even been aware of until reading that thread!
Two topics that haven’t been mentioned yet that are of particular interest to me given my five years as an adjunct:
(1) Taking attendance in college classes.
(2) Cheating on papers, exams, and assignments.
Just remembered another hot topic thing that I might have missed in this thread:
The use of etiquette. There are SO many different ideas of what is “proper” etiquette, and there are a LOT of people who think that etiquette doesn’t apply to them. I mean, I guess I knew that, but I never thought so many people would get so pissed about it. There were lots of people saying things like, “I don’t have to use manners I don’t want to - rules of etiquette are usually archaic anyway, so there!” Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I always thought that manners and etiquette were universal.
I think the greatest examples of the manners debates were in threads related to weddings (whether or not it’s implied that everyone is invited or not upon receiving an invitation and dress-related issues) and funerals (again, dress-related issues). I was astonished that people would get so furious at the idea that they couldn’tadd people on to the invitation if they wanted to, even when the person they wanted to invite (their kids or family members) weren’t included or or that maybe it was a bad idea to wear ripped jeans to a wedding or funeral.
Gunistasia - The word. In a nation’s official title. Or rather, lack of thereof.
I just found it puzzling that, given the number of nations that still have “Kingdom” as part of their formal title (Thailand, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, etc.), no Communist nation has ever worn the label proudly in its own. Way I see it, if you believe in the inevitable violent overthrow of ruling classes and all property being shared in common, you shouldn’t try to hide this, for crying out loud.
I’ve seen dozens of GQ threads on abortion procedures, Adolf Hitler/Nazi trivia, corporate law, sports, famous movies, etc. etc. that went along smoothly. No idea why I couldn’t at least get an answer here.
(Still can’t wrap my brain around “the USSR wasn’t Communist”. I think that transcends Great Debates into the “Surrealism” category. 
)