I honestly don’t know why I read threads about guns on this board. Maybe it’s just my stereotypical Canadian opinion that *guns are bad *and unnecessary, but I always end up shaking my head by the end of the thread. I cannot understand, for the life of me, people who strongly support the right to carry a concealed weapon. It boggles my mind. Especially when they use an incident which clearly illustrates the ridiculousness of certain people being allowed to have guns as a soapbox to support that right.
Now, I DO NOT want to turn this into a gun debate, I’m just stating my opinion.
I’m just curious if there are other Dopers who are baffled by opinions, or find the opinions of others on certain issues to be excessive, or extreme?
Threads having to do with clothes (and fashion in general). Quite a few of the opinions expressed on the board are so far removed from what I’m used to IRL that I am frequently amazed.
There were several threads before the 2004 elections suggesting, AFAICT in entire seriousness, that Bush was going to cancel the elections and rule as a dictator. And from otherwise serious Dopers.
Seconding clothing, fashion and anything to do with etiquette in general. Some people’s ideas about what’s “normal” or appropriate are pretty bizarre, IMHO.
Bloody American politics. Does it have to be such a frigging circus?
And food threads. I like food, but there’s almost no intersection between my food world and the one that’s going on in the thread, more than half the time (this too is an international barrier thing, I believe)
See, I’m a Canadian, and don’t mind the idea of people having the right to carry guns.
I admit, though, an absolute bafflement as to why someone would want to exercise that right. Unless you live in Lebanon, it would be more of a pain in the ass than anything else.
My jaw drops when someone presents an opinion on an often-argued political topic here in an OP on the dope, but in that same post say “I just offered my opinion on this and made it known how I feel about the opposite opinion, but don’t take this as an invitation to debate.”
It’s akin to me starting an OP off like this,
“My jaw drops when people create threads in which they denigrate President Bush, I certainly don’t want any sort of debate on the issue, but I am curious what kinds of threads make your jaw drop!”
Threads where intimate personal information is shared. When I read someone offering up their salary, their medications, their drug use, their sexual habits, or whatever, I just stop and think “man, the (for the rest of eternity) downside risks of sharing that information SO FAR outweighs any good feelings you might get from sharing it…”
I enjoy the SDMB and love to discuss interesting questions, but would never discuss anything here that I wouldn’t be okay seeing broadcast - cause who knows?
I don’t know about jaw dropping, but I don’t get a lot of the Cafe Society threads where every single, tiny thing about a movie/music/book gets picked apart as if someone is going to write their thesis on it.
Such as:
Let’s list females in movies who have one blue eye and one brown eye and whistle while they work.
or
Songs about tragedies where the singer is born in England but lived in the US while using an Australian accent!
*of course I am exaggerating, but it seems that way sometimes.
The MMP (Monday morning post) theads every week leave me baffled. That type of social inanity is what I spend much of my time trying to away from. A clusterfuck of mundane drivel seems to attract a whole bunch or people who engage in something unknown for the purpose of something unknown. If you want to know how the son of poster X did in his little league game last week, why don’t you just e-mail poster X so that you get the response that you want. This is why I don’t hang out in coffee shops, answer random phone calls at home, or leave my cell phone on.
Don’t worry, this is just my opinion. I won’t start a crusade to get MMP threads banned.
Anyone who feels the need to start a debate on any subject mentioned here may take it to GD. Or the Pit, as appropriate. Or even start a new thread here in IMHO.
This is a poll, of sorts, albeit one that can’t help but have opinions in its posts. Please let’s keep it a poll, of sorts.
Almost none anymore. There are hundreds that I don’t understand, (do you pee in the shower? Which way to do you wipe?) but they garner a lot of responses, so to each their own.
There are plenty of others that just don’t interest me, but these I just don’t get.
I was pretty shocked at the people who have a visceral “ew gross” reaction to breastfeeding. I think it’s pretty incredible that society has trumped evolution.
I was shocked that I had only three responses to my thread about eating roadkill. (At least there should have been more "EWWWWWW"s.)
Not so much dropping in shock, but dropping in exasperation and exhaustion, when two or three weeks after having a good, well-written discussion usually debunking some momentarily popular theory or idea, the same idea will pop up again in GQ or GD. (Usual with all the fun sucked out of the OP.)
I am also amazed by some of the intimate personal information that is shared.
Shodan, I wasn’t on the board, but I will admit to having some fears of Bush/Cheney subverting the election process under a trumped up martial law scenario. So I might have been one of those dopers. Though for me it was only a distant fear and not a serious worry.
ErinPuff, I am not sure about your post, are you saying the dope is insensitive to transsexuality? Just to clarify, I find the dope is incredibly sensitive compared to normal on all issues of transsexuality and homosexuality. Almost jaw-droppingly so. I hope that doesn’t count as a debate, just confusion on my part and another opinion.
Politics seems to be the number one area in which normal people hold jaw-droppingly weird opinions. The only Dope threads that have ever shocked me have been political.
I’m always amazed at the attitudes towards marriage on this board. Actually, it’s not this board it’s more “the real world” since marriage is something I know zilch about, having never experienced.
Sometimes I’m surprised at how wonderful people are to their spouses and sometimes I’m surprised at how people seem to treat their spouses unfairly or even mean. I can’t think of any specific examples but I am always just…jaw-droppingly fascinated.