What is your emotional flashpoint?

[JokerCrowe]

When parent's neglect/abuse/don't love their children.
That makes me so angry and so sad I actually tear up thinking about it. Children love their parents unconditionally, it's biology, they should be that way. Likewise, a parent should love their child unconditionally back; unfortunately there are cases where that's just not true, and that almost literally breaks my heart.

Honestly I feel like that's almost the worst thing human beings can do to each other, because even if you have been through some shit (like serious shit, don't want to be specific to not trigger anyone) you can always take comfort in the fact that at least your parents love you.
It's such a basal need, it should be a fucking Human Right.
But they'll let anyone be a parent...

(I know, I know... It's not like anyone can stop people from having children. I just hate that this actually happens)

 

[lacktheknack]

Anti-abortion movement. People who cry "Abortion is murder!" and want to MAKE you have children even if you are not ready yet. When someone says "A fetus has a soul!" and tries to turn a woman into a living incubator against her own will.
Man, this gets me mad real quick.

How interesting. My emotional flashpoint is abortion.

I'm generally pretty middle-of-road on most issues, or outright apathetic... not on abortion, though. My stance has nothing to do with the mother, and everything to do with the baby.

 

[sparkyk24]

Anti-abortion movement. People who cry "Abortion is murder!" and want to MAKE you have children even if you are not ready yet. When someone says "A fetus has a soul!" and tries to turn a woman into a living incubator against her own will.
Man, this gets me mad real quick.

How interesting. My emotional flashpoint is abortion.

I'm generally pretty middle-of-road on most issues, or outright apathetic... not on abortion, though. My stance has nothing to do with the mother, and everything to do with the baby.

Yeah, I think it's an emotional debate for most.

 

[Duck Sandwich]

The contempt that nearly every generation has for the one that comes after it is a huge source of frustration for me. "Those kids are so decadent and lazy and stupid because of (video games/rock and roll/smartphones/etc.) If they didn't have those things, they'd be so much more productive!" - No one who has ever read a history book

Never mind that the generation before them said pretty much the exact same thing before them. It's a wonder that anyone even has kids, when they despise their kids' generation so much. Especially the people who spoil their kids, and then complain about how spoiled their kids are.

 

[RJ 17]

I was just on Facebook...

Well there's your problem right there. Hey-oooooooh! *drum rimshot*

I really can't say I have any specific, though the one I'll bring up is the one that is pretty much at the core of anyone's emotional flashpoint: "perceived ignorance". That is to say, you just don't see how ANYONE could come to a conclusion that's different than the one that you've come to. I'd imagine this relates to your issue with anti-vaccine people. I'm just taking a wild guess here so I could be completely wrong and this could all be irrelevant, but I'd imagine you're pro-vaccine? If so, the reason you get frustrated looking at anti-vaccine comments is because you see the passion people have for their point of view and don't see how they could possibly get that way. How could they be so wrong while thinking they've got things right? Why do they absolutely refuse to listen to anyone that doesn't agree with them no matter how much evidence there is that goes contrary to their standing?

In other words, it's just the good ol' "Clash of Opinions", particularly in areas that people are very passionate about. That's why political discussions tend to get very heated.

But I guess that's more of an answer to "why people have emotional flashpoints" than an example of one for myself, so I guess I'll go ahead and say that politics is one of mine. As a conservative, it really frustrates me when people attack conservatives as essentially being the epitome of all evil. As though all conservatives are just racist, sexist, greedy homophobes and the people that think that refuse to believe otherwise.

 

[V da Mighty Taco]

Bullying. Specifically when people are bullying others for their own entertainment.

Having been a victim of bullying, and also a bit of a bully before that, I kind of know both sides. (You could say me getting bullied was karma? Though I think it went a bit beyond that).

Anyways, I just hate to see people being singled out and picked on, no matter what the subject is.

Bullying's a weird one for me. Was bullied pretty badly up until roughly 8th grade (in the U.S., btw), and not in the "take my lunch money" way but more in the "I might possibly get stabbed or jumped on the way home from school" kind of way.

However, I'm very hesitant when it comes to hearing others discussing bullying. A lot of people (the Disney channel and their PSAs spring to mind) seem to believe that simply not getting along with somebody or being an asshole to them constitutes bullying, which is something I heavily disagree with. Bullying, in my eyes, is about making a concentrated effort and going out of one's way to making someone's life as miserable as humanly possible. Things like the Disney Channel's "not letting people sit at your table = bullying" or even the whole notion that a bunch of people discussing you in a negative light counts as bullying (many FaceBook and Youtube dramas are good examples) is something that just irks me. I'm a major free speech advocate and support the idea that people don't have to be polite to one another, so I take the line between full-on bullying and simply being a prick / offensive pretty seriously.

 

[V da Mighty Taco]

Anti-abortion movement. People who cry "Abortion is murder!" and want to MAKE you have children even if you are not ready yet. When someone says "A fetus has a soul!" and tries to turn a woman into a living incubator against her own will.
Man, this gets me mad real quick.

Snip

How interesting. My emotional flashpoint is abortion.

I'm generally pretty middle-of-road on most issues, or outright apathetic... not on abortion, though. My stance has nothing to do with the mother, and everything to do with the baby.

Abortion is one of those topics I typically avoid due to how uncertain the answer to that debate is as well as the seeming tendency for people to be on one extreme or the other and the absolute refusal to hear opposing opinions on the matter. It's like a more fucked version of religious discussions, imo.

As for my own opinion's on the abortion debate itself, I'd rather not detract from the thread's purpose and thus will keep that to myself for now. The likelihood of completely derailing the thread is simply too high.

 

[sparkyk24]

Bullying. Specifically when people are bullying others for their own entertainment.

Having been a victim of bullying, and also a bit of a bully before that, I kind of know both sides. (You could say me getting bullied was karma? Though I think it went a bit beyond that).

Anyways, I just hate to see people being singled out and picked on, no matter what the subject is.

Bullying's a weird one for me. Was bullied pretty badly up until roughly 8th grade (in the U.S., btw), and not in the "take my lunch money" way but more in the "I might possibly get stabbed or jumped on the way home from school" kind of way.

However, I'm very hesitant when it comes to hearing others discussing bullying. A lot of people (the Disney channel and their PSAs spring to mind) seem to believe that simply not getting along with somebody or being an asshole to them constitutes bullying, which is something I heavily disagree with. Bullying, in my eyes, is about making a concentrated effort and going out of one's way to making someone's life as miserable as humanly possible. Things like the Disney Channel's "not letting people sit at your table = bullying" or even the whole notion that a bunch of people discussing you in a negative light counts as bullying (many FaceBook and Youtube dramas are good examples) is something that just irks me. I'm a major free speech advocate and support the idea that people don't have to be polite to one another, so I take the line between full-on bullying and simply being a prick / offensive pretty seriously.

Yeah, I agree. I was the subject of some very serious bullying, up until the 8th grade. (I still got insulted verbally after that, but after getting bigger and a few fights, they just said things from a distance.) I remember watching a movie with a friend and his cousin and aunt. The bigger kid broke the other kids glasses for no good reason, and the reaction of the people in the room was "I've never seen bullying like that!" I was thinking, "...Really? I have..." The thing that annoys me is that NO ONE thinks they were the popular kid in school. This is because, to some people, anything less than 100% popularity (or at least very close to it) is unpopular. We should try not to get too worked up over it, I guess, because people can't understand if they haven't experienced it first hand. But if someone is just quarreling with someone and they say they're getting bullied, yeah...that's... -_-

 

[Hero of Lime]

I have lots of those subjects that will always raise my blood pressure by a significant margin.

Religious debates can be so nasty, while I happily side with fellow theists, even our side can't be trusted to remain civil. I'll avoid them like the plague.

Animal abuse, after just losing my cat to cancer recently, hearing an owner abuse and harm their healthy pet infuriates me like almost nothing else.

Political discussions, for all the same reasons as the religious ones.

Pokemon gen wars, I hate the genwunner mentality so much you wouldn't believe!

I try to see the other side and tolerate people who view the world differently from me, but some of the dumb debates on these subjects or stories makes me less likely to simply agree to disagree.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

As someone deeply effected by the rape of a very close friend... Well rape jokes just don't do anything for me. I can filter out the idiots on the internet using "rape" as a synonym for "humiliate" when I'm playing online games to a point but I get upset when my friends do it. It didn't happen to me but I feel the stress daily about thinking about how I could have stopped it from happening if I had spent my day differently. Having that shit pop into your head when you're trying to relax and have fun gets grating. I would like for gamers to collectively stop misusing the term but I'm not optimistic that it'll stop.

 

[Beffudled Sheep_v1legacy]

A lot of stuff.
Some of it seemingly trivial, others not so much.

Pretty much any time I see someone being unbelievably ignorant I get riled up.

I'm pretty unstable though, probably hovering right around bi-polar.

This except I am bi-polar.
It'd be easier to list the things that don't set me off, and even then if my mood isn't right I'd get set off anyway.

Though the biggest ones are probably the government surveillance (and nobody caring), police/government brutality, corporations destroying consumer rights, people trying to deny rights to others and bullying.

Those'll set me off even if I'm super calm and on tranquilizers while listening to the smoothest of smooth jazz.

Unfortunately everything and their mother also could set me off at any point just cuz my brain hates me.

 

[Texas Joker 52]

Infidelity. Adultery. Cheating.

First thing that comes to mind. I will lose my shit in less time than it takes to say those three words in succession.

Probably there are others in here somewhere. But the main one is that little dealie right there.

This one right here. I just find it infuriating. Now, if someone else can actually manage to have a fulfilling, open relationship, where both parties can do whatever they want, good on them. But personally, I just can't grasp it for a relationship of my own.

As for anti-vaccine, vaccines have a place. Personally, I just hate being jabbed with needles for any reason, so really, I'm pro-vaccine, just anti-needle. Can't stand the things, they freak me the fuck out.

 

[The Funslinger]

Bullying. Specifically when people are bullying others for their own entertainment.

Having been a victim of bullying, and also a bit of a bully before that, I kind of know both sides. (You could say me getting bullied was karma? Though I think it went a bit beyond that).

Anyways, I just hate to see people being singled out and picked on, no matter what the subject is.

Reminds me of that Facebook conversation with the guy who shared your last name.

OT: Manipulative people. When people are clearly not above fucking with other people's lives or saying anything to get what they want.

It's actually something I discovered I have an ability for quite some time ago, but I don't on principle. It just infuriates me. Most recently, my friend's girlfriend (my ex) has used threats of self harm and suicide, not to mention lying about when she's supposed to be moving away (getting out of his hair for good) in order to make sure he doesn't break up with her.

When he actually shut her out for a few days, she then came crying to me, trying to get me to talk him into getting back with her, then made the same threats to me that she'd hurt/kill herself if I didn't comply. Utterly sick of it at that point, I asked why that was my problem, and I haven't had to put up with her since.

 

[Kirke]

I loathe any type of racism, nationalism and immigrant hostility. Got a pamphlet from some fucking anti-immigrant organization, burned that shit in the grill together with my cousin (Whose dad is Danish). The sad thing is that one such party is on the rise here, which is very worrying. Sweden is a wonderful country and to anyone who wants to live here I say welcome! We're all equals and borders should mean as little as possible.

 

[Chromatic Aberration]

Arrogance. Really the typical "I think something is like X therefore it must be so and everybody is wrong for thinking otherwise"-attitude is the thing that gets me all the fucking time in its various shades. The usual thing that irritates me about it the most is the willingness to abandon any shred of actually trying to learn something and basing ones own preconceptions and selfish desires before finding the most useful solution. Still, I can normally deal with it because we all tend to argue like this sometimes and we all make mistakes or simply don't know better, but it really starts to get annoying when these people flat-out refuse to accept any criticisms or anything that challenges their world-view and then ramble on into insults or the utterly egregious "I'AM THE VICTIM HERE!"-stance in its various facets that tells far more about how much of a self-righteous, obnoxious prick that person is than about anything we could possibly talk about. But even that I can deal with to some extend and just smile the usual suspects away.

However....

There is a line they should not cross: it is advocating murder, genocide or any of those other amusing things that we can see people spout from time to time. Really at this special triple-point when arrogance, lack of empathy and utter ignorance is so extensive, so vast, and just so eternal that it makes those people simply go like "We should kill/torture/neuter group X because of [insert poorly thought out selfish reason here]" then I get...a little bit angry and I always end up far more concerned about humanity because of those guys than whatever group they see as a threat. The usual discussions where this kind of people can be exceptionally encountered includes but is not limited to: Death Penalty Debates, Threads about overpopulation and Threads about Muslims. And given that I worked for Amnesty International for a time, think the overpopulation argument is very much bogus and I know too many muslims to believe they are all terrorists...well you can conclude what happens....

 

[Evil Smurf]

The things that make me angry are these:
1. People who can't spell or use correct grammar
2. Homeopathy
3. Conservative argument (cutting government spending is a bad idea, taxes are great and socialism FTW)
4. Censorship in general. I'm an adult, why can't I buy Saints Row 4 (in Australia)?

 

[Johanthemonster666]

i particularly like the way bigots and racists speak to you in casual conversation as if, of course, you share their prejudices...

This happens a lot in my social circles, probably indicates I should look for a new crowd right?
An ex-friend of mine (who's also openly gay) would casually say some of the most racist, sexists and generally every form of stereotyping he could justify within the context of his rant.

This is why I'm both outspoken on those topics and sort of restrained when I get trolled on here. Because I know a real life person who thinks in this way and was raised by a whole family who believes in this stuff.


OT: I have many flashpoints, but I won't go there with those. Jingoism/ultra-nationalism at the exclusion of all the rest of humanity tends to get under my skin so much I will verbally challenge a person talking like in public.

 

[someonehairy-ish]

Anything evil done in the name of religion makes me fucking furious. Islamic extremists who suppress women or cry out for blasphemers to be killed, the Catholic Church telling people in poor african nations that condoms are evil, homophobic bible-belt fuckheads who alienate gay relatives, children even...

But also:

- pro-lifers
- climate change deniers
- people who misrepresent scientific evidence for their own gain
- people who try to push creationism into schools
- people who're cruel to animals
- pseudoscientists, quacks, 'psychics', and so on
- alliance scum, especially fucking goddamn gnomes

 

[Tsun Tzu]

Censorship is a major one for me.

Throw in religion, abortion, politics, and pretty much everything else that riles most people up and you've got a molotov cocktail brewing.