When people get mad and angry in arguments, do you sometimes feel the truth and gist gets lost?

Emotion can definitely cloud the conversation during a measured debate.

I'll say that on reddit, the original argument gets completely lost because all the mods and the angry people focus on, is that you said something was 500 million when it was actually 600 million

yeah...I meant "about"

well why didn't you say about?

shup...

Of course. People often infer their own personal bias into what's actually being said and take certain discussions personally, and then they don't really hear the rest of what's being said. That's why so many arguments online are someone saying one thing and another person responding with a point that's completely unrelated. Because they heard something in the original discussion that they twisted in their minds or else it triggered something for them that made them lash out.

A good example is religion. Many people who're deeply religious cannot fathom that their God isn't real to someone else, and that alone can be the trigger, because their entire world view is based on their faith and so they can't separate their faith from someone else's God-less reality. And so they'll always take their arguments back to "But God doesn't like X" or "Not according to God" and get frustrated when the other person has to keep reminding them that they don't share the same view on religion. Same thing with any other major topic, like politics, racism, climate change, feminism. We don't all think the same things on these subjects, and that's generally okay.

That said, if we're both adults having a discussion and you can't understand another person might have different experiences and world views, and the only way you can respond is to throw a tantrum or refer to something unrelated to "prove your point" when it's not a debate, it's a discussion, then I have little sympathy for that. And that's why opting out of a fruitless and toxic conversation is always advisable, it's not cowardly to exit from something that's useless and potentially harmful to you.

Also, I don't know about you (By the way, has this EVER happened to you?) but...

In life, I was also often presented so much with ONE side of facts or even OPINIONS that I forgot or even never really knew at times that other different opposite positions even existed.

Like, I never knew like that we've had either bleeding heart liberals who even officially sympathized with GUILTY criminals like that, and if on rare occasions I came across them, I often dismissed them out of hand for being stupid and whatnot, whereas I felt correct opinions and intelligence is all that matters.

Turns out in life, its not that simple. BUT, people often can't help but be emotional, and some of us, including ME at times, simply don't have all access to all of the information. And macho-oriented tough guy attitudes alone as a matter of fact don't eradicate or massively reduce uncomfortable and inconvenient FACTS OF LIFE, including for which at certain heat of the moment spurs, in arguments, folks may EMBARRASS and SHAME you, and this might make someone like me feel an effect, a negative one, on one's conscience and psyche. BUT...

Paradoxically speaking, sometimes I feel I can and even at times DO manage to rise ABOVE it all. And sometimes, it works, but it takes time, effort and even co-operation on other's behalves.

And I don't want to hear anything about me being an idiot, a troll, a tard or retard of what the fuck ever tard, if I occasionally state that even in exceptional circumstances, I still don't want to be a victim or have this done to me, even if I may rarely wonder if it is AS harmful as those traditional well known ones, in addition to being illegal, and causing say people I know to PANIC in serious moral sense of strong outrage as well. Amongst other things of course as well as political correctness. And life's complexities beyond simple "good guys and bad guys" action movie-like scenarios, which in life don't exist like that overall in general.

When people get mad it’s usually a sign that they are losing the argument.

I don't think ANGER is the primary reason that discussions break down, I think that a LOT of people just refuse to acknowledge any validity to any viewpoints other than their own, regardless of level of emotion in the discussion.

I don't think anyone arguing with someone online is expecting to change their minds on anything and if one side flips out, it's to be expected.

The most you can do is maybe provide them a link to some information they might be missing and let them process that.

While its fun to troll internet retards but they usually don't offer much resistance beyond their set talking points.