An interesting observation. David Friedman also finds sports
spectatorship the best analogy with voting motivations. The fun is to
take sides and make some team your "team". I'm not sure why this
behavior happens either, but these two theories of politics also seem
plausible here:
>We're in a signaling game where political knowledge is taken as a sign
>of intelligence and social connectedness. ... people are trying to
>signal their membership in particular social groups distinguished by
>political "beliefs" (really verbal banners).
Robin D. Hanson hanson@hss.caltech.edu http://hss.caltech.edu/~hanson/