To the three old guys arguing in Starbuck's this morning

I’m on a business trip this week and have made a habit of stopping at the local Starbucks for a coffee each morning before I head into the office.  Every morning the same group of 3 “old guys” (in reality they are probably only a few decades my senior) sets up shop in 3 of the corner chairs and starts to argue. It was hard to catch all the topics since they ranged so rapidly, but in a 15 minute span they touched on income inequality, gun control, taxing 529 plans and the state of the union speech more generally, the war in Iraq, ISIS, free college and the Patriots under inflating their footballs.  The “discussion” was loud, aimless and seemingly without end.
Based on how quickly they got into it, I would say they know each other pretty well and have been at this for a while.  And I have to wonder why?  They weren’t solving anything, they weren’t learning anything, they weren’t constructing any logical arguments.  It was just a stream of non-sequitors and ad-hominems.  Although I found it mildly entertaining, I am still wondering what they got out of it.  It seems to me that they are just practicing recreational bitterness.  While that may feel good at the time, I think it’s doing you more harm than good.