Oct. 21st, 2015

Follow-Up

Oct. 21st, 2015 07:03 am
supergee: (toilet)
Poe's law states that, without a clear indicator of the author's intent, parodies of extreme views will, to some readers, be indistinguishable from sincere expressions of the parodied views. One instance of it is that members of 4skin and other such groups will make up a stupid, hateful idea and people will treat it like a stupid, hateful idea, which will make them every bit as happy as children who have gotten a wonderful reaction from the grownups by making a kaka on the rug. (Since they are stirring up hatred and anger for a trivial gain, they may be the best confirming instance of Vonnegut's Overgeneralization: They are what they pretend to be.)

A slightly smarter group will carefully research such excretions, discover that they really are troll posts, and claim to have won the Internets because they noticed that nobody really believed the post in question. (Until worse morons noticed it and agreed with it.)

Yesterday, I passed along a report of a white racist boycott of the new Star Wars movie that may not have been sincere. Who cares?

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Arthur D. Hlavaty

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