evilmousse: In 1947 dwight eisenhower, mohandas ghandi, joseph stalin, and george orwell each were sitting at a morse code broadcast station...

*FAP*FAP*FAP*

... Go on.

I spent all day yesterday sitting at my straight key, chatting with people in Arizona, Belarus, The Netherlands, Germany, South Africa, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Texas, and a couple others I can't remember off the top of my head.

/Loves me the Morse.
//Used to do it professionally.

Igor Jakovsky: vossiewulf: Better fake chat room story.

Pocket Ninja: This thread would have been a lot funnier if you people could have resisted the urge to point out it wasn't real before it even hit the main board.

We pointed it out before it was green, didn't expect it to go. No idea why the ever-mysterious modmins went with it.

Because the mods knew it would generate clicks just because rand was in the headline. Usually the only thing that generates 100+ posts in the geek tab is an Idevice thread.

If only we could find a way to combine iProducts and Ayn Rand into one headline, it would be a virtually guaranteed green!

Mrbogey: A caricature isn't reducto ad absurd. He didn't argue that it wasn't sound. A caricature often doesn't seem that way to the opponents of the target.

He called it a caricature but his description of what Colbert does -- and more importantly what Colbert actually does -- is by definition argument from absurdity.

It is a fine line, but watch closely. Nothing Colbert says is really out of line with what pundits routinely says.

That is to say, Colbert passes Poe's Law.

kronicfeld: This is an art project.

ITYM "awful fanfic".

imgod2u: He called it a caricature but his description of what Colbert does -- and more importantly what Colbert actually does -- is by definition argument from absurdity.

It is a fine line, but watch closely. Nothing Colbert says is really out of line with what pundits routinely says.

That is to say, Colbert passes Poe's Law.


No it's not.

Reducto ad absurd= "If two consenting adults should be allowed to get married, then why not incest? If it's about love? Why not polyamory? If what goes on in the bedroom is off limits, then why ban any sexual practice?
Caricature= "Give a Penny/Take a Penny? That's socialism!

You're seeing your view of caricature as absurdity because you want to believe that's what conservatives say. When you've stripped out the logic behind the argument and substituted your own to make an absurdity, then you're caricaturing. You see how easily the people who loathe Ayn Rand believe it's her but those not hostile to Objectivism have disbelief right away? That should tell you how your Poe-ometer is miscalibrated.

Mrbogey: imgod2u: He called it a caricature but his description of what Colbert does -- and more importantly what Colbert actually does -- is by definition argument from absurdity.

It is a fine line, but watch closely. Nothing Colbert says is really out of line with what pundits routinely says.

That is to say, Colbert passes Poe's Law.


No it's not.

Reducto ad absurd= "If two consenting adults should be allowed to get married, then why not incest? If it's about love? Why not polyamory? If what goes on in the bedroom is off limits, then why ban any sexual practice?
Caricature= "Give a Penny/Take a Penny? That's socialism!

Erm, your examples don't show the original argument being made. Obviously if, in your mind, no pundit has ever uttered a similar -- though less extreme -- statement, then of course it's caricature. Of course, that's not the case. Pundits across networks -- as demonstrated through footages constantly on the show right before Colbert -- consistently make mountains out of molehills by claiming various seemingly innocuous things as "socialism taking over America!".

Yes, you've phrased your former example correctly whereas the later is simply the absurd conclusion of already established lines of reasoning.

You're seeing your view of caricature as absurdity because you want to believe that's what conservatives say.

No, I'm seeing it as absurd because it commonly mirrors -- almost exactly -- what has been said by pundits that Colbert is there to parody. Like I said, it passes Poe's Law.

When you've stripped out the logic behind the argument and substituted your own to make an absurdity, then you're caricaturing.

Except of course, it wasn't substituted logic. It was replacing x therefore y with a therefore b, with the line of reasoning being almost identical -- often times in both reasoning and wording -- as those that have been uttered before.

You see how easily the people who loathe Ayn Rand believe it's her but those not hostile to Objectivism have disbelief right away? That should tell you how your Poe-ometer is miscalibrated.

I like the loading of the category descriptions there. One group (the one you disagree with) is of course, people emotionally involved -- they "loathe Ayn Rand". But of course, those who noticed -- whether right away or through careful scrutiny/research, we don't know, but you seem comfortable with assuming the former -- is of course simple "not hostile to Objectivism". They sound so even-tempered and level-headed, they must be the ones with correctly calibrated Poe-meters!

And here you've demonstrated the problem with most of Ayn Rand's philosophy -- there's leagues worth of assumptions of self-described objectivism. None of which actually exist under careful scrutiny. The "self-evident" card is played as if it were always enough in and of itself and any opposition must be emotionally motivated!