this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2024
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I've met people who say things that should have a sarcastic inflection - without the inflection.
Yes, it's very hard to understand if they're joking and yes, we sometimes have to ask them if they're kidding, but not all the time. Some things are so absurd, so outlandish, phrased in such a way that explicitly explaining it was a joke can ruin the joke. Yes, clear communication in some instances should take priority over the joke in cases where being misunderstood as serious would have consequences, social or otherwise.
But I really don't think anyone here reasonably believed OP valued a phone with a ten year lifespan over the life of a child, nor that we should be using a foreign country as a waste dump until they're 'at capacity'. I think at some point you have to make the determination that something is so absurd that even if you can't tell it's sarcasm, you should be able to tell they're not serious.
And this still doesn't account for the nutcases that say this stuff, actually believing it, and then get showered with validation because the rest of us assume it is sarcasm.
Edit: whether someone is being "too unreasonable to be serious" is unfortunately no longer a reliable way to tell what someone is actually trying to say.
Then according to you, satire is dead. Time to hold a vigil.
Hardly.
I'm saying satire that doesn't in some way tell you it's satire, can't be distinguished from the genuinely delusional.
And thereby the way satire tells you it is satire, needs to change. No part of the art requires that there be no way to truly tell, I would argue the opposite.