Scientists discover SlashNOT brain region
Posted by Matthew on Monday May 23, 2005 @06:02PM
from the more-brains dept.
Matthew writes: Some brain damaged people cannot understand SlashNOT (as evidenced by many of the comment posts) and scientists in Isreal have discovered why.
A specific region of the brain, the prefrontal slashnotomedial area, is responsible for detecting hidden meaning in short satirical posts. When this portion of the brain is damaged or fails to develop normally, the ironic meaning is lost and the person takes the post literally. “Essentially, the person lacks empathy. Because they cannot understand what the other person is thinking, the meaning is lost.”
Lesions in this area of the brain can cause both a loss of empathy and the attendant inability to understand sarcasm. To help combat the loss of satirical understanding, SlashNOT has committed 100% of its after-profit revenues to funding research into various therapies for the brain damaged and stupid.
Subject:Insensitive
I think you should be more aware of the slurs you write so casually. There are plenty of genetic and environmental reasons why people's mental faculties might run in different directions than yours. One of those reasons might be differently-developed regions of the brain. That does not make them 'stupid' or 'brain damaged'. They're just other-enabled, and they live lives just as rich and meaningful as anyone else. While I wouldn't want to be judgmental, you might reconsider who it is who lacks empathy, and include yourself in the set of candidates this time.
Comment by HumorIsAlwaysMean — May 23, 2005 @ 6:58 pm
Subject:Re: Insensitive
1) People who try not to offend every one of 100,000 visitors cannot be funny.
2) This is a humor website.
3) What makes you think that I lack awareness of the potential for offense? Why would you judge that I lack the capacity for other people’s feelings just because I consciously choose to ridicule them?
I’m absolutely offended that you would make these presumptions about me! How dare you judge my empathetic capacity in that way, and fail to consider that I may be perfectly able to consider the feelings of others and then deliberately choose to ignore them!
I, sir, am an empath of the first order. I am also an asshole of the first order. It is you who lacks the self-awareness to realize that your namby-pamby dedication to inoffense is inherently hypocritical, unsustainable, and harmful both to yourself and those who are forced to rely upon your ability to reason based on fact.
Stand up, grow some testicles, and judge people with true vehemence! Then your bathetic whining will be, at least, funny.
Comment by Matthew — May 23, 2005 @ 7:30 pm
Subject:Re: Insensitive
I believe the politically correct term is fun-challenged.
Comment by CharlesJo.com — May 24, 2005 @ 8:12 am
Subject:Re: Insensitive
Lol, this guy is taking this site a little too serious eh? I read the origional article on slashdot which was about people not being able to understand SARCASIM because of brain damage to the forehead… (maybe his response to the article was sarcasim in disguise… and we have brain damage that doesn't let us understand him)
Anyways I just this site today, and enjoyed all the articles, I plan on visiting for updates (which appear to be fairly regular)
What kind of traffic does your site get? You should submit it to slashdot… it would be funny to see “slashNOT” get “slashdotted” (as if slashdotted has become a verb)
Anyways, keep up the good work! I will be reading!
Comment by Ryder Step — May 24, 2005 @ 1:52 pm
Subject:Re: Insensitive
I think it's a neat idea here too. It makes me wonder though… there are plenty of sarcasm in the /. community already so Slashnot is kinds of like a TV show that is a parody of The Daily Show.
Comment by CharlesJo.com — May 24, 2005 @ 9:00 pm
Subject:Re: Traffic
We get about 10,000 people a week currently.
Comment by Matthew — May 25, 2005 @ 1:14 am
Subject:Re: Insensitive
Slashdot routinely deletes mention of SlashNOT.. I think they're afraid of you. We dedacated slashnotters should attack them GN style with mad linksback.
Comment by CplBurrito — May 25, 2005 @ 1:19 am
Subject:Re: Insensitive
I think you are all meanies. So there. I don't get any of this. Why do I keep reading this? Who am I? What is my purpose in life? Do you have any good recipes for vegetarian miso?
Comment by zhoen — May 25, 2005 @ 5:12 am
Subject:Re: Insensitive
That's kindove stupid that slashdot won't reconize this site. And by the way, love the parody of CmdrTaco -> CprlBurrito… Quality name… I should take one of their names and distort it… muhahaha!!
Comment by Ryder Step — May 25, 2005 @ 9:43 am
Subject:Re: Insensitive
As I see it, /.'s value is in the community comments. We can all find the actual articles ourselves at The Register, CNET, etc., but it's the community responses I really enjoy. Perhaps /. is afraid that /! will take the community away.
BTW, I have submitted articles here and no response. This one, I am actually proud of:
The New York Times to Change Name to Free Registration Required
http://www.charlesjo.com/newsletterissue?newsletterIssueEntityId=315
Comment by CharlesJo.com — May 25, 2005 @ 12:40 pm
Subject:Isreal?
What, as opposed to that other country, Isnotreal?
I know Americans pronounce it “is real” but nevertheless, it's spelled “Israel” and you can't take that away from me.
Comment by zaxios — May 25, 2005 @ 8:11 pm
Subject:Re: Isreal?
I did not notice that the first time. Thanks for mentioning it. I am not sure that it was originally intentional.
CharlesJo.com
Sarcastech
Comment by CharlesJo.com — May 26, 2005 @ 12:03 am
Subject:Re: Insensitive
Yeah, we have a policy of not posting content that has already been posted on another/your website. It's due partly to our copyright clause and partly to our must-actually-be-funny clause.
(although the part where Torvalds finds out that Jobs is his long lost sister was funny)
Comment by Matthew — May 30, 2005 @ 9:44 pm
Subject:Re: Insensitive
Ok. I must have missed that policy.
Comment by Charles Jo — May 31, 2005 @ 9:44 am
Subject:hoping 4 a kure
I am looking forward to the day this illness is cured. So many of many of my co-workers and family suffer from literalism. But I have coped by building a great network of friends who can interpret sacarism - and thier support is “wonderful”…
Comment by LostInTranslation — June 2, 2005 @ 7:19 pm
Subject:lol
at #buttes failure …
Comment by areems — June 3, 2005 @ 9:47 am
Subject:Re: hoping 4 a kure
Yeah, we *really* need a cure for sarcasm.
(For literalists, the statement above — not the parent of this thread — is sarcastic. For fellow members of the Sarcastic school of thought, the abovementioned statement is to be read in The Comic Book Guy's voice when talking to The Professor about the need for a sarcasticmeter. BTW, we have a battle royal planned in the parking lot after school against the Stoic school of thought.)
Comment by Charles Jo — June 3, 2005 @ 1:25 pm
Subject:Re: Insensitive
You realize, of course, that the gp was being sarcastic, correct?
Perhaps you suffer from the disease as well?
Comment by Me — June 6, 2005 @ 8:04 pm
Subject:Re: deliberate lack of empathy?
i found this listed among the many symptoms of those with narcissistic personality disorder. i believe the choice to disregard applys to you.
7. Lacks empathy
Translation: Those with narcisstic personality disorder are unwilling to recognize or sympathize with other people's feelings and needs. They “tune out” when other people want to talk about their own problems.
In clinical terms, empathy is the ability to recognize and interpret other people's emotions. Lack of empathy may take two different directions: (a) accurate interpretation of others' emotions with no concern for others' distress, which is characteristic of psychopaths; and (b) the inability to recognize and accurately interpret other people's emotions, which is the NPD style. This second form of defective empathy may (rarely) go so far as alexithymia, or no words for emotions, and is found with psychosomatic illnesses, i.e., medical conditions in which emotion is experienced somatically rather than psychically. People with personality disorders don't have the normal body-ego identification and regard their bodies only instrumentally, i.e., as tools to use to get what they want, or, in bad states, as torture chambers that inflict on them meaningless suffering. Self-described narcissists who've written to me say that they are aware that their feelings are different from other people's, mostly that they feel less, both in strength and variety (and which the narcissists interpret as evidence of their own superiority); some narcissists report “numbness” and the inability to perceive meaning in other people's emotions.
best of luck handling psychosis.
Comment by spoofed — June 29, 2005 @ 12:03 pm
Subject:Re: deliberate lack of empathy?
A little too serious for slashnot meeessa thinks!
Comment by YahooSerious — July 1, 2005 @ 8:32 pm
Subject:Re: deliberate lack of empathy?
That's very sweet of you! Thanks!
Comment by Matthew — July 10, 2005 @ 11:49 pm