Poe's Law

From Issuepedia
Revision as of 12:29, 20 June 2010 by Woozle (talk | contribs) (can also be extreme extrapolation; argumentum ad absurdum)
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Overview

Poe's Law is an adage which states, in its original form:

Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that SOMEONE won't mistake for the real thing.

More generally, it refers to any speech which is sufficiently dogmatic -- or sufficiently extreme in its extrapolation of an ideology -- as to be indistinguishable from parody. (Such parody would then be a form of reductio ad absurdum.)

This is a growing seedling article. You can help Issuepedia by watering it.

Links

Reference

  • Wikipedia
    • as of 2009-06-29, article had been deleted multiple times
    • as of 2009-10-10, redirects to a page which lists Edgar Allen Poe's law "That there is a maximum desirable length for poems".
  • RationalWiki