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It's from Poe's Law, basically stating that there are never any statements so batshit insane that you can be completely sure they're sarcastic. There always could be someone out there that really believes it.

- Pitabred (anon since I've moderated)

Nothing unusual about such confusion:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_eponymous_laws#N.E2.80.93Q
http://deletionpedia.dbatley.com/w/index.php?title=Poe's_law
http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Poe's_Law

That's not surprising, it certainly seems like a lot of anti-evolutionists are also in the anti-AGW battle.

Yes, this has been called "crank magnetism". People who are credulous enough to buy into one implausible conspiracy theory are very likely to believe in others. Anybody who has read the evolution or moon landing denial literature is likely to experience deja vu with respect to the kinds of arguments being employed by deniers of AGW.

Yes, I said Marxist. You too seem to have bought into the class warfare/false consciousness arguments all on your own, without studying those who could have given you a vocabulary beyond "LOL" to describe it.

I leave you, sir, with this rebuttle to your most eloquent of of counterpoints.

You should go and visit "uncommon descent" the blog HQ of intelligent design. They're always bringing up AGW skepticism, since the notion of a far-reaching conspiracy of scientific propaganda and elitist repression is the same excuse they use to wave away the fact that the overwhelming majority of scientific opinion is in favour of evolution. Throwing their lot in with other denialists "makes their worldview make sense".

Also institute for creation research states:

• Global warming appears to have been occurring for the last 30-50 years.
• This warming may only be a short-term fluctuation but could be a longer-term trend.
• Evidence is still inconclusive whether man is causing the warming.
• No "natural" causes for global warming have been confirmed.
• One possible new theory is that galactic cosmic radiation (GCR) modulated by solar activity affects low-level cloud cover and is causing the warming.

Global warming may affect some parts of our society negatively but would likely benefit others. In fact, the current warming trend may be returning our global climate closer to that prevalent in the Garden of Eden. Compared to climate changes which have occurred in earth history, a temperature rise of a few degrees is a small fluctuation which will not lead to a complete melting of the polar caps or another ice age. Earth has a stable environmental system with many built-in feedback systems to maintain a uniform climate. It was designed by God and has only been dramatically upset by catastrophic events like the Genesis Flood. Catastrophic climate change will occur again in the future, but only by God's intervention in a sudden, violent conflagration of planet Earth in the end times

Answers in genesis cry conspiracy and even cite "The Day After Tomorrow"!

The tactic used by Lomborg (quote mining) is the definitive modus operandi of a denialist. It is the bread and butter of Creationists, and for the person employing it, it is a strong indicator of either severe cognitive dissonance or outright lying.

I can't believe you and at least three other people took my comment seriously. I thought the satire was clear. I was wrong.

No, you're just not particularly good at it. In your case, you either needed to shoot off into absurdity more or otherwise leave a hook or two to let us know you're not being serious. You instead came off as just another troll looking for people to rile up.

I can't believe you and at least three other people took my comment seriously. I thought the satire was clear. I was wrong. It really reflects terribly on our society that you could read the bible reference and the "10 hour workday" and think I meant those things in earnest. Only monsters like this man would do that.

Moderators, just moderate my original comment down to -1. I'd rather see it there than at +5 Insightful where someone might get the impression that corporate feudalism is a good thing.

No. Wikipedia would be “Admin: I have the power, I define reality!”

That is Conservapedia.

As I read your post I'm really not sure whether some Apple version of Poe's Law best describes any attempt to assess the nature of your post(parody vs true believer). You could have just as easily been modded funny, like this earlier post.

I am sick and tired of conspiracy theories.

That's because the government has secret division of their propaganda warmachine that troll their days in the internet, claiming to be conspiracy theorists. They make unfounded an often incoherent statements with little to no evidence, thus labeling everyone who spreads conspiracy theories as total nutjobs. Thus they can drown the real theories and arguments to the sea of incoherence.

(Poe's Law)

I really can't tell whether you're kidding or not.

You must be new to Conservapedia. Their Bible translation project is hilarious in and of itself, but it's just the tip of the iceberg. It is, after all, a Christian young earth creationist neo-con project; consequently, it's an endless source of lulz (sorry, there's no term more applicable than this one here).

Link next time. I had to waste 10 seconds googling =) http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Poe's_Law

Poe's law states: "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."
See: http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Poe's_Law

You're using Verizon as an example of fair, beneficial rules to customers? It's not that I suspect you're a shill...I think I'm in the area of influence of Peo's Law ( http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Poe's_Law )

BTW, you conveniently forget that there are countries with excellent coverage (despite having two times lower population density than US, Finland for example), fair prices, great quality of service and...unlocked phones on the network.

On the second thought, you might be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome...

I think that's called Poe's Law

Real science doesn't need to hide.

I take it, then, that you're siding with Schlafly in the Schlafly v. Lenski dustup?

Poe’s Law... learn it, love it...

I thought you were trolling, and then I read this:

I'll be switching my law firm back to IE and looking into a lawsuit against all FF contributors for their grossly negligent behavior.

Poe’s Law appears to be in full effect today.

I see that without the GP being modded Funny you actually believed that anyone believes that Microsoft left something out of Windows to prevent bloat. I'm pretty sure Poe's Law would indicate where you stand on the Windows vs. Linux debate... :-P

You're the first person who actually responded with a "yes". It seems that most of the responses recognize that this is the way the law currently works, but don't necessarily agree that it should be that way.

It was sarcasm. I don't think it should be that way. I agree with everything you've said in this post. I phrased my comment deliberately, though, to make it obvious how ridiculous it was... perhaps I've fallen victim to Poe's Law.

First, you've made the enjoyment itself a crime. That is, you've made a thought -- or, more accurate, an emotion, and a state of sexual arousal -- a crime.

And second, you've thrown out "innocent until proven guilty", and replaced it with "probably".

Not I – I'm pointing out that this has already been done. Very deliberately pointing it out – and hopefully you're not the only one who got it.

Posting anonymously because apparently I talk too much, and Slashdot wants me to slow down. Reply to my prior post rather than this one if you want me to notice your reply.

You - like myself at one point - are giving the creationists too much credit. See, I thought that everybody without some level of mental deficiency would be forced to reevaluate their beliefs when confronted with facts that contradicted them.

Not so with creationists. They avoid that little "problem" by simply asserting that the fact doesn't exist. Since it's not a fact, there's no cognitive dissonance, right?

Check this out: http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Lenski_affair . In short, the good ol' boys over at Conservapedia (created by a high-school social studies teacher Andrew Schlafly who thought Wikipedia had a liberal bias) had a problem with an experiment run by Richard Lenski. He was one of the scientists a few years back who proved that organisms evolve over time through selective pressures, by showing that a colony of E. Coli evolved to metabolize a new substrate.

This "teacher" had a problem with this peer-reviewed rigorous scientific fact, and since as a social-studies teacher he knew more about science than they did, he took it upon himself to challenge this respected researcher. What followed was the most epic smackdown by a scientist in recent memory.

tl;dr Schlafly, out of a bout of extreme hubris and well-supported by his community, decided to question the findings of people much, much, much smarter than himself. This is evidence that these young-earth creationists will try to change - and later ignore - facts that contradict their belief.

I would like to see an experiment where some group of well-studied animals, both morphologically and genotypically, are put in a highly selective environment to try to force speciation, and see what the results are.

It takes too long, unless you work with fast breeding bacteria. Lensky worked on bacteria but it still took over 30000 generations over 20 years. A mouse that breeds a new generation every 6 weeks would take about 3500 years before you notice speciation !

Another account of the story is at RationalWiki: http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Lenski_affair

RationalWiki is a site that exists to poke fun at Conservapedia and the anti-science movement. (I particularly like its WIGO page, "What Is Going On At CP?".) Conservapedia forbids any mention of RationalWiki, going so far as to ban members who make oblique references to it. In fact, the part of Lenski's letter that was censored on Conservapedia as "Ed.: citation omitted due to spam filter" was, originally, a reference to RationalWiki; this is explained at "Censoring of Lensku's RW ref".

Another account of the story is at RationalWiki: http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Lenski_affair

RationalWiki is a site that exists to poke fun at Conservapedia and the anti-science movement. (I particularly like its WIGO page, "What Is Going On At CP?".) Conservapedia forbids any mention of RationalWiki, going so far as to ban members who make oblique references to it. In fact, the part of Lenski's letter that was censored on Conservapedia as "Ed.: citation omitted due to spam filter" was, originally, a reference to RationalWiki; this is explained at "Censoring of Lensku's RW ref".

Another account of the story is at RationalWiki: http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Lenski_affair

RationalWiki is a site that exists to poke fun at Conservapedia and the anti-science movement. (I particularly like its WIGO page, "What Is Going On At CP?".) Conservapedia forbids any mention of RationalWiki, going so far as to ban members who make oblique references to it. In fact, the part of Lenski's letter that was censored on Conservapedia as "Ed.: citation omitted due to spam filter" was, originally, a reference to RationalWiki; this is explained at "Censoring of Lensku's RW ref".

And indeed, this very person had a very good email dialogue with some crationists a few years ago about this work on E.Coli.

http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Lenski_affair

Ahh, another victim of Poe's Law.

The onus is on religious people to probe there is a god: http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Negative_proof

So far, they have failed miserably.

I can think of five good proofs right off the top of my head...

Of course, you'd need a bit of training in philosophy to understand them.

The onus is on religious people to probe there is a god: http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Negative_proof

So far, they have failed miserably.

It's hard to tell it's a joke, when many would say the same thing in earnest. I think that something like Poe's Law applies in this case.

If you believe everything you read, you shouldn't read. I could post links to stuff like studies showing that the theomirsal scare was bullshit (surprise, when someone makes something up on the spot, odds are it's wrong), but instead I'll just post this and this because they have all the citations at the bottom. It isn't worth the time to post anything else because vaccine fear makes about as much sense a germ theory of disease denialism at this point.

You have fallen for the Galileo fallacy. As Carl Sagan puts it:

They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

No that book has little to teach us and can be easily summarized.

From: http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Ayn_Rand#Shatlas_Rugged

Shatlas Rugged

Actually reading this novel has been compared to pushing one's head through a light-year of refrigerated saltwater taffy.

To save you reading over a thousand pages of turgid prose, here is Atlas Shrugged. No "spoiler" alert is necessary:

        * A dark and lonely handsome hero with no friends makes shitloads of dosh off the back of lazy and stupid non-union slaves;
        * When asked to pay taxes, he and his ilk scream in shock, and flee in a huff to live in the mountains; [4]
        * Everyone is miserable except them, as they are busy driving their trains up and down in their incredible mountain hideaway;
        * They have laughable sex with other capitalist boors, but cannot commit due to being too busy making money;
        * Everyone else is wrong:
        * They are right;
        * They appear suddenly in public and punish the miserable hordes by lecturing them in interminably boring eight-hour speeches that go on and on and on for about one hundred pages and have only one point - "You're all fucked, and I'm not, 'cos I've got all the money, Ha Ha!";
        * The world goes to Hell in a handbasket, except for them, 'cos they're in their seekrit mountain hideout.[5]

This is the link referenced as 5 and is also very appropriate:
http://www.angryflower.com/atlass.gif

At then end of the day Atlas Shrugged is a steaming turd of a book and Ayn Rand ideas never had any value.

In regards to the adequacy of homeschooling, may I direct you to this font of knowledge advocating homeschooling:

http://www.conservapedia.com/Main_Page

On the other hand there is site:

http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Main_Page

This site, RationalWiki, which was set up to viciously mock and debunk Conservapedia and other similar sources with similar content as well. I think that RationalWiki does does a pretty good job at this.

Looking at the current moderation, it looks like Poe's law is in effect, and the_humeister just got charged as an adult.

I can't wait to see that added to this lovely page:
http://www.conservapedia.com/Barack_Obama

In case it's changed: The page as I write this. Note that the sysops there do have the habit of deleting history whenever they don't like it.

I knew of that site long before I knew about RationalWiki, which restores at least some of the faith in mankind that you lose when you visit Conservapedia.

And no mention of Conservapedia is complete without mentioning the game of Conservatroll.

Wow. I think I just got 0wned by Poe's law.

Being serious for a moment, it is possible to overdo a parody to the point where it's no longer as good. If you add too much, it starts to look like a parody of what you think content-free managers say, rather than a parody of what they actually say.

Having said that, you have a point. There is a kind of Poe's Law when it comes to managerial weasel words.

Which is why Nathan Poe formulated Poe's Law

Deconverted Catholics should be able to sue for all the bad advice they were given( birth control, afterlife promises, god in general).

It could work since its Mental abuse as much as being touched is Sexual abuse 8^)

RationalWiki FAQ for the Newly Deconverted

If our influence is so pervasive then how is everyone attacking/invading us? You'd think western public opinion would agree with everything Islamic in that case.

From what I see going on in the west, it's the other way round. We now have madrassas in New York that teach 3 yeard old children to hate Jews, and British schools being forced by Islamic mobs to deny the holocaust. I see the Archbishop of Canterbury bowing down to Islamic Sharia Law in Britain. I see honor killings in London, Muslim rape gangs hiding behind imams after raping dutch women, Norwegian Imams and Libyan dictators openly boasting of well-laid plans to Islamize the western world. Looks to me like it is Muslims who are attacking non-Islamic lands in droves.

Plus, most of the "attacks" and "invasions" so far have been in the interests of the most powerful Islamic cabal in the world (Saudi Wahhabis) who blessed Bush to invade Iraq.

It seems that you have a lot of negative opinions of Islam. Perhaps the sources you learned about it from focused too much on negative events, or you had bad experiences with Muslims in India/Pakistan...etc (seems to be the main source of your examples).

Indeed. Given that the vast majority of the world's Muslims are FROM Indonesia (violent mobs burning down churches, temples and buildings) and Pakistan (genocide of minorities in Bangladesh, Huddood laws, which are a part of Islam quite normatively, that give rapists medals), I should say that I have been exposed to a much broader cross-section of the Muslim world than you (who only sees the ethnic Arab side of it, which may be a lot less violent).

In both cases, there's a difference between Islam as defined by the Quran and Sunna, and the acts of current or historical individual Muslims who may not necessarily follow Islamic rules.

This is a meaningless argument on the following grounds. regardless of what the Koran and Sunnah may say literally, the fact remains that 60% of the Muslim world is functionally illiterate, and are incapable of reading Islamic scripture directly. Among the other 40%, less than half even know Arabic (some random Muslim dude in Lahore or Jakarta most definitely knows less Arabic than I do, and I studied basic Arabic for 1 semester). As a result, most Muslims get their religious instructions from a tight and cabalistic clergy. The majority of this clergy teach their congregates discrimination, violence, racism and genocide against non-Muslims. Over 2/3rds of the madrassas in Pakistan (the second most populous Muslim country in the world) are radical stronghouses run by the Deobandi Islamists (like the Taliban). The only way by which you can reconcile all this with the claim that Islam teaches peace and love and hippie "cumbaya" is if you regard some 75% of the world's Muslims as "false Muslims" (takfir?) as you impled previously, and that leads to the classic "No true Scotsman" logical fallacy.

http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=No_True_Scotsman

Your apologia may be valid for Arabs as a race, but is not valid for Muslims in general.

Their Harry Potter0 entry mentions that some have attempted to get the books banned because they present the occult in a positive light, and are not appropriate for Christian children. Not to worry says Conservatpedia, the Vatican says its A-OK:

In 2003, a Vatican representative said the books, "aren't serving as the banner for an anti-Christian theology.... I don't think there's anyone in this room who grew up without fairies, magic, and angels in their imaginary world."

That has a rather Romish aura to it, which should come as no surprise since Conservapedia was created by Andrew Schlafly, son of notable Catholic Theocon Phyllis Schlafly.

This is well and fine, but since Conservapedia states at the beginning of its home page that it is:

A conservative encyclopedia you can trust. The truth shall set you free.

and has used it connections to be promoted as a 'conservative' answer to Wikipedia in many publications, it's not going to sit well with the Evangelical Right to be told that contrary to what they've been taught, The Pope is not the horned beast of Revelations, but instead is the final word on what is or is not Christian.

Aside from their Satanic Ecumenicalist Agenda, Conservatpedia's content is so error laden, slanted, and generally so full of crap, many first time visitors think it is well crafted satire, and for good reasons.