Slashdot Mirror
Sarcasm Useful For Detecting Dementia
An anonymous reader writes "Sarcasm may be the lowest form of wit, but Australian scientists are using it to diagnose dementia, according to a new study. Researchers at the University of New South Wales, found that patients under the age of 65 suffering from frontotemporal dementia (FTD), the second most common form of dementia, cannot detect when someone is being sarcastic."
Studies also found that old people who do not have dementia are likely to whack you with their canes for sassing them.
Doctor: "Oh, yeaaaa, you're normal"
Patient: "Why you little whippernapper! *WHACK* *WHACK*"
Doctor: "No! Ow! No! It was a medical test!
Patient: "I lived through 15 wars and 5 depressions, and I'm not going to let some damn young quack backtalk me in the name of science!" *WHACK* *WHACK*
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
In certain Ethiopic languages, sarcasm is indicated with a sarcasm mark, a character that looks like a backwards question mark at the end of a sentence, similar to Alcanter de Brahm's proposed irony mark ().
So did the fledgeling movement of Slashdotters who proposed using the tilde ~ as the sarcasm mark beat them to it?
...90% of the internet is demented.
I traded all my mod points for these magic beans.
What a great idea.
If you're wondering if you've got dementia, and you thought this comment was sarcastic, then you have because it wasn't.
If you're not wondering if you've got dementia, then you have too because it totally was sarcastic.
Or maybe it's me who has dementia. I don't know if I'm being sarcastic. Oh dear.
http://twitter.com/onion2k
Since sarcasm is notoriously difficult to convey online, does this mean the Internet is a dementia simulator? Actually, that would explain a lot of things...
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I wonder if whoever called sarcasm the lowest form of wit was demented.
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
Doctors Recommend Reading Slashdot to Diagnose Dementia.
I have left slashdot and am now on Soylent News. FUCK YOU DICE.
"Sarcasm may be the lowest form of wit, but Australian scientists are using it to diagnose dementia, according to a new study. Researchers at the University of New South Wales, found that patients under the age of 65 suffering from frontotemporal dementia (FTD), the second most common form of dementia, cannot detect when someone is being sarcastic."
I have suffered from Paranoid Schizophrenia since the age of 15. I'm 33 now, and I can say from my own personal experience that this is very true.
One of the many reasons I have trouble 'fitting in', especially at social gatherings, is my inability to detect sarcasm. It can be terrifying when someone says something that could be interpreted 'literally' as demeaning or cruel but is only 'joking around' etc.
I'm better now than I was, but usually only after getting to know a person well. Surprisingly however, even people I've known for 5+ years can still be sarcastic occasionally and it will go right over my head. They know about my illness however, and on occasions like those do me the favor of pointing out they were just being sarcastic, which helps.
I think the approach in the article could be a great diagnostic tool for early detection of these types of mental illness...I suffered from schizophrenia without knowing I had it for almost 10 years. My life fell to pieces; that and my family and friends (the few I had left) finally convinced me I had a problem. I was the last to know I had schizophrenia...and it has been very very difficult coming to terms with it.
Maybe if it was detected earlier I could have been treated earlier, and the damage to my life and my state of mind might have been mitigated considerably. I don't know.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
...parody is being used to detect Alzheimer's disease, and satire to detect lupus.
I hereby propose that the customary "whoosh" be replaced with "You may have Frontotemporal Dementia. Please see your physician."
You probably would get the exact same look if you said something not sarcastic with a MA accent.
I found that after a few days in the south I started talking with a drawl. Strangers became much friendlier to me.
Man, you really need that seminar!
I bet you're fun at parties.
Ha! Dementia detected.
Thanks!
Irony. The opposite of wrinkly.
Puns. Goddamn puns.