"These guys" took care to clarify what they meant by "irony" and "sarcasm", these terms not being equivalent. If you backtrack and explore the branches of this discussion, you'll see that their definitions are not equivalent to those I've used. They're practically opposite.
As for sarcasm, [snip]I'll take it here to mean "A sharp, bitter, or cutting expression or remark; a bitter gibe or taunt"
This is, indeed, in my experience, universal. Though I call it "snark".
For the purposes of this discussion, irony means "A figure of speech in which the intended meaning is the opposite of that expressed by the words used", [snip] Although cultures stereotypically differ in their affinity for irony, I've never heard or read that any group completely lacked the capacity to produce and understand it.
I'm not saying they're incapable of using what I call sarcasm ("A figure of speech in which the intended meaning is the opposite of that expressed by the words used"), I just saying that, as a norm, they don't, in the same way that a speaker of Japanese is not incapable of not addressing other people with the proper grammatical forms and honorifics; it's just that, rather than disrespectful, it comes off as stilted and agramatical. It's just not done, and it just sort of doesn't work.
Grice’s analysis of irony as an overt violation of the maxim of truthfulness is a variant of the classical rhetorical view of irony as literally saying one thing and figuratively meaning the opposite. There are well-known arguments against this view. It is descriptively inadequate because ironical understatements, ironical quotations and ironical allusions cannot be analysed as communicating the opposite of what is literally said. It is theoretically inadequate because saying the opposite of what one means is patently irrational; and on this approach it is hard to explain why verbal irony is universal and appears to arise spontaneously, without being taught or learned
I'm really seeing a problem based on a lack of consensus in common usage, here. ("such a broad definition will make it very hard to judge whether a culture lacks verbal irony")
Either way, the post itself does not explicitly say that "A figure of speech in which the intended meaning is the opposite of that expressed by the words used" is a universal feature of all languages. Some comments seem to confirm my postulations;
My limited experience in Japan was similar to Kel's in Russia. Sarcasm ("That was just great" and the like) baffled people.
No one seems to have replied to that comment.
How confident you are that if you had heard it in Japanese or Arabic you would have noticed and remember that?
Extremely confident, though of course studies prove that, for most people, confidence in one's memories does not correlate well with precision. Which I found puzzling, because in my case it did; I've only been confident on a false memory once in my entire life.
Extremely confident, though of course studies prove that, for most people, confidence in one's memories does not correlate well with precision. Which I found puzzling, because in my case it did; I've only been confident on a false memory once in my entire life.
The fact that your memory almost never has false positives doesn't say much about how often it has false negatives. IOW forgetting (or not having noticed in the first place) may be more common than confabulating (or having hallucinated).
This is my first attempt at starting a casual conversation on LW where people don't have to worry about winning or losing points, and can just relax and have social fun together.
So, Big Bang Theory. That series got me wondering. It seems to be about "geeks", and not the basement-dwelling variety either; they're highly successful and accomplished professionals, each in their own field. One of them has been an astronaut, even. And yet, everything they ever accomplish amounts to absolutely nothing in terms of social recognition or even in terms of personal happiness. And the thing is, it doesn't even get better for their "normal" counterparts, who are just as miserable and petty.
Consider, then; how would being rationalists would affect the characters on this show? The writing of the show relies a lot on laughing at people rather than with them; would rationalist characters subvert that? And how would that rationalist outlook express itself given their personalities? (After all, notice how amazingly different from each other Yudkowsky, Hanson, and Alicorn are, just to name a few; they emphasize rather different things, and take different approaches to both truth-testing and problem-solving).
Note: this discussion does not need to be about rationalism. It can be a casual, normal discussion about the series. Relax and enjoy yourselves.
But the reason I brought up that series is that its characters are excellent examples of high intelligence hampered by immense irrationality. The apex of this is represented by Dr. Sheldon Cooper, who is, essentially, a complete fundamentalist over every single thing in his life; he applies this attitude to everything, right down to people's favorite flavor of pudding: Raj is "axiomatically wrong" to prefer tapioca, because the best pudding is chocolate. Period. This attitude makes him a far, far worse scientist than he thinks, as he refuses to even consider any criticism of his methods or results.