4 ms·

Can someone explain why this link is here? Am I missing something? Genuine question.

• raganwald 15y ago
  Sure thing. HN is for things that hackers find interesting, not just programming or startups. Things that are self-referential or “meta” have a strong presence in Hacker culture, Gödel-Escher-Bach and Lisp being totemic examples. Humor is, well, pleasing, and meta-humour combines something pleasing with a nod to something interesting. Finally, creating or dissecting meta-jokes has a hacking aspect to it. What is the structure of this joke? How does it work? What does it say about other jokes? These questions are interesting in their own right. Humour can be a very serious subject. Why do human laugh? What is the social purpose of telling jokes? Is it important? Or is it a “bug in the system” that we exploit? What is going on in the brain when we laugh at the punch line of a joke? Is it the same thing that goes on when we observe the “switch” ending of a movie like “The Sixth Sense” or “The Sting?” Or you can just laugh at the jokes and move along :-)
  • deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  • user24 15y ago
    Oh, thanks. I thought maybe there was some reason why this was posted today (esp given that I just read your meta-joke blog post) other than the inherent interestingness of meta-humour. Fair enough; although the comment did look like it, it really wasn't a whingy "this isn't news for nerds" sort of comment.