It's scary how much political art is interchangeable. I've noticed political cartoons often recycle the same formula, for example:
In the foreground, a politician proclaims "I will solve X!", where X is a minor problem. In the background, we see ensemble of major problems. The implication is that if the politician cares about a minor problem, they do not care about major problems.
A politician proclaims "My political enemies are committing Y offense!" Meanwhile, the politician himself is committing Y offense.
On Halloween, a child dresses up as a political problem, or a member of the Hated Enemy. This costume is scarier than a ghost or zombie.
At New Year's, the old year is shown with bruises from all the bad events of the past year. The New Year is looking scared. I've seen some version of this cartoon every year for fifteen years now.
What political cartoon formulas have you noticed?
Today's post, False Laughter was originally published on 22 December 2007. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):
Finding a blow to the hated enemy to be funny is a dangerous feeling, especially if that is the only reason why the joke is funny. Jokes should be funny on their own merits before they become deserving of laughter.
Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).
This post is part of the Rerunning the Sequences series, where we'll be going through Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts in order so that people who are interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was Two Cult Koans, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.
Sequence reruns are a community-driven effort. You can participate by re-reading the sequence post, discussing it here, posting the next day's sequence reruns post, or summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki. Go here for more details, or to have meta discussions about the Rerunning the Sequences series.