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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

Actually, the opposite is true.

A strong in-group will deploy frank and open speech. This is obvious if we think about how people are more open—not less—in private and with friends and family. Our speech becomes more direct and open.

Irony is a way of hedging meaning, and so it is a way to avoid confrontation—the sort of confrontations that will occur with greater regularity in cosmopolitan societies where disputes could occur if we say what we really mean. It’s also a way to insult people in a deniable form, or in a form that is only understood by an in-group.

About 15 years ago, the Conservatives ran an election campaign with the slogan: “Are you thinking what we’re thinking?”. The slogan was used for a variety of topics, including immigration. This slogan shows how a more cosmopolitan society encourages opaque communication to avoid offence (perhaps even criminal prosecution)—after all, what were the Conservatives “really thinking”? That, due to cosmopolitan sensibilities, had to be ambiguous.

Irony, in this situation, is your friend—it might even keep you out of jail.

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Ronfar's avatar

Is this where Poe's Law comes from? (It's impossible to write implicit satire on the internet, because no matter how ridiculous or stupid you make yourself sound, there's always someone out there saying the same thing and who means every word.)

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