[caseyy]

I also disagree with the author. They don't consider the relationship between the meme makers/viewers and the demon core incident. And while it was horrific to those involved, most people have experienced maybe 0.1% of that terror – and that is good. They can and should make light of it.

Expecting everyone to be deeply affected by all traumatic experiences throughout history is unrealistic. We have defence mechanisms to cope with the overwhelming weight of global suffering, and breaking them down is a bad idea. So shaming those who managed to distance themselves from such events (by saying their dark comedy is in bad taste) is condescending. I say it's good to have healthy coping strategies and not be overly affected by awful events we were not exposed to directly – that is called healthy mental resilience. Not everyone should suffer because anyone else has.

People should and will still joke, even when awful things have happened to billions in every conceivable niche of life. Really, I would even argue one should not absorb more suffering and terror than they would have been exposed to in one life-time, even if the internet and news media makes it easy. One should certainly, without any doubt in my mind not internalize every tragedy in history in an effort to stifle humour.

[whoopdedo]

Most comedy is tragic.[1] And laughing is an inherently selfish act, as Mel Brooks observed when he said, "comedy is when you fall in an open sewer and die."[2]

[1] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/06/25/comedy-plus/

[2] https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/mel-brooks-film-exc...

[MayeulC]

"Comedy is tragedy plus time".

That quote seems to have multiple origins, though I remember it from Portal, an unlikely source.

[smitelli]

Time is also money, and it is claimed to be the root (square or cube?) of all evil. We’re halfway to a mathematical proof of some sort.

[TeMPOraL]

The OG source says that love of money is the root of all evil.

I don't know what's the correct way of extracting the love operator from under the square root.

[feoren]

It doesn't sound like you really do disagree with the author at all. I never had the sense that he was trying to shame anyone. In fact he almost exactly echoes your 2nd paragraph:

> I’m not here to be the humor police, or to say things should be “off limits” for comedy, or that it’s “too soon,” or make any other scolding noises. Dark humor, in its own strange and inverted way, is arguably a sort of coping mechanism — a defense against the darkness, a way to tame and de-fang the horrors of the world.

[dominicrose]

I wouldn't joke about a nuclear bomb, but a nuclear scientist who died because of messing with that stuff?