[biot]

Instead of having a debate between the pot and kettle, perhaps you'd listen to the stove?

http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html

  "The most dangerous form of stupid comment is not the
   long but mistaken argument, but the dumb joke. [...]

   Bad comments are like kudzu: they take over rapidly.
   Comments have much more effect on new comments than
   submissions have on new submissions. If someone submits
   a lame article, the other submissions don't all become
   lame. But if someone posts a stupid comment on a thread,
   that sets the tone for the region around it. People 
   reply to dumb jokes with dumb jokes."

By writing a dumb joke, you are signaling to new members that it's okay to rehash old, lame memes for nothing more than the lulz.

[asveikau]

Right, because what constitutes a "dumb joke" can be universally agreed upon.

[coldtea]

No, because any joke is a "dumb joke" in the context of a HN discussion. There's no debate about the smartness of them.

The "dumb" part is about it being a joke, as opposed to a serious contribution, argument or commentary. Not about the joke's quality as a joke. That is, even if you're Woody Allen, HN does not want you to write jokes in here -- and especially one liners without any other content.

[asveikau]

Is it wrong that I find your anti-joke stance somewhat humorous?

I sometimes find it strange how much this community values orthodoxy. People work really hard to appear to be totally conventional HN readers. To share the same mannerisms, attitudes and opinions of the idealized HN user. I guess that this includes denying humor does not totally surprise me. It seems to be a caricature of itself.

One reason I value humor in my own life is that it reminds everyone of the absurdity which we are all living. I can't escape that this makes an HN user wrapped up in a culture of orthodoxy a bit uncomfortable.

[mtdewcmu]

>> HN does not want you to write jokes in here -- and especially one liners without any other content.

But humor is insight, and brevity is the soul of wit. I saw it as commentary on the headline itself, which was ambiguous and vague. I thought it meant scientists had found an easter egg or the Enigma code hidden in DNA.

[coldtea]

>But humor is insight

Not really. Most of the time is just the mental analogue of fart jokes.

>and brevity is the soul of wit

No, that's just a cliche.

[mtdewcmu]

>Not really. Most of the time is just the mental analogue of fart jokes.

I didn't say all insights were equal. If this was just a fart joke, I wouldn't have thought it was funny. But you can't draw a line between insight and humor, can you?

>No, that's just a cliche.

It's a cliche because it's Shakespeare. That doesn't make it less true.