Ah yeah they should’ve just done the American thing instead and bulldozed the whole strip of town to put in a 20 lane wide interstate with a Bucees and Walmart/s
What people call „Rhine“ is a heavily straightened and channelized artificial water road.
Especially in the 19th century they cut off many loops and bends to make it more accessible for ships, to make the land useable and to get rid of flooding (narrator: „it didn’t work“):
I think this is my first time seeing the “/s” on lemmy. And I really hope it doesn’t follow users here. We fully understood the sarcasm without it. It was honestly so much more a statement with ironic wording than it was even sarcasm.
I feel like we’re better than this. We can’t complain about Hollywood and advertising dumbing everything down to the level they think we need and then turn around and spoon feed each other the most basic forms of speech.
You might be able to easily spot sarcasm, but not everyone is blessed with that ability. Many autistic people, for instance, struggle to detect sarcasm. And comments being text only makes it harder. "/s" is an accessibility tool and implying that using these tools is "dumbing down" communication is honestly a very shitty move.
Beyond autism, that /s has become all the more necessary these days in the wake of this huge wave of anti-intellectualism. Outside of private circles, it's so hard now to tell the difference between absurd sarcasm and the genuinely ignorant takes some people proudly share, there's too much of an overlap between the two lol
Autistic person here, yeah I can’t read tone for shit through text sometimes, and especially online you never can tell if and when someone’s being serious.
I fully get and embrace inclusivity/accessibility but it's starting to get to the point where people genuinely get super angry if they don't get a joke or something and somehow that's everyone elses fault. Like, it's ok if you didn't pick up on a joke. It's not the end of the world. Every joke isn't gonna be a reference or tone that you pick up on right away. Just delete your reactionary comment if it was cringy and learn from it. It's not that big of a deal. I don't know why people act like it is. It's mildly embarrassing at most if you miss sarcasm and it's pointed out to you later. Your comments aren't critically important. Just wait for context or ask for it before popping off it's not that deep lol
It's sometimes impossible to detect sarcasm from just text, that's why Poe's law exists. You may be good at understanding sarcasm and satire, but some people aren't and putting /s is making sure that everyone understands instead of just you.
I feel you on the dumbing down part though, but I think sarcastic comments are not a form of media that must be left only to be enjoyed by the people who are "better than this".
I mean... They don't have to be left to anyone. Is it really that hard to ask for or wait for more context before popping off? If I misunderstand sarcasm I just say oh oops I misunderstood my bad and move on with my day. It's such a non-issue.