Comedy and laughter are remarkably tricky to explain. As evidence of this, I'll point to the fact that there are more than 13 different theories of humor (each described at the bottom of this post). If you examine them, I think you’ll agree that while each captures relevant aspects of humor, none satisfactorily describes humor in all its forms.
Part of what makes comedy so hard to describe is that it has such variety. While the boundaries between different types of humor are fuzzy, I think y...
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taboos
Boiling the conversation
My new favorite conversational technique that I'd like to get better at, which I call "Boiling the Conversation": Slowly and imperceptibly raise the unusualness or bizarreness level of the conversation so that you end up talking about something fascinating, fun, taboo, or deeply personal that people would almost never normally discuss (and that normally would be quite weird to just bring up), but without any jarring conversational transitions ever occurring!
You know you've done it well if e...
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