Two States (as in conditions)

David Letterman does a Top Ten list that always seems to be funny. As a professional humorist, I’m interested in what I guess you could call joke architecture. There is something about the form, or architecture, of the top ten list that makes it easy to be funny. I’m always trying to spot other setups that have that same quality. I think I found another, but you have to help me test it.

A commenter on this blog, Spike, described how his wife always accuses him of going nuts if he simply states an opinion. Then he said, “I believe in her mind I have one of two states: 1) utter silence, 2) flipping out.”

I laughed out loud when I read it. It’s funny because “two states” is a natural joke form, like the top ten list. Humor is often about reducing things to their illogical least common denominator, and the two states forces you to do that.

For example, I know a few people who switch exclusively between two states:

1. Talking
2. Too busy to listen

Pick any person, or any situation, or any group, you don’t like, and see how easy it is to be funny with the “two states” setup.

Go.

Comments

[Dude]

An old friend who taught motor-cycle safety used to say:

There are two kinds of motorcycle riders -
1) Those who have dropped the bike.
2) Those who will drop the bike.

Sobering, yet strangely funny. Then there are the mutually exlusive biker states too:

(1) There are Old Bikers.
(2) There are Bold bikers.

- There are no Old, Bold, Bikers.

Sage wisdom indeed ;)

[Ted Bloink]

There are two numbers between 1 and 2:

1) 1.

2) 2.

[Rick in China]

There are 2 kinds of guys in this world:

1. Guys who cheat
2. Guys who suck at picking up women

[Bill]

Lute players spend all their time either:
1> Tuning their instrument.
2> Playing out of tune.

[Kelli]

Some people believe there are two types of opinion:

1) Theirs
2) The wrong one

[Brian Kaufman]

That is really funny Scott!

People always say some variation on this: "Something we are talking about" is going to be either really "strong positive adjective" or really "strong negative adjective."

Not really what you are talking about but related. Bugs me every time.

[fern]

my high school students are either

1. making phenomenally poor decisions
2. asleep

[Mithila]

This one doesn't exactly fit the bill but is geeky funny and is an old one:
"There are 10 types of people in the world - those who understand binary and those who don't"

[Anarchy In Your Head]

There are two kinds of guys-
1) Guys who masturbate
2) Guys who won't admit that they masturbate.

[Spike]

Well,I was pleasantly shocked upon reading that my first and only entry (until this one) made the Dilbert-master himself LOL! Thank you Scott, it is an honor. You've made me laugh many times (I'm a veteran of the cubicle farm wars), so it's inspiring to know I could return the favor.

Now, on topic: I've always wondered whenever I hear a news story about some whistleblower that gets fired. The company line is always the same: 'he/she was a disgruntled employee'.
So employees are in one of two states:
1. Gruntled...and employed
2. Disgruntled and an 'ex' employee' who 'worked here for a time' but was 'a poor performer'.

LOL, Spike

[Val]

After reading these comments, two kinds of people:

1) Those who can perceive the difference between "two kinds of people" and two states in the *same* person, and

2) Those commenters utterly lacking in and devoid of that perception.

I find the two-states jokes funnier overall; they sometimes make more pointed jabs at human nature. (Or subhuman nature.)

And yeah, I added another "two kinds" comment to what was a blog about two states. It needed to be said.

[Val]

After reading these comments, two kinds of people:

1) Those who can perceive the difference between "two kinds of people" and two states in the *same* person, and

2) Those commenters utterly lacking in and devoid of that perception.

I find the two-states jokes funnier overall; they sometimes make more pointed jabs at human nature. (Or subhuman nature.)

And yeah, I added another "two kinds" comment to what was a blog about two states. It needed to be said.

[fatmantheinvincible]

a well-explored, but not overtly stated, variation is :

1) an extreme position.
2) the same extreme position, taken to even more ridiculous lengths.

example:
My roommate's cat is either:
1) trying to destroy every plant in the apartment.
2) trying to destroy the rest of the universe.

or - Politicians are either:
1) lying
2) lying under oath while connected to a polygraph, after taking sodium pentothol, while wrapped in Wonder Woman's golden lasso.

[jai]

There are only two possible belief systems: scientific atheism and superstition.

But this is not a joke.

[Professor Nobuhito Nakamura]

Did you know that I actually invented this joke?

There are only ten kinds of people in this world:

1. Those who understand binary.
2. Those who do not understand binary.

The patent number is: 5110316

I shall be contacting all such posters with my bill for royalties in due course. Or at least with a bill fining them for painful unoriginality in their evidently meagre humour abilities.

[Mikki]

My favorite one is this: "There are two kinds of people in the world, those that divide the world into two kinds of people, and those who don't."

[Keyser Soze]

The heat in my apartment has two settings, "off" and "supernova"

[Sruthi]

I have only two states,
(a) pretending to listen
(b) not paying any attention

Why do men always say they can never understand women?

[Mike]

My favorite form of humor is similar in that the listener is sucked in to anticipate a binary contradiction and is instead delivered a "boot to the head" equivalence. Again it seems the juxtaposition of outrageous incongruity is the key.
Classic example: What's the difference between a catfish and a lawyer? (One is a cold blooded, scum-sucking bottom feeder and the other is a fish.)

[rpr9999]

The binary code above is broken into numbers that signify locations in the ASCII chart. The message is:

nice@one@Bob@rA

[James]

A fundamental truth:
1. The engineer is always right.
2. Even if the engineer is wrong, the above still applies.

[Popeman]

My wife has two states:
1. Nebraska
2. South Dakota

[Nirav]

I only drink on 2 occassions,
(1) When its raining
(2) When its not

Hic!!!

[Thuktun]

Scott Adams' blog posts typically are in one of two categories:

(1) Baiting his readers into responding en mass.
(2) Theorizing about things that most people don't think about.

[Bryan]

My wife IS this way - I refer to it as binary.

Her internal thermostat is binary - she is either way too hot (which might occur at any temp above 65) or way too cold (could happen at any temp less than 75). Either way, the house or auto temperature control is spun to the stops (like that helps get her comfortable faster).

Her driving style is binary - either brake or gas pedal is pushed to the floor (and she wonders why our autos always break down while she is driving).

I could go on.