Matt O’Brien makes a funny about BitCoin — and the faithful are furious.

But then, they do seem to be a humor-impaired bunch. I’ve been getting rage-filled missives about the title of my last post on the subject. Folks, there’s this concept you may not have heard about, called a “joke.”

And it’s not just BitCoin. When I think about the various debates I’ve been engaged in over the past five years, what’s striking is how furious and huffy the other side gets when people like me use picturesque language to get a point across — “confidence fairy”, “zombie idea”, and so on. As in other matters, this is not symmetric. I get called a lot of names, but so what? The argument’s the thing.

Or maybe not, for some people. As the old lawyer’s line says, if the facts are on your side, pound the facts; if the law is on your side, pound the law; if neither are on your side, pound the table. I’d add: and demand “civility.”

In other words, I think that when one side in a debate lacks all sense of humor, and gets deeply offended when the other side cracks a joke, it’s an indicator of intellectual insecurity.

Also, your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries.