Both "could care less" and "couldn't care less" mean the same thing

Don't you love English. The langauge where polar opposites "sucks" and "blows" can mean in the right context exactly the same thing.

Surely you're joking, right? I've never encountered those two phrases where they meant the same thing.

Couldn't care less - absolute zero care. Nothing can disappoint me whatever happen. Could care less - some degree of care is present. Thing can actually get worse

The missing ingredient, as with many teenage idioms, is sarcasm.

Only if you've been around people who say it a lot and have the cultural context.

The internet, and Hacker News, is not that place.

There are plenty of people on here who will read "could" and "couldn't" as the actual words they are rather than the phrase they're a part of.

yes, that is why i explained that

"Could care less" is an idiom, derived from a sarcastic acknowledgement that you haven't quite reached the theoretical minimum, absolute-0 of caring. "Well, I suppose I could care less..."