[extropy-chat] Re: Gandhi's antipode

[Patrick Wilken]

On 6 Oct 2004, at 16:03, Trend Ologist wrote:

> I mentioned Hitler & Stalin because their names are invoked so 
> much plus there is so much misinformation spread about them. Their 
> principle importance appears to have been to reduce the population in 
> Europe and spur the development of the atomic bomb. So they (as almost 
> everyone knows) had an extremely negative legacy, one that 
> continues more than 51 years after Stalin death.

As wikipedia states:

> Godwin's Law
>
> (Redirected from Goodwin's Law)
>
> Godwin's Law (also Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies) is an adage in 
> Internet culture that was originated by Mike Godwin in 1990. The law 
> states that:
>
> As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison 
> involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.
>
> There is a tradition in many Usenet newsgroups that once such a 
> comparison is made, the thread is over, and whoever mentioned the 
> Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress. In 
> addition, whoever points out that Godwin's Law applies to the thread 
> is considered to have lost the battle, as it is considered poor form 
> to invoke the law explicitly. Godwin's Law thus practically guarantees 
> the existence of an upper bound on thread length in those groups. Many 
> people understand Godwin's Law to mean this, although (as is clear 
> from the statement of the law above) this is not the original 
> formulation.
>
> Nevertheless, there is also a widely-recognized codicil that any 
> intentional invocation of Godwin's Law for its thread-ending effects 
> will be unsuccessful.