Jump to content

Godwin's law

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Schneelocke (talk | contribs) at 01:13, 19 November 2004 (Reverted edits by Xsharksx to last version by 141.157.52.131). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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 also 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.

Godwin's Law is named after Mike Godwin, who was legal counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation in the early 1990s, when the law was first popularized. Richard Sexton maintains that the law is a formalization of his October 16, 1989 post

You can tell when a USENET discussion is getting old when one of the participents (sic) drags out Hitler and the Nazis.

Strictly speaking, however, this is not so, since the actual text of Godwin's Law does not state that such a reference or comparison makes a discussion "old," or, for that matter, that such a reference or comparison means that a discussion is over.

Finding the meme of Nazi comparisons on Usenet illogical and offensive, Godwin established the law as a counter-meme. The law's memetic function is not to end discussions (or even to classify them as "old"), but to make participants in a discussion more aware of whether a comparison to Nazis or Hitler is appropriate, or is simply a rhetorical overreach.

Many people have extended Godwin's Law to imply that the invoking of the Nazis as a debating tactic (in any argument not directly related to World War II or the Holocaust) automatically loses the argument, simply because the nature of these events is such that any comparison to any event less serious than genocide or extinction is invalid and in poor taste.

Various addenda to Godwin's Law have been proposed by Internet users, though the original reference to Nazis remains the most popular. Addenda to the law include:

Gordon's Restatement of Newman's Corollary to Godwin's Law
Libertarianism (pro, con, and internal faction fights) is the primordial net.news discussion topic. Any time the debate shifts somewhere else, it must eventually return to this fuel source.
Morgan's Corollary to Godwin's Law
As soon as such a comparison occurs, someone will start a Nazi-discussion thread on alt.censorship.
Sircar's Corollary
If the Usenet discussion touches on homosexuality or Heinlein, Nazis or Hitler are mentioned within three days.
Case's Corollary
If the subject is Heinlein or homosexuality, the probability of a Hitler/Nazi comparison being made becomes equal to one.
Van der Leun's Corollary
As global connectivity improves, the probability of actual Nazis being on the Net approaches one.
Miller's Paradox
As a network evolves, the number of Nazi comparisons not forestalled by citation to Godwin's Law converges to zero.
Enki's Corollary
As an online discussion involving law grows, the probability of someone making a comparison involving the McDonald's coffee lawsuit approaches one.
Helmut's Corollary
As an online dicussion about the existence or nonexistence of God grows, the probability of someone mentioning a pink unicorn approaches one.
NialScorva's Law
Given enough time, all legal battles in the tech industry will invoke the DMCA.
Freiler's Maxim
Those that incorrectly invoke Godwin as proof that they have won the debate have in fact run out of relevant points to make, and have, by invoking Godwin, admitted defeat.
Cawley's Corollary
Given enough time, any thread on perl6-language will end up arguing the toss about Unicode operators.
Quiggin's subclause
In an Australian policy debate, whenever anyone refers to North Korea (or Cuba) as the exemplar of a policy which was in fact in force under Robert Menzies, they shall be deemed to have lost the debate automatically.
Sparc's Corollary
When the topic involves future developments, and as the discussion grows longer, the probability of a comment being made about how one's computer still not being able to vacuum one's house approaches one. After which the discussion probably ends in the posting of links to pictures of vacuum cleaners.
James' Corollary
As an online discussion about same-sex marriage grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Britney Spears' marriage approaches one.
Meldrum's Corollary
As a drawn-out online argument grows longer, the probability of someone picking up on typos or punctuation errors in order to score points approaches one.
Gaudere's Law
Any post made to point out a spelling or grammar error will invariably contain a spelling or grammar error. (This law originated in October, 2000 on the Straight Dope Message Board, and was proposed on behalf of Gaudere, a moderator and administrator there. Here is the thread in which it was officially named.) Like Godwin's Law, it has a previous claimant: in a 1990 Usenet posting, Andrew Bell claimed the concept as Bell's First Law of Usenet.
Koenig's Theory
No matter what the original subject of the conversation and regardless of what movie is being discussed, the probability of any and every thread on the IMDb message boards that becomes an ongoing discussion becoming an argument about America (pros, cons, etc.) reaches one.
de Mello Corollary
When the topic involves the corruption of conservative members of government the probability of Clinton being mentioned approaches 1.
First Axiom of Internet Discussion
The likelihood of a comparison between the intelligence of a proposition's defenders and that of its attackers is directly proportional to the length of the discussion, and approaches 1 as the number of posts approaches infinity.
Second Axiom of Internet Discussion
The likelihood of a derogatory reference to the sexuality of one's opponent is directly proportional to the length of a discussion, inversely proportional to the intelligence of the originator, and approaches 1 as the number of posts approaches infinity.
Third Axiom of Internet Discussion
As the length of a discussion grows, the likelihood one of the participants will tell the others that they need to "get a life" approaches 1.
Corollary to the Third Axiom
The person who first makes such a statement is generally the one who has taken the time to read - but not respond to - the entire previous discussion.

One common objection to Godwin's Law is that sometimes using Hitler or the Nazis is a perfectly apt way of making a point. For instance, if one is debating the relative merits of a particular leader, and someone says something like, "He's a good leader, look at the way he's improved the economy", one could reply, "Just because he improved the economy doesn't make him a good leader. Even Hitler improved the economy." Some would view this as a perfectly acceptable comparison. One uses Hitler because he is a universally known leader and the example requires no explanation. Pretty much everyone would know exactly what you were talking about in the above example.

Some would argue, however, that Godwin's Law applies even to the situation mentioned above, as it portrays an inevitable appeal to emotions as well as holding an implied ad hominem attack on the subject being compared to, which are classic logical fallacies. Hitler, on a semiotic level, has far too many negative connotations associated with him to be used as a good comparison to anything except for other despotic dictators. Thus, Godwin's Law holds even in making comparisons to normal leaders that, on the surface, would seem to be a reasonable comparison.

Godwin's standard answer to this objection is to note that Godwin's Law does not dispute whether, in a particular instance, a reference or comparison to Hitler or the Nazis might be apt. It is precisely because such a reference or comparison may sometimes be appropriate, Godwin has argued, that hyperbolic overuse of the Hitler/Nazi comparison should be avoided. Avoiding such hyperbole, he argues, is a way of ensuring that when valid comparisons to Hitler or Nazis are made, such comparisons have the appropriate semantic impact.

Note that when discussing with actual neo-Nazis, Godwin's Law should not typically apply, as Hitler is bound to come up on one or the other side of the argument sooner rather than later. It is also interesting that, among Nazis, a "reverse Godwin's Law" exists where, as an argument devolves into a flame war, there is an increasingly greater probability that one or the other side will invoke a comparison to Jews as an insult, much the same as a comparison to Hitler or Nazis is regularly an insulting one.

See also

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Godwin%27s_law&oldid=7644177"