Bronze-level articleGodwin's Law

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Godwin’s Law was formulated by Mike Godwin in the 1990s and states:

As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.

Contents

[edit] How it works

Godwin’s Law does not dispute the validity or otherwise of references or comparison to Hitler or the Nazis. As such a comparison or reference may sometimes be appropriate in a discussion, Godwin has argued that overuse of the Nazi comparison should be avoided as it waters down the impact of any valid usage. In its purest sense, the rule has more to do with completely losing one's sense of proportion rather than just mentioning Nazis specifically.[1][2] The law was initiated as a counter-meme to flippant comparisons to the Nazis, rather than to invoke a complete ban on comparisons. As Mike Godwin wrote himself in 2008:[3]

When I saw the photographs from Abu Ghraib, for example, I understood instantly the connection between the humiliations inflicted there and the ones the Nazis imposed upon death camp inmates—but I am the one person in the world least able to draw attention to that valid comparison.

With the increase in the number of media for online discussion, Godwin's law is now applied to any online discussion - be they mailing lists, message boards, forums, chat rooms, blog comment threads, or wiki talk pages.

Traditionally in many Internet discussion forums, it is the rule that once such a comparison is made, the discussion is effectively finished and whoever mentioned Hitler or the Nazis has automatically lost the debate, though it is considered sort-of acceptable if one immediately says "Pardon me for invoking Godwin's Law." The blogosphere has only heightened the prevalence of Godwin's Law with Nazi references being dropped across the political spectrum such as the liberal DailyKos or right-wing religious strong holds such as Bill Donohue's Catholic League and intelligent design advocates like the Discovery Institute.

Compared to other known blog based laws, namely Poe's Law, Godwin's Law is quite well known in more mainstream areas.[4] Just to prove it, the law even has its own Wikipedia article.[5]. In 2012 it was added to the Oxford dictionary[6], which means that in 500 year's time it will be reviewed by completely mystified college arts majors.

[edit] Stormfront and other corollaries

A number of corollaries have been proposed since the introduction of Godwin's Law.

In a hilarious instance of cosmic symmetry, a similar law applies to neo-Nazi boards such as Stormfront: as the discussion grows longer, the probability of someone calling their opponent a Jew approaches one.

Another example of a corollary, and an early example, is called "Sircar's Corollary," which is: “If the Usenet discussion touches on homosexuality or Heinlein, Nazis or Hitler are mentioned within three days.”'[7]

Another corollary was proposed by Buddy Larson in the comments to a post about Kristallnacht, on the "Volokh Conspiracy" blog, in November 2010:[8]

“As an online discussion of an original post concerning Nazis or Hitler grows, the probability of observing a laboured and unwarranted retreat or appeal to Godwin's Law (of laboured, unwarranted retreat to Nazi or Hitler references) approaches one.”

A corollary for Feminists is:

"As an online discussion about sexism continues, the probability of a woman who speaks out being called a feminazi approaches 1."[9]

[edit] Other Versions

A number of different Internet laws have been proposed which basically mirror Godwin, but are not corollaries to it.

Arken's Law is an internet law that states:

A discussion is over when present society is compared to George Orwell's Oceania in the book 1984.[10]

The exact history of the law is debatable[11], but it is claimed that Arken's Law has its roots in the days of HTML 1.0 and earlier (such as Usenet). Any accusations of Big Brotherism, utilizing newspeak, practicing doublethink, thought policing, sending updates down the memory hole or belonging to the Anti-Sex League would all be invocations of Arken's Law.

Another version is Moff's Law. The shorter, Godwin inspired version is As comments continue in a feminist [social justice] discussion of pop culture, the probability of someone saying "why do you have to analyze it? it's just a movie/cartoon/book!" approaches 1.

Gore's Law states, as coined by Laanta in March 2008: As an online climate change debate grows longer, the probability that denier arguments will descend into attacks on Al Gore approaches one.[12] The main article has more information

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] Footnotes

Articles on RationalWiki about Eponymous laws
  Danth's Law  -  Feminist internet laws  -  Gore's Law  -  Haggard's Law  -  Haig's Law  -  Internet law  -  List of Poe's Law examples  -  Loi de Poe  -  Murphy's Law  -  Poe's Law  -  Rove's Law  -  Whale.to  
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