Saturday, October 24, 2009

Godwin's law of Nazi analogies

I recently came across a law that we can all believe in: Godwin's Law of Nazi Analogies.

It states that "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."

Also,

"Godwin's Law applies especially to inappropriate, inordinate, or hyperbolic comparisons of other situations (or one's opponent) with Hitler or Nazis or their actions."

Now, Godwin's law applies to the amount of people talking on-line, but we could think of variations of it, such as the distance between conversationalists on the political spectrum.

We could develop it further, but I don't want to be an analogy Nazi.

2 comments:

Knumb said...

Can be used as a verb:

"Man, I got Godwinned on the club boards just because I censored someone's post."

Anonymous said...

Another one worth mentioning

Poe's Law

http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Poe%27s_Law