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Time to defend ourselves... farming is under attack.
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martin
Posted 10/24/2009 09:00 (#897642 - in reply to #896588)
Subject: Re: Godwin's Law


Never heard of Godwin's Law, so I had to find out......

 

 

Godwin's Law (also known as Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies)[1] is a humorous observation made by Mike Godwin in 1990 which has become an Internet adage. It states: "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."[2][3] The term Godwin's law can also refer to the tradition that whoever makes such a comparison is said to "lose" the debate.

Godwin's Law is often cited in online discussions as a deterrent against the use of arguments in the widespread reductio ad Hitlerum form. The rule does not make any statement about whether any particular reference or comparison to Adolf Hitler or the Nazis might be appropriate, but only asserts that the likelihood of such a reference or comparison arising increases as the discussion progresses. It is precisely because such a comparison or reference may sometimes be appropriate, Godwin has argued,[4] that overuse of Nazi and Hitler comparisons should be avoided, because it robs the valid comparisons of their impact.

Although in one of its early forms Godwin's Law referred specifically to Usenet newsgroup discussions,[5] the law is now applied to any threaded online discussion: electronic mailing lists, message boards, chat rooms, and more recently blog comment threads, wiki talk pages, and Twitter.

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