May 05, 2008

Online law

It's eighteen year's since Mike Godwin formulated Godwin's Law:-
I can't say I anticipated that Godwin's Law, which states that, "As an online discussion continues, the probability of a reference or comparison to Hitler or to Nazis approaches 1," would last this long or that it would propagate into popular culture to the extent that it has. But I'm mostly gratified that it has done so. Although deliberately framed as if it were a law of nature or of mathematics, its purpose has always been rhetorical and pedagogical: I wanted folks who glibly compared someone else to Hitler or to Nazis to think a bit harder about the Holocaust.
[Via Britblog]