omeganihl

So eloquent.

Then you'd better start loving me somewhere else on the internet.

Sorry about abandoning you on AIM.
Please don't divorce me.

I fucking hate bailing shitty ex lovers out of jail. Especially when it means a two hour drive each way.

Also, we should set up a play date soon. I'll get a sandbox and a slip-n-slide. It'll be a blast.

Pick one of these for me will ya?

Ben smeared dead buffalo all over my kitchen.
Seriously.
... No. I don't think you understand. I really am serious.

In other news...

I think I should do an SG shoot using only disposable table items.
You agree?


[Edited on Mar 13, 2005 10:23PM]

You suck.

Godwin's Law FAQ
-or-
"How to post about Nazis and get away with it"

One of the most famous pieces of Usenet trivia out there is "if you mention
Hitler or Nazis in a post, you've automatically ended whatever discussion
you were taking part in". Known as Godwin's Law, this rule of Usenet has a
long and sordid history on the network - and is absolutely wrong. This FAQ
is an attempt to set straight as much of the history and meaning of Godwin's
Law as possible, and hopefully encourage users to invoke it a bit more
sparingly. Of course, knowing Usenet, it won't do an ounce of good...


[Standard Disclaimers: this document assumes you have some basic knowledge
of Usenet; if you don't, go check out news.announce.newusers for a while to
gain said knowledge. Misuse of the information contained within this FAQ
is not the responsibility of the author (though he's pretty confused exactly
how you could misuse this information). Copyright 1999-2002, Tim Skirvin,
all rights reserved, <FISH><, fnord, furrfu.]


I. The Basics
1. What is Godwin's Law?

Godwin's Law is a natural law of Usenet named after Mike Godwin
(godwin@eff.org) concerning Usenet "discussions". It reads, according to
the Jargon File:

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


2. What does it mean?

It pretty much means exactly what it says - as a Usenet thread
goes on, the chances of somebody or something being compared to a Nazi
approach one.


3. Yes, but what does it *mean*?

Aah, now *there's* the real question.

In case your head has been buried in the sand for the last sixty
years or so, the Nazis were a German political party lead by Adolf Hitler
that slaughtered upwards of ten million people that didn't meet their
standards of "ethnic purity" and set off to conquer Europe and the world
in World War II. They are generally considered the most evil group of
people to live in modern times, and to compare something or someone to
them is usually considered the gravest insult imaginable.

As a Usenet discussion gets longer it tends to get more heated; as
more heat enters the discussion, tensions get higher and people start to
insult each other over anything they can think of. Godwin's Law merely
notes that, eventually, those tensions eventually cause someone to find
the worst insults that come to mind - which will almost always include a
Nazi comparison.


4. That still doesn't answer my question. What does it *MEAN*?

The Law is generally used on Usenet as an indicator of whether a
thread has gone on too long, who's playing fair and who's just slinging
mud, and who finally gets to "win" the discussion. It has, over time,
become the closest thing to an impartial moderator that Usenet can get.

So, what this means in practical terms:

o If someone brings up Nazis in general conversation when it
wasn't necessary or germane without it necessarily being an
insult, it's probably about time for the thread to end.
o If someone brings up Nazis in general conversation when it
was vaguely related but is basically being used as an insult,
the speaker can be considered to be flaming and not debating.
o If someone brings up Nazis in any conversation that has been
going on too long for one of the parties, it can be used as
a fair excuse to end the thread and declare victory for the
other side.


5. So - *WHAT DOES IT MEAN*?

Fine, fine - it means that somebody's eventually going to say
something about the Nazis in any thread that lasts very long. When it
happens, the thread is going to start either degenerating into a long
flamewar over Nazi Germany or about Godwin's Law. Either way, the thread
is effectively over, and you can safely killfile the thread and move on.


II. What does it mean?
1. Didn't we already spend the last section talking about this?

Well, yeah, but people don't seem to get the point...


2. What happens if we're actually talking about Nazis?

Then you've already invoked Godwin's Law, and the chances are that
your thread isn't going to last all that much longer as a sane discussion.
Them's the breaks.

That isn't to say, of course, that you can't talk about Nazis and
such on Usenet - this *is* Usenet, after all, where virtually every
conversation that goes on is fairly ludicrous in the first place. It's
just going to take you a lot more effort to find real information out of
there and to avoid getting yourself off on side-threads - which you'll
eventually do regardless, but you can try to put it off.

This also applies if a thread mutates into an actual discussion of
Nazis, of course.


3. What about arguing with Neo-Nazis?

Arguing with Neo-Nazis is probably the quickest path to getting
Nazi invocations, because, well, they're actually accurate. Still, trying
to invoke Godwin's Law near a Neo-Nazi isn't really a good idea because
it's not terribly original and they'll probably get off on it anyway.
Just ignore them and occasionally publish a FAQ detailing what actually
happened during the Holocaust and such; arguing probably isn't going to
help you.


4. How can I use Godwin's Law to my advantage?

In the proper kind of flamewar, Godwin's Law can be used as a
gambit - how can you force your opponent to invoke the Law? Actually
teaching these skills is tough, of course, and is best done through
experience. Experience with chess and alt.flame are recommended.


5. What should I do if somebody else invokes Godwin's Law?

The obvious response is to call them on it, say "thread's over",
and declare victory. This is also one of the stupidest possible responses,
because it involves believing far too much in the power of a few rules that
don't say exactly what you wish they said anyway. The proper response to
an invocation is probably to simply followup with a message saying "Oh.
I'm a Nazi? Sure. Bye" and leave, and in most cases even that much of a
post is unnecessary.


6. "Hitler!" Ha! The thread is over!

Nope, doesn't work that way. Not only is it wrong to say that a
thread is over when Godwin's Law is invoked anyway (Usenet threads
virtually always outlive their usefulness), but long ago a corollary to
the Law was proposed and accepted by Taki "Quirk" Kogama (quirk@swcp.com):

Quirk's Exception: Intentional invocation of this so-called
"Nazi Clause" is ineffectual.

Sorry, folks. Nice try, though.


7. Does Godwin's Law apply in the real world?

Actually, yeah, but usually discussions in Real Life end by
somebody wandering off in disgust before it can be invoked.


8. Are there any topics that lead directly to Godwin Invocations?

Well, yeah. Of course. Case's Corollary to the Law states "if
the subject is Heinlein or homosexuality, the probability of a Hitler/Nazi
comparison being made becomes equal to one" - but that's just an old list.
Abortion and gun control debates always lead to Nazi comparisons; talk
with a Libertarian for more than a few hours and he'll almost certainly
bring up Nazis; book-burning is pretty much considered a sub-topic of
Nazism at this point. Hell, talk about anything politically related and
you'll eventually get there.

If you're really bored, a fun game to play is Six Degrees of Godwin.
Take a topic - any topic - and see how quickly you can relate it to Nazis
using legitimate topic drift methods. For example: a discussion about
computers will eventually lead to discussions of keyboards and which are
best, followed by a lot of complaining about the Windows key on 104-key
keyboards, leading to complaints about Microsoft, forcing the standard
MS-vs-government flamewar that I'm sure you're all aware of, leading to
attacks on Microsoft's "fascist" tactics by one side or another, which
will force the other side to start talking about the differences between
fascism, capitalism, and, of course, Nazism! The fun never stops!