Godwin's law

It was just all funny.

And it's appropriate that Hitler comes up because I was thinking of Godwin's Law, one of my favorite.

There's some good, you know, like proverbs out there.

But Godwin's Law is something that's been around for like 35 years.

And some guy, an author, Mike Godwin, said that an online discussion the longer a debate or a discussion goes online, the greater the probability that somebody will make a reference to Hitler or the Nazis.

It's just a matter of time, the longer any topic is debated on the internet, eventually it will get to that point.

Because that game, even though the 49ers are 6-0, it ended with such a sour note.

And everyone is talking about, did Kyle throw the ball too much? I addressed it play-by-play directly the other day, but it's a discussion that's continued, and I think it's interesting.

Can I go? I don't know how many people here...

are aware of the phenomenon of Godwin's Law, which in early, that you're so young, the audience, in the early internet culture, there's the thing called Godwin's Law, which is if you started a talk board or an online thread, a man called Godwin, I think it was Australian, actually.

Within 25 comments, somebody will mention the Nazis.

Heather is a human manifestation of Godwin's law.

But I would like to say, I predate that.

I've been talking about the Nazis since before people were online.

And it's interesting because You hear about the new religion of a lot of people, especially neoconservatives, is World War II.

There's always that Godwin's Law where you're comparing some dictator to Hitler, or these people are like the Nazis, and this genocide.

It seems like everything in our world is revolved around that particular war from 80-plus years ago.

So since then, America became this global superpower and eventually became the world police.

Look, the second one is just hard to avoid sometimes in Australian football.

It's like Godwin's Law.

Our version is any discussion about Australian football ultimately ends up with talking about promotion and relegation, which is so exhausting and tiring and a little bit boring because literally everyone would like that to happen.

You won't find a single person who's against the principles of promotion and relegation.

The fact that the Saudi Pro League is still ongoing and even al-Nasr's game this morning still played despite missiles being fired in and around the place – I was going to say bodes well.

Obviously, it doesn't bode well, but, like, if it was that bad, I guess those games wouldn't be played.

But then again, I do have some Saudi mates who I saw on Instagram this morning that they're posting stories that are, like, you know, the kind of generic – meme is the wrong word but the the template that you know i think i think the the words were against the saudi flag and it was like may god protect our country sort of thing and it's like when those sort of things are being like spread around your populace that's also generally not a good sign

No, it's not.

In the gray shirt in the back or blue? yeah you turning around yet

Someone actually just said to me yesterday that he wants to coin something that would be the equivalent of Godwin's Law.

For those who know Godwin's Law, it's like if you're at an argument online, whoever brings up Hitler loses the argument.

It's over at that point.

He was like, we need something like that for Steve Jobs.

Mais on a, euh, de toute façon, effectivement, toujours tout quelque chose à cacher.

Euh, on va passer tout de suite au point Godwin parce qu'il en faut un toujours dans une présentation.

Euh, alors comment le dire ? Disons que voilà, jusqu'en 1940, en France, il y avait des gens qui avaient rien à cacher.

Et puis à partir de 1940, ils ont eu à cacher leur religion.

Bon voilà, point Godwin, c'est fait.

Mais tout ça pour dire que ce qui est socialement acceptable, ça varie aussi dans l'histoire, que c'est des questions de rapport de force.

Et ce que ce que vous n'avez pas à cacher aujourd'hui, peut-être qu'un jour, vous aurez à le cacher.

We'll come to this crazy business.

I saw a tweet here, I was doing research, that someone calls you the shampoo Nazi, which I think, you know, whatever happened to Godwin's Law, where the first person to throw out the Nazi is the loser of a debate? That seems to have gone by the boards, at least for you and other people I can think of.

But I know you were at the University of Chicago Law School, clerked at the appellate level, would have an undergraduate degree in history from Indiana.

So maybe walk me through a little bit.

master, though.

Well, as far as how I got to be shampoo, just for the record, I have no interest or appreciation for national socialism.

So the Nazi part is merely a Godwin's law thing, obviously.

Well, let's slow down a little

A bunch of stuffy old dudes have gotten really, really mad about this stuff in the last 30 years or so, and have spent a lot of time declaring that, in fact, they're not really mad, it's the other guys who were mad.

And of course, at one point, one side took pains to point out the other side's roots and Nazi-influenced ideas about how cultures and history work, proving that even academics aren't immune to Godwin's Law.

It's an arcane and, frankly, a stupid, hyperbolic debate filled with personal insults and decades-long feuds between some genuinely unpleasant people.

Trust me, I've met them, and I saw one of the major players in this debate make a graduate student giving a paper at a conference cry just for funsies.