Godwin's Law (was Stupid war babble (was Re: cctalk digest, Vol 1 #473 - 49 msgs))

On Sun, 2003-02-23 at 04:46, Doc Shipley wrote: Unfortunately, Godwin's law does not take effect if the "Hitler" clause is invoked for the express ending of the thread. Ref: The Jargon Dictionary Godwin's Law prov. [Usenet] "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." There is a tradition in many groups that, once this occurs, that thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress. Godwin's Law thus practically guarantees the existence of an upper bound on thread length in those groups. However there is also a widely- recognized codicil that any intentional triggering of Godwin's Law in order to invoke its thread-ending effects will be unsuccessful. -- Christopher L McNabb Operating Systems Analyst Email: cmcnabb(a)4mcnabb.net Virginia Tech ICBM: 37.1356N 80.4272N GMRS: WPSR255 ARS: N2UX Grid Sq: EM97SD