tzikeh:

bylillian:

dbundles42:

!!!!

That’s my buddy Mike. 

For those who need context, that’s Mike Godwin, who coined the first widespread “law” of the Internet (appropriately named Godwin’s Law). The law states, “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Hitler approaches 1.” It was meant to point out how poorly discussions on Usenet threads tended to fare after they’d been going for a while because eventually someone invoked Hitler or the Nazis. The discussions could be about any topic: computer code, or types of cheese, or a television show–it didn’t matter; eventually, someone would say that the people on the other side of the discussion, or the subject of the discussion, was “just like Hitler.” At that point, thanks to The burgeoning fame of Mike’s new law, people could point out how ridiculous the argument had become (e.g. no, George Lucas was not a Nazi just because he didn’t want people to write Star Wars slash fiction), and once that happened, the argument was over, and the party or parties who had brought up Hitler lost by default.

Godwin’s Law has been the definitive “last word” on Internet discussions since it was coined in 1990. But here is Mike Godwin himself, pointing out that we now live in a world where contemporary global sociopolitical discussion is exempt from his law.

I wish I could laugh.