30 in 30 III - Godwin's Noise Ordinance

[aggienaut]

   This entry is post-dated from Thursday, in preparation for my expected death on 06-18-06.

   So let's talk about Godwin's Law. For those of you who don't know, Godwin's Law is this: "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one" (that is to say, eventually every conversation will devolve into a mentioning of Hitler). Wikipedia goes on to further explain "This adage was formulated because many people compare anyone and anything they mildly dislike with Hitler. There is a tradition in many Usenet newsgroups that once such a comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever debate was in progress."
   Clearly this law sums up the general feeling of such references being totally played out; and this sentiment is reflected for example by the defrending of 2.7 (on avg) that occurs every time Oetimus posts.
   But seriously, I think sometimes nazi references are in need of the making. The lot of you tend to seem to think that there was somehow something particularly delusional about the Germans in the 1930s and it "couldn't happen to us," and I think its very important to keep in mind that there was NOT anything particularly different about those Germans, and such mistakes are the result of groupthink and "politically correct" thinking, which could easily happen to the rest of us. Anyway, I'll cease violating the law now.


   And then there's the Davis Apartheid page local demagog Rob Roy created on Daviswiki. While this may not violate Godwin's Law, I think comparing the lack of student representation in Davis city government to the former institutionalized racism of South Africa pretty badly violates the same principals of outrageous hyperbole. It may not violate Godwin's Law, but it violates at least Godwin's Noise Ordinance.


Kriswin's Law of Libel - (since "Godkris' Law" sounds kinda egomaniacal)
   Furthermore I'd like to declare a similar law of my own. In any contentious argument online, and especially if its about things related to "real" life, the odds that someone will incorrectly make claims of libel very quickly approach one. Seriously, I've seen more incorrect but "serious" claims of pending libel suits than I can count -- two times that come quickly to mind though: (1) the time the former ASUCD Elections Chairperson accused me of libel in a letter-to-the-editor, after I urged everyone to be wary of elections irregularities (her political death came soon after this of course); and (2) the time someone accused me of libel for implying Celeste Rose didn't deserve half a million dollars of student money (scroll down to the only indented comments to see the interchange). Most recently by Darth Laabs himself. I shall call this Kris's Fourth Law, though I don't recall the other three I coined (one was that anyone can and will find your lj I remember that)


Picture of the Day

Picture added Sunday, of Party on Saturday
It may not be what's actually happening, but to me in this picture it looks like Chris Bunch is being like "Sorry Forestkeet, I choose Olivia!"



Previously on Emosnail
   Two Years Ago Today: 30 in 30 I - 9 - Five By Five - Five New Television Series Ideas by 5pm - One of those things that went around and several of us thirty in thirtyers did it.. and so should you.
   Year Ago Today: 30 in 30 II - 21 - Blangst - "Anyway, so the rest of the participants of 30 in 30 are busy working on the catapulsion of the image of being a knife fighter, communism or megafascism, or perhaps kittens, how much they love their significant other, or diligently announcing every night that they JUST missed the deadline once again. That and making pop culture references, which appears to be the default thing to do if one doesn't have a better idea. Or maybe catapulsion of kittens, knife fighting communists and megafascist pop culture references.
   Either way my two tricks of talking about myself and talking about blogging are getting old. Though this journal has always been avowedly megaunderblog -- endeavoring to make the life of myself interesting and followable, 30 in 30 is about trying new things and challenging yourself to do something different. So I think I need to sit at a coffee shop for awhile and think up some blogging gold. I need to find my own jesus cthulhu.
   In the mean time though, I shunted actual ideas out the window today to just start typing and see what happened." -- [And actually it turned out to be a pretty good entry.]