In 1990, Mike Godwin, a frequent Usenet user and net-loving guy, made the following humorous observation: “As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1”. Since then, Godwin’s Law has been applied to all kinds of threaded online discussion (message boards, chat rooms, blog comment threads, Twitter, YouTube comments, etc.) and has proved itself millions of times over.It’s not hard to see why. Most comment threads eventually degenerate into arguments (why? Because people, that’s why). And the quickest way to “win” an argument is to discredit your opponent – and comparing them to racist ideologues who launched a war that nearly tore the world apart and did unspeakably horrible things to those groups they considered inferior is certainly one way to discredit them.
That’s why you’d want to do it, but here’s why it’s easy: Hitler was a really bad guy, and probably crazy to boot, but like everybody else, he had a lot more going on in his life than we tend to think. For example, he was a vegetarian, an artist, wrote a bestseller (Mein Kampf still sells well today, though of course, for different reasons), threw dinner parties, and so on. Does your opponent do any of that? Yes? I smell Nazi...
So yes, pulling out the Hitler card in a debate is usually not a great move. In fact, some groups hold to the tradition that the first participant to mention Hitler/Nazis automatically loses. But of course, some comparisons are apt (if someone’s talking about concentration camps and world domination, maybe they do have a bit of Nazi in them; and a Hitler moustache is a Hitler moustache, even if you just think it looks cool).
You don’t agree? Well, you’re just being argumentative. And you know who else liked to argue? You know, you do remind me of Hitler...
