I reapplied Godwin’s law to meatspace today at graduation. The principal was giving the same speech he did every year, with the obligatory bit about 9/11. It woke people up until they realized he was saying the exact same stuff, and then they went back to sleep. Does anyone agree with me that there is a preponderence of references to 9/11 in the shooting gallery (as opposed to arena) of public speech nowadays, and that it often signifies that whomever references it has nothing more to say?
Yes, I do. I think the whole thing is being trivalized by being inserted into every speech and public announcement. What happens is people unwittingly get tired of hearing about it. We shouldn’t, but that’s what is happening.
But then someone could argue that the topic deserves to be mentioned at every opportunity to keep the memory “alive”. This year’s graduating classes will always associate 9-11 with their senior years, so it may seem appropriate to broach this subject during the commencement address. Next year I doubt this will be the case.
ISTM that comparing people to bin Laden or organizaitons to al Qaeda is pretty close to Godwin’s Law.
Well, it’s a lazy writer/speaker’s tool to use “major issue of the day/month/year” so as to make it seem like their writing or speech is important.
“Meatspace”?
It’s a Gen-X thing. Use of the term “meatspace” is generally accompanied by Starbucks, a cell phone with earpiece, Palm Pilot, a laptop being used to write poetry, and a copy of Dianetics.
Is there an amendment to Godwins law, whereby someone invoking it during a debate which really is about Nazism, also loses ?
Godwin’s law only applies if the debate or whatever isn’t about Naziism and a poster draws comparisons with it, mostly out of the blue.
So, in a discussion of World War II, it would become incorrect to call Göring a Nazi? That seems silly.
Proposed addendum to Godwin’s Law
Anyone whose response to an argument (usually about the value of how people choose to spend their free time, but also in political and economic discussions) is “Think of all the help you could be giving to the starving children in Africa.” should automatically loose.
Close second; any mention of “Think of the children” or “working families” should also be discouraged.
Rhum Runner, who is not sure if this is a debate, or an IMHO.
Sidetrack, re: “nothing more to say”/“speech copout” –
I think there needs to be a similar law that any science presentation that ends with “maybe someday we will appreciate and understand how fragile and precious our natural environment is …” (gag) is immediately shown to be crap. I can think of a number of presentations that I’ve seen at the American Museum of Natural History that ended that way–for no apparent reason. One was an astronomy presentation about the immense scale of the universe. Another was about an expedition to those high plateaus in the clouds down in the Andes–where there are so few nutrients, such harsh climate, etc., that the local ecosystems have always been extremely marginal (i.e., they’re not being destroyed by pollution, global warming … it was always rough there).
Sorry. Little rant.
This proposed addendum to Godwin’s Law is reminisceient of when the Nazis tried to work out the little details in their purity laws.
(Not really)