Is there a way to tell if any of these threads mention Hitler or Nazis without reading each post? If by chance none of these threads mention them, it's possible we have just disproved Godwin's Law.
Thread 157721 - 23,000 posts
Thread 186433 - 11,000 posts
Thread 149753 - 5,000 posts
The rest are less than 5k but all have at least 1,000.
Thread 158151
Thread 194565
Thread 187601
Thread 179032
Thread 197918
Naturally I mean Hitler/Nazi posts prior to the date of this OP, since someone will now mention Hitler in each thread to try to be funny.
Maybe this is another law in the making: whenever a thread is thought to have zero of something (zero dislikes, zero negative comments) someone will inevitably ruin that streak just to be a jerk.
Call it Vivify's Law
In a sense, you probably have disproved Godwin's Law:
"As an online discussion grows longer (regardless of topic or scope), the probability of a comparison to Nazis or Adolf Hitler approaches". Wiki.
I always assumed it was applied to threads about politics. It would seem that my assumption was wrong.
@vivify saidVivify's Law would never be as clear cut and objective as Godwin's Law.
whenever a thread is thought to have zero of something (zero dislikes, zero negative comments) someone will inevitably ruin that streak just to be a jerk.
Call it Vivify's Law
Words like "dislikes", "negative", "ruin" and "jerk" are fundamentally subjective, whereas "mentioning Hitler or Nazis" creates an objective empirical data point that that exists regardless of personal opinion.
Yes, Godwin's Law is an "adage" rather than a "law". It's a humorous observation wrapped up in an exaggeration. Nevertheless, I was slightly taken aback to find I had misunderstood what it actually means all these years, I always thought "Godwin's Law meant that the first interlocutor to compare the other interlocuter to a Nazi or Hitler had lost the argument by default because of "Godwin's Law". But I was wrong.
