segunda-feira, outubro 16, 2006

Lei de Godwin


Há pouco tempo descobri esta lei e achei que valia a pena partilhá-la convosco.
A transcrição é directa da Wikipedia. Desculpem, mas não estava para ter trabalho a traduzir. Gosto em particular do corolário, é qualquer coisa do género: “numa discussão, quem primeiro invocar Hitler ou os nazis, perde a discussão”.
Godwin's Law (also Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies) is a mainstay of Internet culture, an adage formulated by Mike Godwin in 1990. It is particularly concerned with logical fallacies such as reductio ad Hitlerum, wherein an idea is unduly dismissed or rejected on ground of it being associated with persons generally considered "evil".
The law states:

As an online discussion grows longer, the
probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one. [1]

Godwin's Law does not dispute whether, in a particular instance, a reference or comparison to Hitler or the Nazis might be apt. It is precisely because such a reference or comparison may sometimes be appropriate, Godwin argues in his book, Cyber Rights: Defending Free Speech in the Digital Age, that hyperbolic overuse of the Hitler/Nazi comparison should be avoided, as it robs the valid comparisons of their impact.
Although in one of its early forms Godwin's Law referred specifically to
Usenet newsgroup discussions[2], the law is now applied to any threaded online discussion: electronic mailing lists, message boards, chat rooms, and more recently blog comment threads and Wikipedia discussion pages.
Corollaries and usage
There is a tradition in many newsgroups and other Internet discussion forums that once such a comparison is made, the
thread is finished and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically "lost" whatever debate was in progress. This principle is itself frequently referred to as Godwin's Law. Thus Godwin's Law serves also to impose an upper bound on thread length in general.
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