Godwin's Law and Common Reference Points

[Tim May]

At 3:39 PM +0100 3/1/01, Tom wrote:
>Ken Brown wrote:
>>  > I don't think Godwin would agree.  Godwin's Law is a natural law of Usenet
>>  > named after Mike Godwin ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) concerning Usenet "discussions".
>>  > It reads, according to the Jargon File: As a Usenet discussion 
>>grows longer,
>>  > the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.
>>
>>  Of course, as any text grows longer the probability that it contains any
>>  other text approaches one... just more or less slowly.  Godwin's law
>>  needs some quantification.
>
>don't think so. it's a good observation, and most likely better than
>yours unless we talk about infinities. there are libraries full of books
>where neither nazis or hitler are even mentioned. yet usenet debates DO
>converge on those topics with surprising pace. most likely a
>psychological thing - the search for a recent, extreme and well-known
>example or counter-example to your point. in the middle ages, one
>would've used witchcraft and satan instead.

A very good point. Nazis and Hitler are one of the "benchmarks" for 
evil that most of us agree upon, regardless of our various political 
beliefs. (Not counting a small segment which supports Hitler and 
Nazism.)

Thus, it's a "Schelling point" for people to compare things to, a 
common reference point that all participants are likely to have 
knowledge of. Hence the wide use of comparisons to Hitler and the 
Nazis, hence Godwin's Law. Tom is right that in earlier centuries the 
comparisons would have been to Satan and witches and suchlike.

Another such Schelling point is Big Brother, and the general language 
of George Orwell in "1984" (a novel which has given us _so many_ rich 
and illustrative additions to the English language, including, off 
the top of my head: Big Brother, thoughtcrime, war is peace, freedom 
is slavery, proles, we have always been at war with Oceania, Ministry 
of Truth, ignorance is strength, doublethink, doubleplusungood, 
Brin-style surveillance cameras in homes and flats, and several other 
rich images).

Other common reference points are references to Christ, Genghis Khan, 
Alexander the Great, the Roman Empire, and so on. And World War II in 
general.

We refer to images out of history and religion as part of our common 
heritage of ideas and beliefs.

(By the way, without _defending_ World War II in any way, it was 
_such_ a watershed period, such a seminal event, that one can only 
look back in awe at what happened. The development of technology 
(radar, manufacturing methods, jet aircraft, computers, the atom 
bomb, etc.), the realignment of the political map, the whole division 
between pre-war and post-war systems. It was the defining political, 
economic, military, and historical event of the past century, 
probably the past two centuries. All things stand in the shadow of 
the Second World War.)

I believe there are many valid ways to refer to the Nazis and Hitler 
without some knee jerk invocation of Godwin's Law. (I haven't talked 
to Mike in several years, but I expect he would agree that Godwin's 
Law is often, even usually, invoked in a knee-jerk way.)

--Tim May
-- 
Timothy C. May [EMAIL PROTECTED]Corralitos, California
Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon
Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go
Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns

Re: NIEGPINI.EXE infected with Win-CIH virus!

[Eric Murray]

On Thu, Mar 01, 2001 at 05:38:02AM -0800, A. Melon wrote:
> The attachment NIEGPINI.EXE from Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> (didn't someone just say SSZ is open relay?) is infected with the 
> Win-CIH virus (hope you had anti-virus software).

SSZ's being an open relay doesn't have anything to do with people sending
virii through it.  All CDRs, except the one at lne.com, accept and re-post
mail from anyone, on the cypherpunks list or not.   That's not an open
relay, which is a mailer that allows third-party mail- i.e. joe spammer @
aol sends mail to ssz which then forwards it to the spammer's targets.

That said, even if all the CDRs only accepted posts from subscribers
("closed" list), the list would be subject to virii-- Exchange seems to
be the email virus writer's target of choice (opportunity?) these days,
and too many people use Exchange, probably because their corporate IT
depts force them to.

> List members should be aware of this new attack on the CDR. 

What makes you think that the virus was specifically an attack on the CDR?

-- 
  Eric Murray   Consulting Security Architect SecureDesign LLC
  http://www.securedesignllc.comPGP keyid:E03F65E5

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Re: Decentralized Markets

[Greg Broiles]

At 09:46 AM 3/1/2001 -0800, Tim May wrote:

>Is it all hopeless? Are we destined to see a world of a few corporations 
>like Yahoo and Ebay and Amazon being choke points for any tinhorn dictator 
>threatening to sue them and arrest their employees?
>
>The answer is, of course, decentralized networks, decentralized markets.
>
>Gnutella, Open Napster, Freenet, Mojo Nation, Cypherpunks-style remailers. 
>(Some of these still have elements of centralized control. But the 
>centralized control and corporate points of attack may someday be 
>discarded as unnecessary, pace the discussions we've had of "everyone a 
>mint" in digital money systems.)
>
>The Cypherpunks future lies with these decentralized systems. Obvious, but 
>true.

This is a reasonable description of my current project - I gave a 
presentation in it at the O'Reilly
P2P conference, slides are at 
.

>Centralized control is a more general problem than just "men with guns" 
>controlling others. Centralized control is also a target for other 
>centralized controllers. Ebay and Yahoo are finding this out in a big way.
>
>Let a billion buyers and sellers bloom.

Exactly. Control freaks and lazy people hoping to exploit designed-in 
architectural weaknesses or choke points in commerce systems will find 
themselves hoisted on their own petards, like Napster and Ebay.


--
Greg Broiles
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Organized crime is the price we pay for organization." -- Raymond Chandler

_Godwin_ on Godwin

[Aimee Farr]

Tim, I know Mike Godwin. I've e-mailed Mike Godwin. And, Tim, you're no Mike
Godwin.

;-) Aimee

Somebody said:
 > I went to groups.google.com and did a search for usenet posts using
 > the word "nazi" http://groups.google.com/groups?q=nazi
 >
 > Every single hit among the first page of hits was an appropriate and
 > relevant use of the word nazi,

>>This was incorrect:  Eight of the first ten posts were appropriate
uses of
>>the word "nazi".  Two were inappropriate.


FWD: 

Even if 99 percent of all references to Nazis on the Internet were
appropriate and in-context, that would not prove anything, one way or
the other, as far as Godwin's Law is concerned -- anyone who says
Feel free to quote me on this.

Moreover, the statistical truth of Godwin's Law is beside the point,
which is to alert readers and writers to invidious comparisons, and
to the need to remember the gravity of what the Nazis did.




--Mike


"I speak the password primeval  I give the sign of democracy "
--Walt Whitman
Mike Godwin can be reached by phone at 202-637-9800
His book, CYBER RIGHTS, can be ordered at
http://www.panix.com/~mnemonic .

Re: _Godwin_ on Godwin

[Tim May]

At 7:51 PM -0600 3/1/01, Aimee Farr wrote:
>Tim, I know Mike Godwin. I've e-mailed Mike Godwin. And, Tim, you're no Mike
>Godwin.
>

PLONK



--Tim May

-- 
Timothy C. May [EMAIL PROTECTED]Corralitos, California
Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon
Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go
Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns

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