Godwin's Law

it's hard to argue with someone that has this name, but Godwin's law is an interesting/humorous observation, made by Mike Godwin in 1990, about behavior in online discussions and threads. it states: "as online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1". it doesn't say if the comparison is appropriate or not, only that in a long-run online debate, regardless the topic or the scope, someone will eventually make it. two other observations were made later to the observation: first, that once it occurs, the thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost, whatever argument was in progress. second, any intentional use of Godwin's law in order to invoke a thread ending will be unsuccessful...go figure...