Hitler is sometimes a good point to make

[HYHYBT]

Not even remotely.

For one, the whole "republicans acting like Nazis" thing didn't come about till after Bush was in office, and that didn't happen until '92, two years after Godwin made his little observation...

Neither Bush came into office in '92.

[Andara Bledin]

I have no idea where I got that year from (that was when Clinton was elected), but I was referring to W. not H.W., so that should be 2001, and still long after Godwin made his observation. H.W. started in '89, and I can't really recall much about his term that would have elicited much of that sort of sentiment.

^-.-^

[Mytical]

Wow, Hitler is no 3..of course that is only the 20th century...

While yes other groups that destroyed everything in their path didn't kill as many..you have to take into consideration the population difference. Killing a million of say 100 million is a lot worse then 5 million of 4-5 billion..(Don't throw things let me finish) at least percentage wise. I suspect it is the time line though..something that happens more currently is easier for people to relate to.

[SongsOfDragons]

In the grand scheme of things, while what the nazis did was undoubtedly evil..Hitler and company are not the top of the evil ladder. In history there are those groups that made them look like boy scouts. I mean the Romans..while a great society used to feed people to lions...and even they were not the worst. It is not even about genocide. Many societies would kill anybody or anything that was not of their people.

The inquisition, the mongol horde, and there are others that did things that were both cruel and evil. So..can somebody tell me why Hitler is the one brought up when talking about 'evil'?

I can't give a definitive answer as to why everyone thinks of Hitler...maybe because of the oversaturation of WWII in History lessons?

As I mentioned, the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia is one of those evil and cruel regiemes that scares me the most. Reading about it gives me the shudders. Slaughtering the teachers and the clever, forcing the people to the fields to go back to pastoral lives, that prison I can't remember the name of with those walls of skulls and photos of scared young people. Didn't Pol Pot die peacefully of old age? I wish we'd have covered this in history. I know you can't possibly cover, what, five thousand years of detailed human history in 13 years, but so much is being ignored.

[Bloodsoul]

As a sort of side note, I've never really liked the comparisons between charisma and physical beauty or attractiveness in table-top roleplaying games; at best, I can only see the two concepts being related in that a charismatic person would most likely be dressed very stylishly, while someone who's not very charismatic may not care much about appearance and appear rather shabbily or plainly dressed.

I just don't believe that someone's who's very charismatic also has to have a good looking face/body. What does this have to do with anything? Well, Hitler wasn't that much of a looker, but he was definitely charismatic, no?

(That's about as far as I get when it comes to Hitler comparisons, although the opposite probably falls too close to "She's All That" territory)

[HYHYBT]

I have no idea where I got that year from (that was when Clinton was elected), but I was referring to W. not H.W., so that should be 2001, and still long after Godwin made his observation. H.W. started in '89, and I can't really recall much about his term that would have elicited much of that sort of sentiment.

^-.-^

Admittedly, W's administration FELT like 16 years

[jackfaire]

So..can somebody tell me why Hitler is the one brought up when talking about 'evil'?

I don't I bring him up when talking dangerous levels of Charisma. He works better than say David Koresh because to the latter people will say, 'Yeah but I won't join a cult'

Hitler though due to the scope of what he accomplished makes the better example because people can't argue that ordinary everyday people didn't buy in.

[Pinecone]

I wonder what Chomsky and Zinn would think/would have thought if they read this thread?

[Mytical]

As a sort of side note, I've never really liked the comparisons between charisma and physical beauty or attractiveness in table-top roleplaying games;<snip>)

Which was why when I dm I have went ahead and added a new stat for that. Called Com. Meant another roll for character creation though. Cha is 'likableness/leadership/etc' Com is purely physical appearance. Higher Com gives penalties for those saving against mind affecting spells..ie if a caster has a high Com the person they are casting the spell on suffers some penalties to their saving throw.

[protege]

Hitler though due to the scope of what he accomplished makes the better example because people can't argue that ordinary everyday people didn't buy in.

From that angle, Hitler was brilliant. He was able to use his peoples' fear for his own purposes...and told them *exactly* what they wanted to hear. With that, he managed to turn a country with a destroyed economy and infrastructure...into one of the most powerful (and feared) in Europe...in only a few years!

Also, he wasn't the only one who did horrible things in the last century. Mao and Stalin killed far more people. Plus, there's that asshole (Milosovich) from the former Yugoslavia, as well. I think the reason that Stalin and Mao don't get so much bad press...is because what they did was largely "hidden" from the rest of the world, plus there weren't any invading forces to uncover the death camps.

[jackfaire]

From that angle, Hitler was brilliant. He was able to use his peoples' fear for his own purposes...and told them *exactly* what they wanted to hear.

The true brilliance of that is that he was able to look at people give speeches blaming them for the problem and they would be cheering as if to say, "Yeah fucking kill us we are the problem" before realizing "Holy crap did I just cheer for that"

I draw parallels to that whenever there is a politician that is telling people, "To solve your problem we need to cut money to social programs for the poor"

The people he is talking to cheeer, "Yaaaaay stop spendiing my tax dollars on that"

"Wait a minute my family is getting food stamps to survive right now oh shit he is talking about me dammit"

That's one of the comparisons I think is valid. Many leaders can and have done things that hurt the very people they represent most of them have not been able to get thanked for it though.

[lordlundar]

I do feel that there needs to be a couple of corollaries to Godwin's Law.

The first needs to be a measure of relevancy to the subject determining the odds of losing the argument. A discussion of Tyrants or conditions in Germany between wars for example tends to void out Godwin's Law.

The second is that it doesn't need to be an internet discussion. A real life discussion can be just as applicable to it. (I had one discussion at work one time and someone come up and went "you know who also did it? Hitler!" The real life Godwin stunned me)

[Seshat]

Godwin's Law is, as some people said, pointing out that too many people use Hitler/Nazi references for no good reason.

This has the effect of both minimising the impact of Hitler/Nazi references when there IS a good reason, and - frequently - derailing otherwise interesting discussions.


And yes, there are definitely times when there is good reason to reference Hitler/Nazi Germany. There are also times when it would be more relevant to reference Pol Pot.

And there are times when bringing serious war crimes, hate crimes and genocide into a discussion is actually totally inappropriate: but people do it anyway.