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Wired's Attack on Privacy

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115 points snvzz | 1 comments | 22 Oct 24 00:20 UTC | HN request time: 0.203s | source
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aaron695[dead post] ◴[22 Oct 24 02:10 UTC] No.41910498[source]▶
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LeafItAlone ◴[22 Oct 24 03:24 UTC] No.41910923[source]▶
> If you have to tell me about the bad Nazis I'm not interested in what you have to say. I'm going to be either be pushed to pro-Nazi or have a IQ above the Redditor NPCs who sit around circle jerking about who they don't like, rather than the actual issues in this world.

I’m having a real hard time understanding what you are trying to say here.

replies(1): >>41913511 #
1. Dalewyn ◴[22 Oct 24 12:17 UTC] No.41913511[source]▶
He's basically talking about Godwin's Law[1], which reads: "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." and "Any off-topic mention of Hitler or Nazis will cause the thread it is mentioned in to come to an irrelevant and off-topic end very soon; every thread on Usenet has a constantly-increasing probability to contain such a mention."

The TL;DR is that whatever you are saying isn't worth anyone's time of day if you're using Hitler or the Nazis in your argument, and you made everyone in the room dumber with just your sheer presence by doing so.

[1]: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GodwinsLaw

And yes, it's a TVTropes link, but for once it actually is a good read if you aren't familiar with old internet lore.

If you prefer less modern examples, see also Reductio ad Hitlerum[2] which was noted in 1953 by Leo Strauss. George Orwell also observed it in passing in an essay in 1944.[3]

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_Hitlerum

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascist_(insult)