Godwin's Law and the Dunning-Kruger effect in internet discourse.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sukumvit boy

Godwin's law states that as an online discussion grows longer the probability of a comparison involving Nazism or Hitler approaches 1.:)The Dunning - Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which low ability individuals suffer from illusory superiority .:wiggle:

There is a theory that in the UK in order to get students through their exam-based 'learning' they focus on two moments in history -the Tudors for Britain, and for Tudors we really mean Henry VIII- and in world history the Third Reich.

It may be true that if asked to name one achievement of the Liberal Government that crushed the Tories in 1906 many students would struggle to name one, as would most adults, even though it marked the beginning of the welfare state, and posed a constitutional challenge to the state that led to a reduction in the real powers the House of Lords had at the time. Ask about Henry VIII and the constitutional issue appears simple -he took Britain out of the Holy Roman Empire and created the Church of England. Why? Because the Catholics would not let him divorce Catherine of Aragon. Here in a nutshell is the problem: the reduction of complex historical events to an easy-to-understand tweet.

In the case of Hitler and his Reich the problem is even harder to untangle because it is a German as well as a European and indeed in terms of humanity, a global event of significance. In other words, it is laziness and a need for instant gratification that makes people rely on a relativist sample about which they know some basics but not much else. In the case of Trump, it is worse because calling him a 'Fascist' or comparing his agenda to the 1930s does him the favour of diverting attention away from him and his 'positions'. The man he admires most is Ronald Reagan, so compare him to 'the great Communicator' -also another American, then see the difference. Even if you never liked Reagan, he was not only a superb orator who could give a speech that had structure and meaning -as opposed to the repetitive rambling about himself that most of Trump's stump sallies contain- Reagan was at times genuinely funny, something that endeared him to a lot of Americans. The clip of him when asked about age in the 1984 Campaign against Mondale that he would 'not exploit the youth and inexperience of his challenger' is a good example (linked below).
One thing Trump is not and I don't think can be, is funny.

For what it's worth, in the Labour Party in those wild and exciting times when Mrs Thatcher was the enemy, 'Godwin's law' would have been:
Godwin's law states that as a discussion grows longer the probability of a comparison involving Stalin approaches the inevitable.
It was also the tell-tale sign that you were being berated by a Trotskyist! And one who also believed the Leninist party was the most effective political vehicle to achieve a worker's state...which was what Stalin believed...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJhCjMfRndk