[ggm]

Godwin's law was an experiment in memetics. It's not actually a "thing" any more than people make it a thing, the progenitor was playing with putting a concept out there to see what happened. What happened was beyond his expectations.

I think its social utility has overtaken its birth story somewhat. It's a particularly reductive line of reasoning in forms of argumentation, that arguments descend to very crude and unpleasant norms quickly, and more often than people think. I think there are times it's mis-applied and times it accurately characterises the nature of debate. "it depends" basically.

We'll probably see something similar happen with "Tankie" and "CCP" and "Moscow shill" which now intrude as much, and as often as Nazi references.

[freework]

> We'll probably see something similar happen with "Tankie" and "CCP" and "Moscow shill"

Those terms are all specific to political discussions. The Dunning Kruger effect is known across every single cross section of the internet, and it is absolutely everywhere.

[ggm]

I would point out that while I think Dunning-Kruger is a thing, and pretty memetic, the actual research about it has been re-appraised in recent years.

We believe in it, yes. Was it proved in the root paper? Turns out.. no. Or at best weakly.