Yes, frankly I don’t trust anyone to be able to think critically about what they read. I think we should outlaw disagreeable opinions. So much easier, I hate homework. But I love burning things! Let’s start with books! My library has a copy of mein kampf in fact. Let’s go burn it! That will take care of those damn nazis!
We’re not saying we should ban it, we’re saying we should discredit these publications because they are willingly giving a platform to extremist rhetoric. Nobody is saying this should be illegal, we’re saying “Stop reading the New York Times, they’ve gone full accelerationist”
The suggestion to discredit publications like The New York Times because they “platform disagreeable opinions” misses the point entirely. The goal of engaging with diverse viewpoints is not to validate every perspective but to understand them, deconstruct them, and refine our own positions through the process of critical reasoning. If we retreat into echo chambers that reinforce our pre-existing beliefs, we’re not just hiding from ideas we find distasteful—we’re deliberately choosing intellectual cowardice. It’s akin to thinking that if you simply close your eyes, the problem ceases to exist.
This approach is not only self-defeating but fundamentally immature. Refusing to engage with what you perceive as “extremist rhetoric” doesn’t reduce its presence; it only blinds you to its evolution, making it easier for such rhetoric to gain traction unchallenged. To use a crude analogy, it’s like seeing blood from a wound, covering your eyes, and believing the wound is healed. Refusing to look at the problem—or pretending it doesn’t exist—does nothing to solve it.
The notion that simply discrediting entire publications based on a few disagreeable viewpoints will somehow rid the world of those opinions is laughably naïve. In reality, it reveals a shallow understanding of how discourse works. Ideas don’t just vanish because you’ve decided not to look at them; they fester and grow stronger in the dark. This strategy isn’t just ineffective—it’s actively harmful, promoting a kind of self-imposed intellectual infantilism where one’s worldview is limited to only those thoughts deemed “safe.”
The suggestion to stop reading publications like The New York Times because they platform a range of opinions assumes that people are incapable of discerning between well-reasoned arguments and extremist drivel. This assumption is not only insulting but speaks to a profound lack of faith in people’s ability to engage with, analyze, and refute arguments on their own merits. It’s this very stunted intellectual development—the notion that the world will be better if you downvote things you don’t like and only read things that already agree with you—that cultivates ignorance, rather than addressing it. In short, refusing to engage with challenging or disagreeable views is the hallmark of a mind that fears it might not have the reasoning capacity to withstand genuine debate.
Accusing someone of using an LLM just because they presented a well-articulated response is a sad reflection on the critic, not the writer. I wrote that using a keyboard, not some gimmick; I also have advanced degrees and can draft out my thoughts in Microsoft Word without relying on AI tools. It’s really telling that you think any robust, complex response must be “fake news” or generated by a bot. Just because a response isn’t reduced to shallow platitudes or memes doesn’t mean it’s not genuine.
Frankly, that comment took less than five minutes to compose. Maybe it’s time to re-evaluate your assumptions about what people are capable of when they’re not locked into oversimplified, knee-jerk responses.
If advanced degrees automatically make you a good writer, I think everyone I work with (and myself) have been doing it wrong this whole time.
Listen, maybe I’m wrong here. But I don’t believe you because you penned that comment eight minutes after you wrote another 4 paragraph reply, with a very similar word count, which you wrote in at most eleven minutes. And I’m pretty impressed with your consistent 74wpm typing speed on a laptop (that’s assuming no time to correct mistakes), which is pretty phenomenal. I’m more impressed with the lemmy.world admins for improving the time new comments take to propagate, since as recently as last week it was taking a reliable 4 minutes for them to register across the desktop interface. But hey, I might be wrong, I can’t prove this. You might really be that impressively skilled a wordsmith.
You are free to believe whatever you want. There are two comments posted back-to-back because I switched to a keyboard and decided to write them both while I was on the keyboard. Writing in Word, with its autocorrect features, makes producing relatively error-free prose fairly easy. Also, typing at 74 words per minute is not particularly fast—I typically type faster than that. There’s no question that I type faster than average though; it’s a hazard of writing being a central part of my job. I find it funny that four quickly written paragraphs seem so unbelievable to you that it makes you question reality.
Regardless, I have no intention of continuing to justify how quickly I write. This conversation is pointless.
You’re doubling down on the most implausible details, even the ones I fudged in your favor (wpm), and that’s just silly. If that’s truly what a stream of consciousness looks like from you, and if microsoft word really is (despite all of human history serving as a counter example) helpful to you (I loathe that software more than words can convey), then you truly are the Michael Phelps of internet commenting, and I suppose I commend you for that.
Have a good day, and I mean that sincerely, because this is a really stupid hill for me to be trying this hard to die on, and you seem nice.
Also, I usually comment from my phone, but I switch to a laptop for more detailed responses. I actually found parts of that comment a bit repetitive, but I didn’t feel like spending the extra time revising it. I imagine if I were using an LLM, it would have produced something with better flow and polish.
If you were using an LLM it would have said something stupid about how book burning is something that can be normalized by either side and then given definitions for way to many words in a long paragraph.
I don’t think it would be better, and prefer the emotional but educated response of someone else seeing through the garbage of calling out the opinion forum of newspaper for being responsible of all said in it.
It’s ironic to invoke Godwin’s Law to stifle conversation, given that its original purpose was to call attention to the degradation of language and thought that occurs when Nazi comparisons are overused and misapplied. By cheapening such comparisons, the law sought to maintain the weight and specificity of historical evils like the Holocaust, which lose their impact when these terms are used flippantly or with little regard for context. This phenomenon is akin to Orwell’s warning in 1984 about the dangers of language simplification, where words are stripped of their meaning and are ultimately used to obfuscate, rather than clarify, reality.
Interestingly, even Godwin himself has noted that invoking the law to shut down discussions does little to foster meaningful dialogue. Instead, he argues that Nazi comparisons can be justified if they are “thought-out and historically informed” rather than “poorly reasoned, hyperbolic invocations” that trivialize both the history and severity of such terms. The overuse of these comparisons not only dilutes their impact but also reflects a broader trend of linguistic manipulation that mirrors Orwell’s Newspeak: a language designed to control thought by reducing complexity and nuance. When words are allowed to encompass everything, they ultimately mean nothing at all.
This loss of linguistic precision can also be seen in modern political rhetoric, where phrases like “concentration camps” are debated not based on the context but on who is using them and against whom. This constant redefinition erases historical distinctions, blurs moral boundaries, and makes it easier for anyone to dismiss any accusation as mere hyperbole. In this context, we see a perverse evolution of Godwin’s Law where the very comparisons meant to be avoided are applied more liberally, often to dismiss, derail, or discredit rather than to enlighten.
The deeper problem is that invoking Godwin’s Law as a rhetorical cudgel or attempting to justify its non-application when “actually” talking about fascism in the overly broad ways it’s now deployed is itself a form of linguistic reductionism. Rather than encourage thoughtful argumentation, it often forces discussions into binary categories: acceptable or unacceptable, on the “right side” of history or not. Such polarization undermines the very principles of debate and inquiry that Godwin initially hoped to preserve. In the end, it’s not the Nazis who are being compared to everyone—it’s the chilling realization that our language is being systematically eroded, making it ever harder to speak with the precision, integrity, and weight that serious topics demand.
Godwin always applies. Godwin himself said the comparison was sometimes appropriate, going as far as to say say the American Alt right should be compared to Nazis.
I should have clarified - the practice by which declaring “godwin’s law” would call for an end to a discussion, because it had clearly devolved beyond the point that there was anything worthwhile to continue to extract from it, was explicitly excepted from applying to discussions of fascism, where the comparison was (indeed) frequently apt
Godwin’s law was a lot more relevant when we didn’t have Hitler 2 in the middle east and a political party approximately half a step from openly being the neo-Nazi party.
Publishing extremist propaganda calling for war crimes in a newspaper can be waived away because it said (opinion)!
Bomb Syria even if it’s illegal (opinion!)
What’s next, verbatim Mein Kampf quotes being okay if the article says (opinion)?
Yes, frankly I don’t trust anyone to be able to think critically about what they read. I think we should outlaw disagreeable opinions. So much easier, I hate homework. But I love burning things! Let’s start with books! My library has a copy of mein kampf in fact. Let’s go burn it! That will take care of those damn nazis!
We’re not saying we should ban it, we’re saying we should discredit these publications because they are willingly giving a platform to extremist rhetoric. Nobody is saying this should be illegal, we’re saying “Stop reading the New York Times, they’ve gone full accelerationist”
The suggestion to discredit publications like The New York Times because they “platform disagreeable opinions” misses the point entirely. The goal of engaging with diverse viewpoints is not to validate every perspective but to understand them, deconstruct them, and refine our own positions through the process of critical reasoning. If we retreat into echo chambers that reinforce our pre-existing beliefs, we’re not just hiding from ideas we find distasteful—we’re deliberately choosing intellectual cowardice. It’s akin to thinking that if you simply close your eyes, the problem ceases to exist.
This approach is not only self-defeating but fundamentally immature. Refusing to engage with what you perceive as “extremist rhetoric” doesn’t reduce its presence; it only blinds you to its evolution, making it easier for such rhetoric to gain traction unchallenged. To use a crude analogy, it’s like seeing blood from a wound, covering your eyes, and believing the wound is healed. Refusing to look at the problem—or pretending it doesn’t exist—does nothing to solve it.
The notion that simply discrediting entire publications based on a few disagreeable viewpoints will somehow rid the world of those opinions is laughably naïve. In reality, it reveals a shallow understanding of how discourse works. Ideas don’t just vanish because you’ve decided not to look at them; they fester and grow stronger in the dark. This strategy isn’t just ineffective—it’s actively harmful, promoting a kind of self-imposed intellectual infantilism where one’s worldview is limited to only those thoughts deemed “safe.”
The suggestion to stop reading publications like The New York Times because they platform a range of opinions assumes that people are incapable of discerning between well-reasoned arguments and extremist drivel. This assumption is not only insulting but speaks to a profound lack of faith in people’s ability to engage with, analyze, and refute arguments on their own merits. It’s this very stunted intellectual development—the notion that the world will be better if you downvote things you don’t like and only read things that already agree with you—that cultivates ignorance, rather than addressing it. In short, refusing to engage with challenging or disagreeable views is the hallmark of a mind that fears it might not have the reasoning capacity to withstand genuine debate.
Neat, which LLM did you get to write this?
Accusing someone of using an LLM just because they presented a well-articulated response is a sad reflection on the critic, not the writer. I wrote that using a keyboard, not some gimmick; I also have advanced degrees and can draft out my thoughts in Microsoft Word without relying on AI tools. It’s really telling that you think any robust, complex response must be “fake news” or generated by a bot. Just because a response isn’t reduced to shallow platitudes or memes doesn’t mean it’s not genuine.
Frankly, that comment took less than five minutes to compose. Maybe it’s time to re-evaluate your assumptions about what people are capable of when they’re not locked into oversimplified, knee-jerk responses.
If advanced degrees automatically make you a good writer, I think everyone I work with (and myself) have been doing it wrong this whole time.
Listen, maybe I’m wrong here. But I don’t believe you because you penned that comment eight minutes after you wrote another 4 paragraph reply, with a very similar word count, which you wrote in at most eleven minutes. And I’m pretty impressed with your consistent 74wpm typing speed on a laptop (that’s assuming no time to correct mistakes), which is pretty phenomenal. I’m more impressed with the lemmy.world admins for improving the time new comments take to propagate, since as recently as last week it was taking a reliable 4 minutes for them to register across the desktop interface. But hey, I might be wrong, I can’t prove this. You might really be that impressively skilled a wordsmith.
You are free to believe whatever you want. There are two comments posted back-to-back because I switched to a keyboard and decided to write them both while I was on the keyboard. Writing in Word, with its autocorrect features, makes producing relatively error-free prose fairly easy. Also, typing at 74 words per minute is not particularly fast—I typically type faster than that. There’s no question that I type faster than average though; it’s a hazard of writing being a central part of my job. I find it funny that four quickly written paragraphs seem so unbelievable to you that it makes you question reality.
Regardless, I have no intention of continuing to justify how quickly I write. This conversation is pointless.
You’re doubling down on the most implausible details, even the ones I fudged in your favor (wpm), and that’s just silly. If that’s truly what a stream of consciousness looks like from you, and if microsoft word really is (despite all of human history serving as a counter example) helpful to you (I loathe that software more than words can convey), then you truly are the Michael Phelps of internet commenting, and I suppose I commend you for that.
Have a good day, and I mean that sincerely, because this is a really stupid hill for me to be trying this hard to die on, and you seem nice.
Also, I usually comment from my phone, but I switch to a laptop for more detailed responses. I actually found parts of that comment a bit repetitive, but I didn’t feel like spending the extra time revising it. I imagine if I were using an LLM, it would have produced something with better flow and polish.
If you were using an LLM it would have said something stupid about how book burning is something that can be normalized by either side and then given definitions for way to many words in a long paragraph.
I don’t think it would be better, and prefer the emotional but educated response of someone else seeing through the garbage of calling out the opinion forum of newspaper for being responsible of all said in it.
Tolerating the opinions to indiscriminately bomb countries and people is not something we as a society should do.
Well, that’s just like your opinion man.
Wow we got to Godwin in 2 comments.
Godwins law doesnt apply when discussing fascism, a clause to the rule since godwin first penned it.
It’s ironic to invoke Godwin’s Law to stifle conversation, given that its original purpose was to call attention to the degradation of language and thought that occurs when Nazi comparisons are overused and misapplied. By cheapening such comparisons, the law sought to maintain the weight and specificity of historical evils like the Holocaust, which lose their impact when these terms are used flippantly or with little regard for context. This phenomenon is akin to Orwell’s warning in 1984 about the dangers of language simplification, where words are stripped of their meaning and are ultimately used to obfuscate, rather than clarify, reality.
Interestingly, even Godwin himself has noted that invoking the law to shut down discussions does little to foster meaningful dialogue. Instead, he argues that Nazi comparisons can be justified if they are “thought-out and historically informed” rather than “poorly reasoned, hyperbolic invocations” that trivialize both the history and severity of such terms. The overuse of these comparisons not only dilutes their impact but also reflects a broader trend of linguistic manipulation that mirrors Orwell’s Newspeak: a language designed to control thought by reducing complexity and nuance. When words are allowed to encompass everything, they ultimately mean nothing at all.
This loss of linguistic precision can also be seen in modern political rhetoric, where phrases like “concentration camps” are debated not based on the context but on who is using them and against whom. This constant redefinition erases historical distinctions, blurs moral boundaries, and makes it easier for anyone to dismiss any accusation as mere hyperbole. In this context, we see a perverse evolution of Godwin’s Law where the very comparisons meant to be avoided are applied more liberally, often to dismiss, derail, or discredit rather than to enlighten.
The deeper problem is that invoking Godwin’s Law as a rhetorical cudgel or attempting to justify its non-application when “actually” talking about fascism in the overly broad ways it’s now deployed is itself a form of linguistic reductionism. Rather than encourage thoughtful argumentation, it often forces discussions into binary categories: acceptable or unacceptable, on the “right side” of history or not. Such polarization undermines the very principles of debate and inquiry that Godwin initially hoped to preserve. In the end, it’s not the Nazis who are being compared to everyone—it’s the chilling realization that our language is being systematically eroded, making it ever harder to speak with the precision, integrity, and weight that serious topics demand.
Godwin always applies. Godwin himself said the comparison was sometimes appropriate, going as far as to say say the American Alt right should be compared to Nazis.
I should have clarified - the practice by which declaring “godwin’s law” would call for an end to a discussion, because it had clearly devolved beyond the point that there was anything worthwhile to continue to extract from it, was explicitly excepted from applying to discussions of fascism, where the comparison was (indeed) frequently apt
Godwin’s law was a lot more relevant when we didn’t have Hitler 2 in the middle east and a political party approximately half a step from openly being the neo-Nazi party.