Background

If you have never heard of Godwin’s Law, I’ll give you a primer. It started as an experiment in memetics and is the first ever “counter-meme.” To understand any of this, you have to understand the “meme.”

Meme is a term coined by Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene. The idea (this is a pretty rough explanation) is that ideas survive in the wild much like living organisms. The notion underpinning this is the same as that of evolution: natural selection. If they have characteristics that contribute to their own replication, they survive. From wikipedia: “Dawkins gave as examples of memes: tunes, catch-phrases, beliefs, clothes fashions, ways of making pots, or of building arches.”

Mike Godwin noticed one meme in particular that he thought noxious: the Nazi comparison argument. It goes like this:

Debater A: “I think cats are adorable.”
Debater B: “The Nazis thought cats were adorable. Therefore, you shouldn’t think cats are adorable, unless you’re a Nazi.”

Godwin recounts usenet discussions in which “the labeling of posters or their ideas as ‘similar to the Nazis’ or ‘Hitler-like’ was a recurrent and often predictable event.” It’s that predictable nature that revealed the meme, and it was that same predictable nature that allowed Godwin to create a counter-meme to combat it.

And thus, Godwin’s Law was born. Behold:

“As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.”

This is the quote that he left in usenet and BBS threads all over the nascent internet.

Eventually, others started to repeat it for him. Whenever someone tried making a Nazi comparison, some other commenter would inform him of his invocation of Godwin’s Law.

This had a peculiar effect on the psychology of the kind of person who posts on online forums. These people–people like us–like to be interesting and unique. Pointing out that Nazi comparisons were predictable and trite was easier and more effective than pointing out that they were bullshit.

Eventually, the counter-meme, sort of like a meme virus, spread until it practically wiped out the dumbass Nazi comparisons. Even now, if you invoke the Nazis to make a point on a blog, people will hound you for violating Godwin’s Law.

Strategy

I think we, as a community, should develop an effective counter-meme that we can repeat when we see sexualized comments in threads, even in our own totally awesome liberal webspaces.

An effective counter-meme has two main criteria. 1. It has to contribute to its own replication within it environment “in the wild” of the internet. 2. It (obviously) needs to diminish the target behavior of sexualized comments.

In order to accomplish these goals, it needs to be pithy. If it is easy to type it out in a quick comment, people will be more likely to do so.

More importantly, it needs to take into account the psychology of the people whose behavior we are trying to limit. This is part of the challenge of creating a successful counter-meme in this case because Stalker Trolls enjoy the excitement and attention they get by riling up their victims. This, after all, is why they use inflammatory racial and sexual epithets in the first place.

Therefore, the counter-meme needs to be dismissive of the Stalker Troll on whom it is employed. It needs to acknowledge the existence of the offensive comment while conveying that the Troll failed in his provocative purpose. It can’t be too witty or insulting, as that would reveal that the Troll Post was sufficiently offensive to warrant a thoughtful or angry response.

To do this, the message needs to be short and predictable. Trolls should know what response they will receive every time they violate “The Law.”

It should never address the “substance” of the Troll’s post or engage him in any way. To accomplish this, refer to the Troll in the third person.

Here’s an example:

Stalker Troll: “This person who disagrees with my world view is a dirty whore!!!!”

Responder: “Looks like somebody violated the Pie Axiom.”

Then, just ignore them entirely. Dealing with these people is like dealing with two-year-olds. If you give them too much attention, you validate their efforts. If you ignore them too affectedly, they get louder until you scream at them.

Establishing a culture in which sexualized comments are dismissed without a flame war is a good way to deal with Stalker Trolls. We have our own offenders of the Pie Axiom here at Daily Kos, particularly when Coulter, Malkin, or Althouse are mentioned. Responding in a uniform way marks inappropriate comments and establishes cultural boundaries of acceptable behavior. These boundaries communicate how incendiary speech is regarded in the community, helping prospective offenders predict responses to their provocation.

If people know how their provocation will be received in public online forums, they can guess that they will be ignored the same way in private ones like email.

Conclusion

I’m not sure whether a counter-meme would work in this case. It’s possible that it would be ineffective at stopping the target behavior of e-mail stalking, but the attempt would be interesting.

The community could also use a remedy for our minor problem of sexualized attacks on our right-wing female nemeses. These attacks only denigrate our efforts and put off people we are trying to convince.

The Experiment

I am interested in online collaborative problem-solving, and that is the real purpose of this exposition. I was hoping that you would discuss your own ideas as to how to deal with sexualized attacks, offer some counter-memes, and generally discuss the progressive online community.

Even if you think that this is a bad idea and that ignoring these guys is the best way to deal with them, say so. Add anything you’d like to share in the comments. Thanks for your time.

My First Attempt

The Pie Axiom: “The longer the online disussion of a woman with an oppositional viewpoint, the greater the probability that she will be derided, labelled, or otherwise discussed either anatomically or using gender-specific language.”

The Empty Pie Tin Corollary: “The degree of prevalence of sexualized language in any given statement is inversely related to the degree of validity of the viewpoint conveyed.”

Also, look at this vague claim:

“The weapons… were discovered in a car in a Sunni district of Baghdad last week, the Americans said.”

The whole thing is nonsense. Even the evidence they provide, as usual, is thin at best.

Read it at the BBC.

The premise was that a woman’s pregnancy threatened her life, leaving her to decide whether to abort the pregnancy. You can already see where this is going. House–a rude doctor whose massive mental database of rare diseases stands where compassionate warmth might otherwise reside–wanted to perform a late term abortion. The patient agrees and asks her doctor to perform the procedure.

Her doctor–a woman (nice choice) whose irrationally hopeful instinct stubbornly condemned House’s advice– was determined to find an against-all-odds solution to save the fetus. No question exists, at this point, as to whether the idealist doctor will succeed. Of course she will.

During the operation, conjured up in a crack brainstorm session, the fetus-baby reaches out of the surgical opening and grabs Dr. House’s finger with its tiny, adorable hand. Awwwww… I almost duct-taped my mouth shut and chased Planned Parenthood clients with frame captures from the show. “Choose LIFE!” I might hum at them through my nose.

But I’m not a lunatic.

The show makes a big deal of the fact that House uses the term “fetus” instead of “baby.” The patient and new mother with her baby marvel, “That’s the first time you called it a baby!” when House first sees her after the birth. He calls a born baby a baby, and that is a surprise… He calls an unborn fetus a fetus, and we should all find that strange.

Again, just like 24, a Fox (News Corps-owned, just like Fox News) drama/comedy insinuates right-wing talking points into an episode. Again, people will say, “Oh, it’s just a television show! You are paranoid!” Meanwhile, Southern Baptists will boycott Disney’s Donald Duck Christmas Miracle because the sixth scene, played backwards while humming with a bucket on your head, the Donald says what may be “bitches cherry a vah.” These same right-wingers will constantly whine that “the media” is liberal, meaning that not every “value” it espouses conforms to their narrow world view.

I have no problem with a show making a point, even while exploiting people’s fragile emotions with the ultimate weapon: cuteness. I just wish they would spare me their teary-eyed, red-faced tantrums when mean, old “Hollywood” espouses an opinion they don’t like.

Update: Commenters at DailyKos say that the patient (Emma) never agreed to terminate the pregnancy. I thought that when the female doctor (Cuddy) said that Emma agreed to have a procedure, she had agreed to an abortion. That is apparently untrue.

I still think that some abortion ban spin made it into the episode like the fetus’ hand and the fetus/baby quip from Emma at the end.

Also, a web poll is on the House MD site at Fox right now. The question is “Who did you think was eventually going to be right about saving Emma?” Most said House, but I hear that Cuddy is often wrong. Funny that she is right this time.

One more thing I forgot to add. During the operation to save both Emma and the baby/fetus, Emma’s heart stops. In order to save Emma, House decides to cut the umbilical cord and, I assume, terminate the pregnancy. Cuddy screams at him, threatening to electrocute him with the defibrillator. Cuddy and her irrationality are vindicated when Emma’s heart starts beating again.

Of course it does. Why wouldn’t they defy the odds? Everything would work out for you, too, if only you would have faith in the highly improbable. Of course.

Things just keep getting better.

To all the bloggers and journalists who covered Diebold’s incompetence, thanks for the great work. You are true patriots and heroes.

Thanks to Slashdot for the link.

Thanks to everyone! I love the world! Yeaaaaahhhh!

And now, as Ronald Reagan would say in the old SNL skit: “BACK TO WORK!!!”

Isn’t it nice to have a fake invasion sometimes? It’s like the old hippie/Lennon adage: “What if they had a war and nobody came?” Now, we know the answer.