The Qantas apple

WTF is this? A "ready to eat" sliced apple in a plastic bag.

Aren't apples already "ready to eat"?

Taking the Fuhrer's name in vain

I have a suspicion that the real reason people invoke Godwin's Law is that they are closet Fascists who consider any mention of their beloved leader's name to be blasphemy.

Apparently, if you call someone a Communist*, that's a perfectly legitimate criticism, whereas if you call them a Fascist you automatically lose because "Godwin's Law". That is to say, it's firstly a descent to a school-yard level of logic, and secondly it unfairly targets one side of politics.

[* = Recently however, the term "Socialist", or even in some circles "Liberal", seems to be taking over as a term of abuse, which is a very worrying trend.]

What I find interesting about the business is that whenever I have seen this law invoked (and it must run to the hundreds by now), it has almost without exception been incorrectly applied. There must be some selective blindness at work, because I have seen people cut-and-paste the wording of this law into a post without realising that it completely contradicts their use of this law.

Godwin's Law in no way prohibits the use of any words. It is not a law in the legal sense ("you must do this"), but instead a law in the scientific sense ("this is true"). In its original form it goes as follows:

"As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."

In other words, it states that over time, discussions tend to degenerate into name-calling and hyperbole. Which is a perfectly valid observation.

You can see how the law was intended to be applied: If, for instance, a discussion on the relative merits of different game consoles reached the point where people were calling each other Nazis (a thing likely to happen relatively quickly), it would be fair enough for someone to cry out "Godwin's Law", as a short-hand way of saying "this discussion has now descended to the point where rational debate is no longer possible and therefore it should be abandoned".

The difficulty I have is that this law is also used to stifle legitimate political discussion. Nazism and Fascism are not isolated phenomena belonging entirely to the past. People don't actually call themselves Nazis or Fascists any more, but the fact is that the same sorts of people, with the same sorts of motivations, are saying and doing the same sort of things today - to the extent that things are getting actually frightening.

You can point out, giving specific examples, where the behaviour of some political figure mirrors that of Hitler or Goebbels, and then some arsehole can arrogantly dismiss your whole argument (without having to counter any of the points you've raised) with the line: "Bzzzzzzzzzt. Godwin's Law. You Lose."

For sure, the vast majority of the time someone gets compared to a Nazi, the comparison is not valid. E.g.:

"I think euthanasia should be legalised"
   
"Isn't that what the Nazis did?"

or

"I believe in stricter firearms laws"
   
"Hitler brought in stricter firearms laws"

But that's only because debate on the Internet is usually at such a low level that the vast majority of the time any one line rebuttal is logically flawed. It's the same principle as Sturgeon's Law**.

[** Supposedly someone said to science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon "90% of science fiction is crap" and Sturgeon replied to the effect of "True, but that's because 90% of everything is crap".]

Now consider this exchange:

"Taking aspirin to reduce a fever is counterproductive, because a fever is the body's way of fighting off invading microbes. In this case it's better to leave your body alone to look after itself."

"Isn't that what a Christian Scientist would say?"

You wouldn't argue that a comparison to a Christian Scientist violated some particular law and that this in itself invalidated their statement. You'd probably reply something along the lines that in this case the Christian Scientist would be right despite themselves and that this was irrelevant to the argument you were making (or more succinctly: "a stopped clock is right twice a day").

If a comparison is invalid or irrelevant, you can simply say that it is invalid or irrelevant. Similarly, if a debate has degenerated to name-calling, you can say that it has degenerated to name-calling and therefore should be abandoned. Godwin's Law is neither necessary nor sufficient to address these issues.

So I suppose all of this is a long-winded way of saying that I think Godwin's Law has outlived its usefulness and should be retired.


[Update 17th August 2017 - it seems that Mike Godwin himself has come to the same conclusion and writes: "By all means, compare these shitheads to Nazis."]

It is un-Australian to worship the Australian flag

I saw this obnoxious thing on someone's car at the local shopping centre recently. [Edit: I should add  that despite the date of this post, this is not an April Fools joke; sadly it is real.]

Flag-worship is un-Australian, as is ordering people around like a freaking Dalek.

 
I can understand why certain people have an attachment to the flag of their country.

Imagine you are a soldier fighting a battle. Suddenly a large number of armed men start coming towards you. They may be the enemy and you may be about to die. If the flag of your country suddenly appears over these soldiers, it will become the most beautiful thing in the world at the moment. If you have a flag of your own, you'll be waving it over your head frantically, since your life may literally depend on doing this.

By the end of the war, it is easy to imagine that this behaviour has embedded itself at a deep emotional level in a soldier's subconscious - even without the help of the ceremonies and other rituals they take part in. The attachment could be so deep that a person might get misty-eyed at the sight of their flag, or homicidal at the thought of someone "disrespecting" it.

In other words, flag-worship could be thought of as a pathological condition caused by a traumatic experience.

Edgar Rice Burroughs - the author of Tarzan - wrote a novel called The Red Hawk. Like most of his work, this was a simplistic, action-packed tale of goodies versus baddies and (apparently) not intended to be a social commentary. However it featured the interesting concept of "The Flag" (the Stars and Stripes; naturally enough) actually being worshipped as a deity in itself. Thus characters would say things to the effect of "When The Flag created the world..." and "The Flag will be angry if you do that". I found this much more amusing than it was probably intended to be.

The worshippers of The Flag were, naturally enough, a fierce warrior tribe engaged in a generations-long war. Although fictional, the scenario made sense; if a people have endured an invasion or a civil war, they may be traumatised in the same way as an individual soldier, and their resulting psychoses (including flag-worship) may become part of their national character.

So it would fair enough to say that a flag may have great importance to those on both the giving and receiving ends of militarism.

Australia, however, fits neither of these categories.

Consider ANZAC day; the primary military-related event on the Aussie calendar. It was originally to commemorate the Gallipoli landings. There is much (perfectly legitimate) talk about bravery and sacrifice and so forth, but no one can say that Gallipoli was being celebrated. It wasn't glorious and it wasn't a victory. It was basically a disaster. We lost and had to run away.

ANZAC day is also unusual (and possibly unique) as far as such events go in that it's about both Australians and New Zealanders. It's not a nationalistic thing.

Australia's military heritage consists pretty much entirely of getting dragged into other people's wars (and generally losing*). The only exception was defending against Japanese invasion in WW2, and that was forced on us.

[* = Not necessary because we're incompetent but generally because we get thrown into unwinnable conflicts. I'm not sure whether this makes it more or less humiliating.]

While there's a general belief that Australians punch above their weight in warfare (but don't all countries think that about themselves?), we don't glory in fighting. It isn't part of the national character to think that it's wonderful to go around invading other countries. We don't parade our missile carriers (do we even have any?) through the streets, followed by ranks of goose-stepping soldiers. We aren't militarists, and we haven't suffered invasion, civil war or revolution either. We don't need a flag to cling to, and we should be glad about this.

Now let us look at the flag itself: It is ugly, both visually, and symbolically.

First of all, the Union Jack in the corner is an irrelevant relic of a fairly unpleasant colonial past. Australia was a prison colony. It was taken from its original inhabitants by the British without even the pretence of a treaty. Nothing to be proud of. Moreover, the United Kingdom has very little relevance to modern day Australia (we play cricket, and that's about it).

The Southern Cross is hardly uniquely Australian either; it's visible in all parts of the Southern Hemisphere, and a little way into the Northern. It could equally well be used by perhaps half of the countries in the world.

Symbolically, the Union Jack consists of the crosses of St George, St Andrew, and St Patrick. The Australian flag adds the constellation of the Southern Cross. That is to say, four crucifixes on the one flag. According to a recent WIN-Gallup poll, Australia is one of the top 10 atheist countries in the world. Isn't a flag consisting almost entirely of crucifixes just a little bit inappropriate?

The construction of the flag is also awkward. Aesthetically, the Union Jack looks fine by itself, and the Southern Cross doesn't look bad either (although having stars on a blue background is arguably illogical; at least PNG chose a black background for their Southern Cross), but the two don't go together. By contrast, the Aboriginal Flag is simple, distinctive, and with a choice of colours that not only look good in themselves but also are symbolic of the country**.

[** = I'm not saying that we need to appropriate the Aboriginal Flag; I think that would be unacceptable to both black and white unless a lot more reconciliation takes place. I'm just saying we don't have to look very far afield to find a better flag.]

Don't get me wrong here: I'm not campaigning for a new flag. Our flag is ugly and stupid and in an ideal world we'd have something better, but this is so unimportant compared to all of the other problems we're currently facing that we might as well not bother. And if it's going to upset a few service-people, why create unnecessary pain for very little gain?

Nor am I saying someone shouldn't be allowed to bow down before their flag if they want to. Put a sticker on your car that says "I love this flag" and I won't complain.

But what does concern me is that this person - and there are more like him appearing all the time - feels he has to right to aggressively order me to join him in his psychotic beliefs, and apparently I must either obey him or get out. That is un-Australian.