Hacker News Reader

"Racial cleansing" in German universities took part in 1935, the "Final solution" (started in 1942) was unthinkable at the time, and the immediate consequences of the "cleansing" was that "just" "some people were not being able to give lectures", but that policy alone had indeed been detrimental for science in Germany. We have payed the price for those lessons, and have the right to learn from them.

I'm not sure if adding a slippery slope step to Godwin's law makes a functional difference.

Godwin's law does not invalidate argument. “[Godwin] rejected the idea that whoever invokes Godwin's Law has lost the argument, and argues that appropriate application of the rule "should function less as a conversation ender and more as a conversation starter"” - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

> Godwin's law does not invalidate argument

I never said it did. I'm saying you're falling to split whatever hairs you were looking for with this argument.

Note that KerrAvon invoked Godwin, not zczc. Also note that historically, some slopes have proven themselves to be actually slippery.

> some slopes have proven themselves to be actually slippery

Sure, and some haven't. So being able to imagine one means exactly nothing.

> The stated goal of the programs he was opposing here is to increase diversity at universities. You can reasonably disagree that it will do that (and he does in the remainder of the article, some of the points are very good) without invoking Nazi Germany.

Actually he disagrees with the goal itself (diversity, or rather what kind of diversity is desiderable to pursue).

> And if the consequence of this is that you can't give a lecture one time, well, I'm having a difficult time finding the Zylkon B cans nearby.

Yep. That's no Nazi Germany. But it's disingenuous to say that the only consequence is he won't give a lecture one time. And canceling a lecture is a very worrying thing to do, especially for such a mild "offense". The quote attributed to Voltaire is very relevant in this context.

If you happen to compare what are (argued as) early weak signals, with the morality of the nazi holocaust in its last stage, then sure it's disrespectful. But this a kind of a strawman argument.

Alerting the possible bad outcome much later down the line, is not comparing the morality of these present-time signals to the bad future-time outcome that one could fear.

It's only with historical hindsight, that you're able to say that _of course_ these weak signals in Germany were early signs of a fatal spiral, and people should have known better. From the point of view of someone living at that time, it would have been much harder not to view these opinions as exaggeration.

Would you rather that he invoked the treatment of intellectuals in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge? After all, the "stated goal" of that was to somehow bring forth a post-scarcity utopia ("full communism") on Earth! Since when has it ever been OK to take "the stated goal" at face value, and use it to shield problematic policies from any and all criticism?

I have the same problem with the anti-lockdown and anti-vax-mandate protesters here in Canada. You might have a valid point here and there, but as soon as you bring up how the Covid measures are "oppression" just like in Nazi Germany, you instantaneously turn yourself into an ignorant clown. What the hell is wrong with people comparing every policy or social trend they don't like to gassing millions of people to death? Get a grip and pick up a history book.