Re: [BITS] Skewering AI for Fun and Profit -- 230 Final Exam

Joseph M. Reagle Jr. (reagle@rpcp.mit.edu)
Mon, 16 Mar 1998 13:01:31 -0500

At 11:50 AM 3/13/98 -0800, Gregory Alan Bolcer wrote:
>BTW, this is fuel for my theory that any thread longer than
>3 replies will converge on the topic of sex or death, 97% of the time.

Isn't this just a variant of Godwin's Law?

Godwin's Law
/prov./ [Usenet] "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a
comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." There is a tradition
in many groups that, once this occurs, that thread is over, and whoever
mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in
progress. Godwin's Law thus practically guarantees the existence of an upper
bound on thread length in those groups.

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