You can't really judge the maturity of this case as you have stated YOURSELF that you have a personal bias towards this specific comparison, and to be honest argumenting from such a emotional stand e.g. ("im connected to someone who died from this!") bears no fruit, in the world of arguments, even emotions need logic.

Wow, how do you get to this hobby and what kind of films are you making?

Nothing Hollywood-quality, if that's what you mean :)

I don't do any drama, simply because I don't have that kind of interest among colleagues. I do themed edits, capturing footage that seems to fit the theme and then edit it together with music. I did one with a number of gorgeous looking snow shots in Paderborn, and one of Bad Driburg, a town near Paderborn that really is quintessentially German.

I do have a couple of friends that are interested in producing a short drama piece with me though, it's just been on hiatus with work over the past year...and now my damn camera has disappeared.

Still, it'll show up again, and when it does, I've promised myself that I'll get this project going.

And neither does the comparison to Nazis, unless we are actually discussing totalitarian dictatorships, war history or genocide. And we are not. The comparison serves no purpose and does nothing but create a point you could have made without it (that accepting restrictions because of conformity is detrimental to the accepting party), while by using this comparison you not only created a strong ad personam by associating your opponents with evil (eristic, not logic) as well as diminish the perceieved evil of Nazism by comparing them to something as trivial as DRM (trivial in comparison to genocide).

Please don't get me wrong. I do agree with you on most points. I am also not mad at you, nor do I feel hurt by your remarks. I only wish to improve the quality of discussion by warning you not to make a disservice to your own arguments by such pointless comparisons.

So, can we all agree that this important topic deserves not to be derailed by, nor marred with this kind of bickering typical of less civilized areas of the Internet? We are GOGites, and we should be proud to discuss and argue like proper gentlepeople! :-)

You're not supposed to be punishing anyone, I'm asking you to consider if you are punishing yourself for no real reason.

Yes, because that comparison isn't insane at all.

While I agree on the SUBJECTIVE notion that it's a bad type of argumentation, you are projecting way to many final statements upon it. Such as "it is never ever a good argument to use"- Which we both know can be wrong in certain hypothetical situations, "It allways kill any further discussion"- same here.

I don't think i need to tell you that the form of response you're coming with here isn't much better in the form that it is so subjective and factless that it in no way contributes to any possible logical conclusion :\


But my original point was not headed in this direction at all, it was rather pointed at this seemingly accepted "norm" in todays discussions (be it political&public or private&silly) that anything which could potentially hurt someone emotionally the slightest should be rendered instantnously mute.

hyperbole should never be a norm... it has nothing to do with offending someone. Keep things rational, and the world will be a much better place. Everything has it time and place, 99.99% of the cases where "Godwin's law" is called upon, it is completely out of place and just plain silly. as it was in this thread... and yes, it does diminish the original acts. It has nothing to do with being PC, but with being sane and civilised.

I agree! However it was my intention to point at the declining nature of a discussion's quality when acceptance of DRM is equalled to acceptance of genocidal totalitarianism. It doesn't improve the discussion in the slightest while also potentially creating unnecessary negative emotions, triggering a further downward spiral. Should the argument benefit the discussion but be "touchy" I'd say it's valid, but here I felt the urge to intervene just because I've enjoyed reading this discussion and would hate to see it decline to a typical internet flame-war.

And on a personal side note; again I am neither offended nor enraged by being compared to a Nazi in an Internet discussion - I know better, since I'm aware that the anonymous and frivolous nature of this discussion makes such calloused comments commonplace and are just a rethoric form (a bad one), not a real personal accusation. I cannot say, however, about other participants of the discussion, so my reaction was more of a "watch where you're pointing that argument dude, that's heavy stuff" kind of reaction not a "I'm offended and gonna rage" kind.