I’ve observed a phenomena that I think deserves a new adage, similar to Godwin’s Law. If you’re not familiar, that’s the idea that given enough time any online discussion – regardless of topic or scope – will eventually involve comparison of a poster’s point to the beliefs held by Hitler and the Nazis.

Similarly, it seems that that any online discussion that involves animal rights, vegan or vegetarian diets will eventually include comments by someone asserting that they are going to go eat a steak or hamburger right now, usually in someone’s honor.

To those posters I say, I get it. You eat meat and you like it. There’s no need to claim you’re going to rush out right now to stuff your face, or pretend that the discussion has provoked you into doing it. And there’s really no need to graphically describe the animal parts you intend to consume. Just not necessary and does not add to the discussion.

But it is inflammatory, and that’s probably the point. It might serve as a diversion from any other more logical arguments in progress, drawing people away from the truth. And for whatever reason, trolling veg forums seems to be a popular topic among a small portion of the meat eating public.

In the same way that Godwin’s law can be cited to reduce the incidence of inappropriate hyperbolic comparisons, my attempt at pointing this out is in the hope that it will reduce the incidence of such nonconstructive comments. Additionally, this law could be used to serve an automatic FAIL to win the argument on the person making the claim.

I’d love to see this on this list of adages named after people or things. So what do you say? Unsheeply’s Law? 😉