Analogies: Why we have Goodwin's law

Analogies are great for explaining things. You take the essence of one thing and apply it to another.

• "Its changing board games the way Netflix changed movies."
• "He's gay zoe dechanel of cupcake competitions"
• "She smiles like she's wearing someone's face"

These are very short succinct ways to convey a lot of meaning. However, Sam was not making analogies when he was discussing with Scott Adams. He was providing counterexamples.

The definition of a valid conclusion is that it has no counterexamples. "Progress is always a good thing" is invalidated a single counterexample, such as "Communist russia was Progressive and it didn't turn out that great". The conclusion is overly broad and overly inclusive. Sam Harris, when he drew parallels to Nazis, was not making an analogy. He was making a counterexample.

Scott's argument was "Trump's election is good because it made people happy" has the underlying presupposition of "Things that make people happy must be good." Sam retorts with a counterexample, "Naziism is a bad thing that made people happy."

The reason why Goodwin's law is true so often is that there's no argument about the source material. Everyone agrees that Hitler is the most evil man in history, so I don't need to discuss whether he's "bad". If, instead, Sam retorted that "Justin Bieber makes people happy", it leaves the door open to a discussion on the merits of Justin Bieber, which is neither here nor there.

Be wary of people who set goalposts in debates such as "you use analogies so you're stupid" or "you lost your temper so you're wrong", as they're often just arbitrary lines that have no bearing on the subject at hand.

TL;DR, analogies illustrate links. counterexamples invalidate conclusions.