From Murphy’s to Moore’s — what are your favorite (or most encountered) internet “Laws”?

I’m not talking about having the FBI rock up on your doorstep because you did something you shouldn’t have in a game — maybe you just streamed a session of your favorite game and forgot to mute the music. I’m talking about the immutable laws of the internet and the universe. Online gaming, like any other human enterprise, is subject to the foibles of human nature and physics.

Let’s start with Andy and Bill’s Law, which is the reason that no matter how recently you upgraded your processor or graphics card or memory in your computer, you need to do it again soon. And if you’d waited just a little bit longer, according to Moore’s Law it would have been cheaper and you would have gotten more bang for your buck. Or maybe you’re trying to find time to get a game in but run head first into Parkinson’s Law and can’t find any free time. Even Issac Asimov had an opinion on that one: “In ten hours a day you have time to fall twice as far behind your commitments as in five hours a day.”

What about the extremely well-known Murphy’s Law, and the oft quoted corollary that Murphy was an optimist? Personally, I tend to fall fowl of the deliberately misspelled corollary Muphry’s Law and its buddy Skitt’s Law — “Any post correcting an error in another post will contain at least one error itself” — far more often, myself. But it’s important to remember that people make mistakes. I constantly have to remind my partner of Hanlon’s Razor, though I prefer an expanded version of it that states:

Never assume malice when stupidity will suffice.
Never assume stupidity when ignorance will suffice.
Never assume ignorance when forgivable error will suffice.
Never assume error when information you hadn’t adequately accounted for will suffice.

Many people have had variations of this line of thought over the years, and of course, Asimov once again has an opinion on the matter. “…but don’t rule out malice.” 

Talking of Asimov, with the growth of AI it’s important to keep in mind not only his Three Law’s of Robotics but also Clarke’s Three Laws, Kranzberg’s Six Laws of Technology, and Acton’s Dictum that “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Not all laws are apocalyptic — long time users of the internet will be familiar with the concept of the Rules of the Internet, many of which coalesced from bulletin boards and USENET before finding their way onto the larger internet. It’s the source of phrases like “pics or it didn’t happen,” or “Do not argue with trolls, that means they won,” and of course some of the more infamous “rules” out there. Some equally import internet rules to keep in mind are the the Online Disinhibition Effect, which has several other names, and its response, Wheaton’s Law.

My personal favorite collection is the Cartoon Laws of Physics, which includes Rule VIII: “A cat will assume the shape of its container — AKA “If I fits, I sits.”

What are your favorite laws and how do they affect how you game or interact with the world around you?