First Law of Cyber-dynamics:  any unmoderated comment thread will reduce the total amount of knowledge and understanding in the world in proportion to its length.

Second Law of Cyber-dynamics:  any unmoderated comment thread on a post touching on politics, race or gender will degenerate into vile idiocy within the first ten comments.

Third Law of Cyber-dynamics:  no off-hand comment is too trivial to not generate thousands of words of cyber-commentary.

Fourth Law of Cyber-dynamics:  no off-hand comment is too benign to fail to generate offense somewhere else in cyberspace.

Fifth Law of Cyber-dynamics:  any comment thread on a blog with an ideological identity will give expression to the most extreme version of that identity within the first ten comments.  (The Law of Cyber-Group Polarizaton–Brit will be shedding some light on this next week).