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I would guess the downvotes are because talking about how you and your friends “ironically” praise one of the worst mass murderers in history is not as cute as

• Spivak 5y ago
  It’s not really meant to be cute exactly, it’s more meant to take away the power of silencing tactics like, “oh so you’re a communist then?” by leaning into it and responding with absurdity. Nobody who calls you a socialist like that is trying to have a rational reasoned argument — they’re trying to put you on the defensive and shut down your argument using some mouth sounds they’ve memorized. But the trick and why these silencing tactics work is because if you try to take the high road and engage with them intellectually at all you lose. You spend all your energy on the defensive trying to explain why that’s so wrong it’s not even funny and it looks like they win because nobody is paying any attention after the snappy communist quip. But if you lean into it and say something like “yeah obviously, I want that big Mao Zedong” observers know that you’re being absurd but the accusation just rolls off and now you control the direction of the argument. This is basically how to publicly engage with people who argue in bad faith 101.