After seeing a megathread praising Mao Zedong, an actual mass killer, and a post about a guy saying “99% of westerners are 100000000000% sure they know what happened in ‘Tiny Man Square’ […] the reasons for this are complex and involve propaganda […],” I am genuinely curious what leads people to this belief system. Even if propaganda is involved when it comes to Tiananmen Square, it doesn’t change the atrocities that were/are committed everywhere else in China.

I am all for letting people believe what they want but I am lost on why one would deliberately praise any authoritarian system this hard.

Can someone please help me understand why this is such a large and prominent community? How have these ideals garnered such a following outside of China?

EDIT: Thank you to everyone who has responded! This thread has been very insightful :)

  • FunkyStuff [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    9·
    1 day ago

    In this thread, there’s only about 2 or 3 lengthy comments with citations from the side that’s critical of MLs. There are about a dozen from MLs explaining their positions.

    • Tinidril@midwest.socialEnglish
      24·
      1 day ago

      It’s especially a tankie thing though. When one side of an argument knows full well that there won’t be any good faith arguments from the other, they tend to revert to similar behavior. Wrestle with a pig and you both get muddy, but the pig enjoys it.

      I don’t bother with well structured arguments against flat earthers, young earth creationists, or climate change deniers either. There is just no point in bothering.

      • FunkyStuff [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        9·
        1 day ago

        Okay but you said that “tankies” always devolve to namecalling and insults but I showed you at least 6 direct examples of MLs responding to criticisms in this thread with lengthy responses, citing a bunch of sources. There’s more comments in this thread that don’t cite sources but still are fairly nuanced and explain where they’re coming from without namecalling or insults. To your credit, the critics also have written some comments that are thoughtful and well argued! There actually can be meaningful discourse, and good faith arguments. I don’t know why you say that you know full well that there won’t be good faith when you can clearly see people in this thread trying their best to communicate.