this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2025
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Anarchism

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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 :)

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[–] unfreeradical@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

You are right that we cannot know and understand the life of every individual in a group, but we may observe typical or aggregate behavior, and we may seek reasonable inferences.

Tankies express a general pattern of behavior that is bad faith.

They quote passages instead of explaining from personal comprehension. They attack individuals against an opportunity to discuss ideas. They defer to doctrine instead of reasoning independently. They anchor to absurd lies about anarchists. They lie and deny instead of admitting to problems. They rely on disingenuous rhetoric such as the motte-and-bailey fallacy.

Such observations converge on a pattern of anchoring to convictions for reasons that are unrigorous, prejudiced, and generally misguided.

[–] poopsmith@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The problem with your argument is that it relies entirely on anecdotal evidence and personal experience, which is heavily influenced by confirmation bias.

[–] unfreeradical@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 day ago

Politics is not an empirical science.

[–] FlyingCircus@lemmy.world -2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Where are these tankies? Are they in the room with us right now??

[–] AlexanderTheDead@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Literally, yes, there are people in comment threads in this post doing the read theory meme. You not acknowledging their existence doesn't mean they aren't real. You make leftists look like fools.