[rodgerd]

> who didn't care for what was true, but rather what was successful in conversation. What was strong. Intentionally dumb comments are strong sometimes. Its easy to shit on people for taking your intentionally dumb comment seriously, and if you really walk the line so that its not clear at all if youre being intentionally dumb or truly dumb, you can say very hateful things and be fairly well self supported, so that no one can really insult you in reply, or at least, that was my experience trollling around on reddit (and at times here, on a past account, which I was banned for).

Satre described this many years ago:

> “Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”