I called someone out on the groupchat for saying that if communist orgs can hand out leaflets with Lenin on them he should be able to do nazi salutes in public. He claimed Lenin killed millions and said “ever heard of the holodomor genocide”. I talked about how the famines weren’t a genocide (and how he'd actually been dead for almost a decade before they happened) and later said radlib came in, claimed Lenin oppressed all the people of the USSR (but admitted he helped Ukraine), posted this video and left
My point is polemics only work to convince an audience, not the person you're debating. That's why they are so effective in public forums like the internet. Engaging in polemics against someone you know personally makes them not like you or your opinions. And any of your friends or acquiantences observing will feel the a same way.
Not polemics, literally just a zinger. They are only ever going to remember two or three things about it. Replace one of the facts from middle school with you laughing at them and you have improved their heuristics by 30%
I'm struggling to understand how you could think that's how minds work and the only conclusions is you genuinely believe that was an actual zinger.
They work mostly by heuristic and narrative. In this way we are addressing the extant mental prototype and addressing people in the manner relevant to their ideas on the subject.
"If I bring up holodomor to a tankie, they'll change the subject with their own sexual pathology."
That's what's going to be in their head.