e.g. in business school, the dean of the undergraduate school had this story:

"When I was a practicing lawyer working on wills and estates, people would often ask me to cut someone completely out of their will.

I would always say that a better option was to write something like 'To my daughter Susan, I leave $1,000. She always said that she wanted to be financially independent from me so this is an amount to show her I lover her.'

Clients would always think this would send the wrong message and I would replay:

'No, no. If Susan fights the will and says she should have gotten more, the judge will say: but she clearly left you something and pointed out that she loved you AND took your wishes into account' "

I wish there was a book or collection of these types of tricks to study.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%B0%8D%E8%99%9F%E5%85%A5%E...

An example might be some person A saying "only an idiot with this set of very specific negative attributes would do this thing". And then person B came out in the public saying they had been slandered by person A, thus indirectly admitting to having those very specific negative attirbutes.

Basically if person A invokes something like the small penis rule, it's often better for person B to stay quiet to avoid 對號入座.

*Outside the US, it looks like the Ferengi are mocking American capitalist culture.

> A jury in New Mexico awarded $412 million to a man who sued over what he said were unnecessary erectile dysfunction shots that decimated his penis

On the one hand, now you're famous for having a dick that doesn't work, on the other hand, $412 million.

https://amp.sacbee.com/news/nation-world/national/article296...

But it’s not meant to be taken literally, like those are magic words. You say “he failed upwards, funded by family wealth and connections, despite everyone thinking he was an idiot who could barely string a sentence together”

The point is to emphasize, even exaggerate, low-status negative qualities.