Undoubtedly when Mao drove the Kuomintang out of the Mainland, there were people who "really fail[ed] to see how one could believe it rational" to fear that within a decade Mao would starve to death ten times as many innocent people as the Kuomintang had ever murdered, particularly since such a large democide had never happened before in history. Then, it happened.
I really fail to see how one could believe it rational to discuss Mao, Holocaust, and Stalin in the same conversation as computer processors.
This conversation can only be taken as extreme hyperbole.