I didn’t know there was a name for that. Basically the obverse of a Gish Gallup.
Is there a difference between sealioning and just asking for verification of a bold claim? On a forum such as Lemmy, where people are encouraged to have unsolicited debate in the comments, are we by nature immune from the worst aspects of sealioning?
There is. Sealioning is when you know damn well your position is wrong or otherwise odious, but rather than confront that point (or come right out and say it) you instead pester the other party incessantly to support every single little claim they make with the usually unspoken implication that everyone should think those claims are false.
The difference is that individuals engaging in Sealioning are not doing so in good faith, and the acid test comes about pretty quickly they they don’t address or digest any of the points you’ve supported with evidence/sources and instead move the goalposts immediately and pivot to quibbling about something else and demanding a source for that, instead.
Another Sealioning trick is to fixate on something you said or take it out of context, build a straw man of your argument, and demand evidence/sources for the argument you did not technically make – ideally, a straw man argument that is deliberately unsupportable, or is attacking a matter of your opinion and not a fact but treating it as if it should be supported by citations and evidence. E.g., I don’t like Metallica because I think Lars Ulrich is a douchebag. Sealion: “Excuse me, but can you provide a source attesting to Lars Ulruch personally being a douchebag to you?” No, I just don’t like him because he rubs me the wrong way plus the whole Napster thing back in the day. “Well, since you have not addressed my polite request for a source attesting to Lars Ulrich personally being a douche to you, [ignoring the supportable claim about the Napster thing] your opinion about not like Metallica is obviously laughably absurd [and therefore you are deserving of the ridicule and inserts I am about to heap on you, or will direct others to make at you].” Etc.
None of that is demonstrated in the comic, it’s a bad example.
Yep, pretty much.
I’ve been accused of Sealioning for literally sourcing one claim… with five different sources… Just one claim.
I don’t have time to go through 5 different sources! Quit Sealioning!
It’s not sealioning…
Quit gish galloping then!
Guys… providing multiple sources for your argument isn’t a fallacy. It’s literally just sourcing your fucking claims lmfao.
Ahh, the fallacy fallacy, ironically the most common fallacy I encounter online.
To add one more aspect: When someone writes a reply asking for a source, did they actually do a short Google-search related to the claim? It basically takes the same time to just look at the summary of the search results as asking for a source. So I assume if someone asks for verification for an easily searchable fact, then they are acting in bad faith.
Also one more thing: If you notice someone acting in bad faith, don’t engage with them. Downvote them, move on. This is especially true for the next few months until the US elections are over. You will notice it a day after the elections that the quality of discussions will increase because the bad faith actors will take a vacation. What happened on Reddit in 2016 is happening here right now.
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I’ve had sealions ask me for a source that the sun shines during the day before. The idea is to wear your opponent down. It’s not a good faith line of questioning.
At which point you point out their obvious bad faith argument and stop responding.
To add one more aspect: When someone writes a reply asking for a source, did they actually do a short Google-search related to the claim? It basically takes the same time to just look at the summary of the search results as asking for a source. So I assume if someone asks for verification for an easily searchable fact, then they are acting in bad faith.
This point rubs me a little wrong both on the basis that
A) onus of proof falls on the one making the claim
B) if it takes the same amount of time to find the answer as it took for them to ask you, then logically it takes the same amount of time to include a source for anyone that wants further reading as it would to make them look for it
and (most importantly)
C) you can find pretty much anything on the internet if you’ve got 12 minutes to dedicate to looking through all the clickbait.
The result becomes that I can say any batshit thing I want to and now it’s your job to discredit your own stance for me, and if you aren’t convinced, you aren’t googling hard enough. Instead of just asking and finding out I got it from The Onion, which I would naturally be very against having to say out loud.
If you notice someone acting in bad faith, don’t engage with them
I find that relentless mockery is the best way of countering a sealion. Don’t cede the field to them. But also don’t get drawn into a bad faith argument. Just insult and make fun of them until they leave.
That just feeds their persecution complex and their argument that “You don’t have any rebuttal, just insults!”
Don’t get into a drawn out conversation with them, but a field of people giving simple responses pointing out the obvious flaws it what they are saying drowns out their message to any outside observer and shows why they are incorrect.
I just link to the comic at that point
When someone writes a reply asking for a source, did they actually do a short Google-search related to the claim?
no one is responsible for supporting our argument except you.
Yeah, I feel the same. If you are making claims with no source people should be allowed to ask for the source without needing to look themselves.
Do you have any evidence supporting your position that this is the proper way to debate a sealion?
Exactly. If I ask someone for a source on something I feel is wrong it’s because I specifically want to know the information they’re working from. If I look it up straight away and send them a link that says they’re wrong straight out of the gate they aren’t even going to open it.
Is there a difference between sealioning and just asking for verification of a bold claim?
Depends if the person wants to answer or avoid the question. If they want to avoid it, you’re sea lioning.
The difference is intention. The intention of the sea lion is not to convince you that your claim is wrong or immoral; it’s to shut you up, by draining your desire to make the claim, since every time that you do it, a sea lion pops up to annoy the shit out of you.
That’s a problem because nobody knows the others’ intentions - at most we lie that we know. We can at most guess it - but to guess it accurately, without assuming/making shit up, you need to expend even more “mental energy” engaging the user, or looking for further info (e.g. checking their profile).
On a forum such as Lemmy, where people are encouraged to have unsolicited debate in the comments, are we by nature immune from the worst aspects of sealioning?
No. I’ve seen sea lions in oldschool forums and in Reddit, even if in both you’re encouraged to debate in the comments; so Lemmy is not immune by nature against that.
They’re just “dressed” in a different way; in Reddit for example your typical sea lion says “I don’t understand, [insert question making a straw man of your proposition]? I’m so confused…” instead of asking you to back up your claim.
If every time you make a claim, someone pops up and asks you for a source and you can’t provide it, you should stop.
A big component of sealioning, as I think you’ve pointed out, is one party pretending to not understand the intent or argument behind your reasoning and rephrasing it in a way to make it sound ridiculous, but in the form of a question. The goal is to counter someone’s argument by hoping that they don’t have the argumentative or expressive capacity to succinctly clarify themselves or identify that you’re asking questions in bad faith.
A big component of sealioning, as I think you’ve pointed out, is one party pretending to not understand the intent or argument behind your reasoning and rephrasing it in a way to make it sound ridiculous, but in the form of a question.
Yup. That’s called a strawman. Strawmen are really common when sealioning, as they increase the effort necessary for a meaningful reply - because first you’ll need to dismantle the strawman, then counter-argument.
It isn’t a key component though. You can achieve the same effect through a red herring, tu/ille quoque (aka what-about-ism), or even a false dichotomy.
I like this explanation.
The difference is intention. The intention of the sea lion is not to convince you that your claim is wrong or immoral; it’s to shut you up, by draining your desire to make the claim, since every time that you do it, a sea lion pops up to annoy the shit out of you.
Hexbear in a nutshell.
I don’t know, really. But I feel that Hexbear is mostly misinterpreted - I don’t think that they’re trying to sealion, it’s more like an out-of-place “debate me~” childish cringe. I might be wrong though, as I mentioned in the second paragraph nobody knows the others’ intentions.
Yeah, Hexbear wants hearts and minds, they’re just really bad at it.
Hexbear has the same problem as Reddit: it’s home to a handful of active, loud, incredibly toxic communities that like to go into other people’s online spaces and be assholes.
Also: if you go there and do what they do elsewhere, you get banned.
If these spaces have a rule like “no talking if you’re a man” that’s understandable, but what other kinds of “other people’s” spaces are you referring to?
The intention of the sea lion is not to convince you that your claim is wrong or immoral; it’s to shut you up, by draining your desire to make the claim, since every time that you do it, a sea lion pops up to annoy the shit out of you.
To be honest, if someone is saying some bigoted shit that is exactly what I’m doing. I don’t expect to change the bigots opinion. My intention is:
- to point out the obvious flaw to anyone else reading the comment.
- make it clear that the argument they are making should not be blindly taken as fact, and
- let them know that when they spout bigoted views they will be challenged on them.
You know I think I would modify that intention. I’ve found it’s better not to argue sort of, for some third party observer, or, to argue just to wear them down, but I think it’s better to argue just for yourself, for your own sake. It still kind of requires a good ability for discernment, but if you can find a sealion that can keep you sharp, that’s probably good enough. Less noble is maybe just arguing with them because you personally find it amusing, which is also probably not a terrible thing.
Generally, though, I always kind of wonder generally why it is that the time-tested and great advice of “don’t feed the trolls” has tended to fall by the wayside over the years, if it was ever really followed at all. I suppose only one person needs to falter to register as an engagement, but it’s pretty hard for an uncoordinated effort to end up flooding a site with propaganda, because people just tend to give up (or in lots of instances, self-isolate, which is maybe a different problem) if they get ignored enough.
I always kind of wonder generally why it is that the time-tested and great advice of “don’t feed the trolls”
For the same reason “if you see something, say something” would stop getting adhered to if people got sloppy, or self-serving, with their interpretations of the word “something”.
The concept of “troll” used to mean: Inducing a person to spend lots of effort responding to some nonsense, as a way of messing with them.
Now the word “troll” refers to: Any and all bad actors online. Which includes people who ask me politely for sources when I make bold claims. They’re the baddies, and I know because of this baddie checklist:
- Polite
- Asking questions
- Claims to want to understand me
- Wants to see sources
I find “Don’t feed the trolls” is less of a concern on a site like Lemmy that filters by up and down votes. The trolls get filtered to the bottom and don’t clutter everyone’s feeds. The more of the troll’s time I waste the less they can spend trolling other people.
Something like Steam Community Forums where a thread gets bumped to the top every time it receives a new reply, dear God stop feeding the trolls! It makes it an unusable mess.
Something like Steam Community Forums where a thread gets bumped to the top every time it receives a new reply, dear God stop feeding the trolls! It makes it an unusable mess.
I would argue, probably poorly, that this also happens to a much, much lesser extent when you feed a troll on a site like lemmy.
Nah, my concern is kind of more that trolls, truly bad faith arguers, should ideally be handled more by functions like spam filters and good moderation, than being this sort of thing that we constantly have to juggle around, shaking keys in front of their faces in order to distract them from responding to one person. In a trolling war, where you have to troll the trolls, the trolls always win. There’s some blogpost that I can no longer dig up from my internet history, about how similar lessons were learned in EVE Online, by people trying to win wars of attrition against the Goonswarm, the in-game SomethingAwful board users.
The takeaway from the writeup was kinda that the only effective countermeasures is basically just to kind of, have more effective moderation, and banning people who would take it too far.
Edit: browsing down a little more, your approach to just, have them suffer death by a million papercuts, and maybe just kind of expose them and publically shame them, rather than engage in a protracted counter-trolling kind of thing, that makes sense to me as a strategy I hadn’t really considered. Probably an effective one, too, especially as multiple strategies tend to increase in efficacy as they lend themselves to one another. So, neat.
The drawback of wanting to use software to handle the people who disagree with you is … hopefully obvious. I’m too tired to write it up.
But like you see the obvious problem with that, and why having human intelligence interacting with “the set of people I’m calling trolls” is necessary long term right?
Straight up, no, I don’t. I think that free speech online is kind of a perpetual techno-libertarian pipe dream that gets pushed at the behest of (mostly) corporate interests onto the optimistic and naive. If you let the trolls take an inch, they take a mile. I don’t even necessarily just mean like, white supremacist ideologues, or whatever, either, right, but I also mean like, corporate propaganda. Anyone with outstanding resources online can pretty easily sway public sentiment. People reported that you could buy upvotes on reddit, you can likewise buy comments, and if you play it correctly you can consistently dominate the front page. You can do this not only with reddit, but basically any other form of social media engagement as well.
This isn’t to advocate in favor of people self-isolating into echo chambers, right, it’s more to advocate for people just making more conscious decisions on who they engage with, which I think nobody tends to regularly do, because how social media works is that it preys on your base instincts and weaknesses. If you are to engage with a troll, a bad faith actor, you need to be getting something out of the exchange. You, personally. Maybe social shaming also works as a strategy for content moderation like that guy was saying, I dunno. But I think most people aren’t consciously making these decisions when they decide to engage with trolls, they’re just arguing nonsense points with someone who doesn’t give a shit about them, and then, you know, big shocker when they get frustrated and mad.
That’s not helping anyone to see alternative perspectives. If anything, it’s gonna cause people to become more reaffirmed in their own ideology, if they see that their only opposition is like, horrible dicks, basically. It’s not steel-manning the opposition, when that occurs. I mean, in some sense, that’s why trolling tends to happen most consistently, right? It’s because people want to venture outside their echo chamber, and get fresh meat, but then they do so in such a way that they’re engaging adversely, not putting in any effort, whatever, and then they just end up making everyone around them mad, and probably themselves, and then they fall deeper into their own ideology. Especially when their in-group has, knowingly or not, given them a kind of memetic scent that they (the troll) doesn’t fully understand, a marker that they’re someone from the outside. See: every time someone is able to explain communism to their conservative co-workers, who like it, so long as they don’t use the word “communism”. Million other examples along those lines. It’s like a mormon going door-to-door, or something
I think it’s probably a better case if you’re just letting everyone stay in their own zone, using heavy handed moderation to prevent this sort of dumb shit from occurring, and then occasionally you let people in if they’re showing that they’re acting in good faith, and are capable of like, actually offering good counterarguments and good viewpoints. If you’re wanting to have an actually good time on the internet then I think it’s probably gonna be better to hand those decisions off to someone else. Obviously that’s something you have to take on faith, but it’s much, much easier to actually engage with the stuff you want to, if you’re not falling victim to obvious rage bait every 10 posts.
You made me notice that my comment is missing a key element: sealioning always includes a farce of a polite engagement. “Nooo, I don’t want you to shut the fuck up, I just want you to reconsider your position. I’m being friendly, why are you [being rude|ignoring it]?”
That farce is simply not there on the way that you described that you do against people saying bigoted shit.
The underlying assumption on your part being that no one could genuinely want you to reconsider your position, or indeed that your position could be even slightly flawed. Think about what you’re saying, “Sealioning is when people politely ask me questions to clarify a position that I took”. So?
Not only are you not open to changing your position, you are offended by the very notion that even a small aspect of your position could ever be reconsidered. Incredible. I’m trying not to be too polite, otherwise you might claim that I’m sealioning you again 😂
Sealioning is when people politely ask me questions to clarify a position that I took
This is it. The term “sealioning” seems purpose-built to enable people to escape situations where they are asked to demonstrate critical thinking.
As I told you in the other thread: if you want a meaningful reply, drop off the sealioning.
And yes, you’re still sealioning, even if your façade of politeness dropped.
If I’m sealioning, you’re walrusing. Which one of us is refusing to address the content of the discussion? It’s now twice that you’ve done to me exactly what you claim that I’m doing to you. There was also a third time you didn’t respond at all, which is actually preferable to your current walrusing. Btw walrusing is when you make an argument, and then claim that any response is in bad faith, thus bypassing your obligation to actually clarify or defend your position in any way.
You immediately claimed that I was sealioning after I made one single comment? That doesn’t make any sense and you know it.
Respond to the person you are interacting with, not to your own personal insecurities. Read the words that I have written down, parse them, and compose a response.
Actually, it’s fine, I’m not particularly curious about the content of your earlier comment anymore, because I no longer have any suspicion that it might have been anything of value. But you should still reflect on what I have told you because it’s pretty silly to act like this, especially on Lemmy.
Your definition of sealioning, that it’s defined by intention, that it involves a mask, these are all non-falsifiable. You realize that right? They contain no mechanism for accepting new information from outside your ideology, and make your mind starve to death.
This overall approach to things — to operate on the basis that all is known and understood and that those who disagree or behave as if there might be incompleteness in the knowledge — is what the term “totalitarian” refers to.
A classic example of “totalitarian” thinking is if you solve a game like tic-tac-toe. Having a game 100% solved, ie having computed every move, and therefore having 100% certainty as to the optimal play strategy, is a situation where you’ve encapsulated the totality of the game in your mind.
The idea that the totality of existence, of real life situations, is already known and the optimal strategy already computed, is “totalitarian”.
A totalitarian dictatorship is one in which that totality of understanding, and the resulting certainty of optimal strategy, is used to justify stripping subjects of all freedom. Any deviation from the optimal is considered bad, so freedom is worthless.
And of course there are degrees of totalitarianism, expressed implicitly in aspects of culture.
Science, by its emphasis on putting empirical observation above theory in terms of trust, allows for external information to update itself. Science is not totalitarian in that sense.
The term “Sealioning”, by enabling people to decide that any interaction at any time possesses a particular intention (un-observable, non-falsifiable), or that a particular mask is being used (un-observable, non-falsifiable), that they can just ignore the interaction and cast aspersions on the person they’re interacting with.
finally, someone took the time to unpack the lie of sealioning
Here are two hypothetical situations that might clarify your blatant confusion regarding the usage of the word “sealion”, and exemplify the usage of behaviour instead of “intentions” to demarcate sealioning.
Situation A:
- [You] Damn, a glass of water after work is great.
- [Alice] You’re drinking water. Water is poisonous.
- [You] No, it is not. Stop making stuff up.
- [Alice] Okay, but don’t whine afterwards when you get poisoned.
- [Alice leaves]
- [a day passes by]
- [You] I was drinking water yesterday, and it was great.
Situation B:
- [You] Damn, a glass of water after work is great.
- [Bob] You’re drinking water. I’ll have you know that water is poisonous.
- [You] No, it is not. Stop making stuff up.
- [Bob] Why are you so aggressive? I’m just informing you.
- [You] No, water is not poisonous. Water is safe. It’s good for you. Please stop wasting my time.
- [Bob] Do you have any evidence to back up your claim that water is safe?
- [You] I’m busy drinking my water. Can you excuse me?
- [Bob] I shall return later.
- [a day passes by]
- [You] I was drinking water yesterd…
- [Bob] I see that you’re mentioning that poisonous substance again. I don’t understand, why someone would harm themselves? I’m so confused…
- [You] Bob, fuck off.
- [Bob] Apparently you lack arguments to defend your outrageous claim that water is safe to drink. Such lack of rationality, I’m just trying to have a friendly conversation and inform you on the risks of the substance that you’re ingesting.
Even if both Alice and Bob are conveying the same stupid discourse (“water is poisonous”), only one of them is sealioning - Bob. Why?
[Feel free to analyse this through mind/intention/etc. or behaviour. Refer to the sealion comic for reference.]
[EDIT reason: clipping and rewording for less verbosity.]
TL;DR: sealioning is about either how or why you convey a discourse, not the discourse itself. Over your whole comment, you’re treating it as the later, thus making a fool of yourself and wasting my time.
Your definition of sealioning, that it’s defined by intention […] these are all non-falsifiable. You realize that right?
No shit Sherlock. Otherwise I wouldn’t have myself said that “That’s a problem because nobody knows the others’ intentions - at most we lie that we know.”
However, the concept is still useful once you rework it to rely on behaviour (that is observable and falsifiable). And effectively, that’s what people should do; alongside weighting out some risk that their claim might be wrong.
mask
I said “farce”, not “mask”. That said: farces are mostly behaviour, and your point regarding “mask” is secondary and moot.
They contain no mechanism for accepting new information from outside your ideology
That’s like complaining against an orange tree for containing no mechanism to squeeze juice.
Sealioning is not the discourse itself being conveyed, but how [if based on behaviour] or why [if based on intentions]; mechanisms regarding acceptance or rejection of new info relate to the later, not to the former.
Regarding “ideology”: sealioning is not just used with ideological discourses.
and make your mind starve to death.
You’re opposing the concept of sealioning based on its reliance on something non-falsifiable, like “intentions”… and its effect on something equally non-falsifiable, someone’s “mind”. Congratulations for shooting your own foot.
This overall approach to things — to operate on the basis that all is known and understood
You’re babbling yet another assumption. That is false, usage of the concept of sealioning does not imply or require such approach. Stop assuming = making shit up.
All your babble (yup) from the 2nd to 5th paragraphs is built under the assumption that this idiotic statement is true, so I can safely skip to the part where you’re talking about science.
Science, by its emphasis on putting empirical observation above theory in terms of trust, allows for external information to update itself. Science is not totalitarian in that sense.
Already addressed: sealioning being how or why a discourse is being conveyed, not the discourse itself.
Side note: let us not pretend (or worse, assume) that falsificationism is not the only scientific method out there.
The term “Sealioning”, by enabling people to decide that any interaction at any time possesses a particular intention (un-observable, non-falsifiable), or that a particular mask is being used (un-observable, non-falsifiable), that they can just ignore the interaction and cast aspersions on the person they’re interacting with.
Besides being a fallacy / irrationality known as “appeal to consequences”, this chunk of babble relies on things already contradicted.
From your other comment:
If every time you make a claim, someone pops up and asks you for a source and you can’t provide it, you should stop.
I’m going to require you a source on that. Over and over and over and over and over, ad nauseam. If you can’t provide it, follow your own advice and shut up. /s
If you can provide it, don’t worry - I’ll ask for source on something else, preferably some triviality, and the cycle repeats. Recursively.
Are you getting the picture? Your comment works under the assumption/idiocy that people not sourcing their claims do it because of inability to do so; sealioning exploits the fact that countering bullshit wastes your time and patience, so even if you can rebuke it, you’ll eventually give up out of sheer annoyance.
And before you babble “but in syense lol lmao” - even in an academic environment, if you’re dragging discussion down by asking questions that you’re expected to know the answer of, someone is bound to “politely” tell you to “please inform yourself beforehand on those trivial matters, if you want to engage in this discussion” aka “fuck off”.
Do you believe that all disagreement that isn’t bitter and angry is farcical?
I’m not wasting my time answering all assumptions that you might come up with.
This is true of me too. When I ask for a source, I’m about 95% sure it’s not going to be provided because it doesn’t exist, and that is my way of demonstrating the falsity of the claim.
When I’m not sure, I just give them the benefit of the doubt. For example, there’s a good chance that the person replying to me speaks English well, but it’s not their first language. Also, their cultural norms might be very different from my own. It could be a simple misunderstanding, too. Overreacting would just make things worse.
When it’s obvious that the person replying is just being a pedantic nuisance, though, I merely stop responding. They may think they’ve “won”, but so what? I can go to bed knowing I don’t waste my time sealioning.
They may think they’ve “won”, but so what?
The point of internet arguments is not to convince your opponent. That never happens.
The point is to convince the audience, and if you just leave then it looks like the sealion is right.
When the comment chain goes on long enough, there is no more audience.
Depends. If it’s a subject I feel strongly about I’ll go down the whole damn chain upvoting and downvoting as applicable.
Addendum: when a comment chain goes on long enough in both length and time since the original post, there is no more audience.
One of the things I miss about forum threads sorted by most recent comment
At which point the sea lioning has been obvious. You’re not going to see the person you disagree with getting the “last word” and think they “won”.
Nah. It almost always devolves into one person making an effort while the other’s just being an ass.
That would be a draw imo
The point of internet arguments is not to convince your opponent. That never happens.
Why do you think that is?
Human psychology, probably.
They may think they’ve “won”, but so what?
Yeah, I think this is kind of the correct mentality. The currency of trolls is (you)s, you should only feed trolls if they’re giving you something actually interesting or novel or amusing in return, rather than getting baited, or giving up and ignoring it altogether. I think it’s important for people to reward comments that they like with thought-out responses, rather than the other way around.
The thing is a true sealion only “wins” by dragging you into a long offtopic comment chain.
Professional sealions (we don’t have them here yet thank god) come armed with a list of “talking points” they use to try to derail genuine conversations and turn them into something else.
Damn, that’s sad. I have nothing but pity for anyone who considers themselves a “true” or “professional” sea lion.
Eh, they get paid.
I’m talking about the 50 Cent-ers, the BJP IT, the Hasbara trolls, the Russian troll army, the Indonesian troll army etc etc etc.
Not sure what they conceptualize it as but they do tend to sealion.
Pretty sure Zucc has one as well, and that dodgy remote work company that advertises on Reddit definitely employs a couple of people.
The statement was “I could do without sea lions”. That’s a statement of opinion, not a bold claim.
Yeah there’s a difference. @dual_sport_dork described it well.
But no we’re not 100% immune from it. I’ve seen a few people try to do it.
To expand on what others have said:
If you say “Trump praised president Xi for being a ruler for life” and someone asks for a source. That’s fair because it’s a specific claim you can and should get a source for.
If youre saying “Trump is a right wing grifter” an someone asks for a source, they are sealioning, because its something that’s readily apparent to most people but would be more difficult to provide a source for and even if you did provide examples of him grifitng, the nature of a grift being a lie means it’s difficult to 100% conclusively prove, even if its obvious to everyone, it let’s the sealioner have plausible deniability to assume it’s nit a grift.
That’s when you start your next comment with “On this article I will provide logical proof that…” Then proceed to write a several thousand words treatise about the topic that slowly transitions into Shrek smut fanfiction, then try to see how far into the text they notice. People forget that a source is just a fancy way of saying “someone else said once that”. Not all sources are valid or authoritative. If I am making a subjective claim, I don’t need any fucking source, I am the source bitch.
Did anyone else read the sea lion’s voice in a British accent?
I read it in the voice of Ben Shapiro. Like nails on a chalkboard lol
I’m SO glad that I don’t know what that weasel sounds like.
He soundsexactly how you think he does.
I’m simultaneously envious of and happy for you that you don’t 😄
Nope. Australian.
I read it as Sexual Harassment Panda for some reason.
Ambien Walrus for me.
I would to have a civil conversation about your statement.
Yes, but I read all of their voices in a British accent because I’m British
stop that please
Other related argument techniques used on the internet (and elsewhere) often commingled with Sealioning:
Butwhataboutism is a pejorative for the strategy of responding to an accusation with a counter-accusation instead of a defense of the original accusation.
Also, ignoring the rebuttal and constantly shifting the attack to a tangentially related part of the discussion forcing the opponent to defend and rebut each new point, generally exhausting them and causing frustration and irritation.
JAQing off is a way of attempting to make wild accusations acceptable (and hopefully not legally actionable) by framing them as questions rather than statements.
Moving the Goalposts in which evidence presented in response to a specific claim is dismissed and some other (often greater) evidence is demanded. Closely related to butwhataboutism.
Appeal to Hypocrisy (tu quoque) basically tries to invalidate your opponent’s argument by using a “your side did it too, worse” and shift the argument to them defending themselves.
And don’t forget the good old ad hominem, where instead of addressing any points, it attacks the one who made it in an attempt to intimidate the one making the point and applying peer pressure on others reading it to keep them away from that position.
Had someone use that on me earlier today lol. They aren’t particularly effective on Lemmy, I’ve noticed. On Reddit, it depended on if they are for or against the popular circle jerk.
Important detail, regarding argumentum ad hominem (AAH): a lot of people incorrectly conflate the fallacy with insults, even if both things are independent. For example, let’s say that someone said “the Moon is made of green cheese”. Here are four possible answers:
Replies With insult Without insult With AAH You’re a bloody muppet, thus the Moon is made of rocks and dust. You’re no astronomer, thus the Moon is made of rocks and dust. Without AAH Yeah, because there’s totally cheese orbiting Earth for a bazillion years, right? Bloody muppet. Cheese wouldn’t be orbiting Earth for so long without spoiling. This conflation between ad hominem and insults interacts really funny with sealioning. Sometimes you get the sea lion claiming that you’re using AAH because you lost patience with its stupidity, but they’re also prone to use non-insulting AAH.
The insults never add anything useful to arguments and still appeal to the same basic things as insults alone, even if they are accompanied by logically sound arguments. And while they don’t logically weaken a position, they can emotionally weaken it for those who recognize frustration reactions as a sign of weakness.
Rage and anger might feel powerful, but they actually betray a sense of a lack of control. Trolls take advantage of this because it’s a sign they are getting to you. Plus it’s rare that people respond to insults by agreeing with the one who insulted them and the times when they do usually involve an appeal to authority (where the insulter has authority to back up their position and challenging them can have consequences).
If you’re measuring argument “strength” logically, the first paragraph is false; and if you’re doing it rhetorically, it’s misleading.
On logical grounds, insults neither add nor subtract appeal to the argument. That can be seen in the example: at the core, the argument in the bottom left could be rephrased to remove the insult, and it would still convey the same reasoning. Emotional factors shouldn’t be considered on first place..
And, on rhetorical grounds, insults can weaken or strengthen a position depending on the claim, context, and audience. (A good example of that would be the old “fuck off Nazi”.)
for those who recognize frustration reactions as a sign of weakness. [plus the second paragraph]
This is an audience matter, so it applies to the rhetorical strength of the argument, not the logical one: I don’t argument for the sake of assumers, and claims to recognise frustration out of how others convey an argument is assumer tier irrationality. As such, even if insults would weaken the argument for them, I don’t care.
In fact, they’re perhaps the major reason why I personally would recur to insults - to discourage their participation, since assumers are as much of a burden as sea lions (for roughly the same reasons).
If, however, you do argument for the benefit of this sort of trashy individual, be aware that even the assumers might react positively towards insults against a third party. Some will make shit up that you’re “weak” and “frustrated”; some, that you’re “strong” and “brave”. It’ll depend on the general acceptability of the claim that you’re making on first place.
Yep. That happens at the end when they get pissed they cannot “win”. Usually those engaged in the above tactics are well versed in exhausting their opponents rather than making it personal, though it does happen.
Also on the list is the Argument from fallacy : just because I’m an idiot who presented my stance poorly doesn’t mean I’m wrong, it just means I failed to prove I’m right
Or stated differently: A lack of proof is not a disproof. It’s not even evidence.
This comic sucks and openly defends racist rhetoric. Why is it so highly upvoted on Lemmy?
That’s not what this comic is about, although I can kind of see why you thought that.
Instead of just downvoting you, shakes head at fellow lemmings, I’ll explain what sealioning is.
“Sealioning is a type of trolling or harassment that consists of pursuing people with relentless requests for evidence, often tangential or previously addressed, while maintaining a pretense of civility and sincerity, and feigning ignorance of the subject matter.” - Wikipedia
Thank you for that!
The problem is the first frame. The woman says she doesn’t think a whole group shouldn’t exist. You can’t say that and expect a person from that group to ask why she thinks he should be dead… Replace the sealion with any minority group and you’ll see what I’m talking about.
Replace what she said with “trans women are women” or something progressive and I would be 100% on board with the comic. At best the comic is executed badly, at worst it’s an exercise in making anti-racists look bad.
It sounds like what you’re saying is that you only think it’s only bad for someone to sealion if you personally agree with the original sentiment, which is kind of missing the point.
Sealioning is always bad and it is a terrible debating style.
It’s about arguing in good faith, what ever the position and not just shutting down the debate via the text/verbal equivalent of a DDOS attack, simply overloading a target with questions via an insincere pretence of ignorance.
You see, the comic is meant to be ironic. The character says they don’t like sealions, then a sealion (which is a visual metaphor for the concept of sealioning) shows up and is increasingly unbearable for the next five panels despite maintaining a pretense of civility.
At best the comic is executed badly, at worst it’s an exercise in making anti-racists look bad.
How about making sea-lioning look bad. Because, you know, that’s what the comic says, straight-out, in the first panel: It’s anti sea-lion.
Doesn’t matter whether it’s a Jewish or Nazi or black or white or disabled sea-lion, it’s a sea-lion and they suck (solely or in addition to other reasons) because they’re sea-lions. Fuck sea-lions.
Gosh don’t you hate it when this happens?! The last Sea lion I encountered blocked the elevator at work for four consecutive workdays because he “politely” refused to accept that “lions” without kitty paws are an abomination and should either not exist or strive to get a new name. The audacity!
There’s two or three people I’ve interacted with here fairly regularly that perfectly fit this description.
Yup, deleting those losers who literally follow you for days arguing over the stupidest shit ever is very liberating. There’s an air born squid I’ve blocked that’s made this place far more tolerable LoL.
I usually don’t block them. It’s better to see what they’re saying and be able to warn others about them. Also, I report their nonsense propaganda as misinformation as I see it- which is seemingly most of what they say.
Doing my part to keep lemmy from falling into a far-left biased hellhole.
I think by this point everyone on the Fediverse has argued with them and felt the same exasperation.
That man has the patience of an angel.
Can you get her out of my car please?
I remember this from several years ago. Not one Youtube commenter took her side
[Warning: contains real sea lions doing funny stuff.]
Yeah, I can’t help but feel that the message of this comic would be turned on it’s head if you’d replace the sea lion with a Jew, black, Palestinian, gay, trans, etc…
I think an important part is that the sea lion is pretending to be civil while still being extremely annoying. It’s adjacent to the whole thing of saying vile things with civil language (then getting upset when people respond uncivilly).
Yep, if it were different it would mean something else
I do see where you were coming from, but it’s hard not to sum up your comment as “if this were racist, it’d be racist”.
Yeah I interpreted the meme as them being sealion-phobic. The sealion was therefore rightfully offended and wanted to debate. However, the sea lion should’ve gone away after the 4th panel and not broke into the guys house.
Source: I am trans and would not break into a mildly annoying persons house harrasing them for a source.
Better just leave the annoying people be yeah. You’re not changing opinions by reinforcing them
And? Discrimating against someone for their race, gender, or sexuality is bad. Discriminating against someone for being a jerk is fine.
It’s a clever method of trolling. But if you come prepared and/or are willing to put some effort in, you actually can wreck them with evidence and sound arguments that shuts them completely up.
This is very satisfying.
It’s also frustrating because there are people who are sincerely trying to discuss in good faith while having a different opinion, which is camouflage for the sealion trolls.
Of course, people increasingly forget about the former group completely, and react with hostility… It’s understandable, but unfortunate for healthy discussion.
At least in your case, your response is to lay out robust arguments to explain your position, which is productive regardless of whether they’re trolling or sincere. I’ve learned a great deal over the years from strangers on the internet putting a clinic on someone who may or may not have been trolling.
Accusing people of “sealioning” is a great way to not have to defend or discuss poorly thought out or sourced claims.
True, which is why if someone accuses you of sealioning you should be prepared to explain your position and the reasoning you used to get there. Not asking questions of them but instead explaining your own position.
Well, in the specific case provided in the comic, the sealion has no position he can explain since the other side refuses to even establish how he got to his opinion.
I guess a corollary would be, first, don’t actually sealion.
The problem I see is when the original poster didn’t explain their point of view, but complain when you ask them to clarify.
So, the issue is that behaviorwise they’re indistinguishable from each other.
Intentionally or unintentionally ignoring signals that a person isn’t interested in debate or discussion with you is just as annoying to the person being bothered either way.
It doesn’t matter if your intentions are sincere or not when you decide to pester someone into a debate they’re not interested in having.
Yeah true, the persistent pestering component is arguably always trolling. I guess that’s one of the signals that you can use to distinguish.
I can still think of gray areas, but I guess that’s why it’s effective camouflage.
Another signal is their complete lack of interest in anything you’ve said outside of what they want to pester you about.
This is why we need seal clubbing
Pardon me, I couldn’t help but overhear…
Would you mind showing me evidence of any negative thing any sea lion has ever done to you?
I’m just curious if you have any sources to back up your opinion that seal lions need clubbing.
Fair enough, could you club me instead?
IM GONNA CLUB THIS SEAL TO MAKE A BETTER DEAL
Beat and kill them while they’re young and innocent before they become well informed, intelligent adults that can counter and challenge your firmly held beliefs?
I don’t know. They stay out too late, get way too drunk and make a terrible racket when they get home.
Can you provide evidence of one time this has ever happened in your area?
I constantly see ads for hot tight seals in my area.
Care to provide any evidence to support this claim? I would like to have a civil discussion with you about this. /s
Just an anecdotal account. I was expressing my own experiences and how they make me feel, for which it would be challenging and largely unnecessary to provide evidence to a random dumbass on the internet, yes?
/not s, an example
Perfect response!
If your feelings are irrational, it’s incumbent on you as a rational person to examine them and separate emotion from fact. Since you have no facts to back up your feelings, clearly the feelings are irrational and should not be used to inform your actions or viewpoints, correct?
Not if I’m recounting a personal experience, no. Humans are not purely rational creatures, otherwise laissez faire capitalism would solve all the world’s problems.
If I wished to be purely rational, then perhaps. But personally I do not think all feelings are worth disregarding.
Would you mind providing evidence of a scenario in which it’s good to be irrational? Because it sounds like you have some level of distaste for being rational, but I’m not seeing any source to back that up.
Would you mind providing evidence of a scenario in which it’s good to be irrational?
I think I found the seal club, guys.
Asking someone to provide evidence of a scenario in which something is irrational is an irrational thing to ask. I’ll state why with a kind of example. So, say you have the choice between two boxes of corn flakes. You look between the two, and you decide to pick one. You, you specifically, decide to pick one. Perhaps, the red one, over the blue one, I can’t state this for you. Make up a reason why you chose that box. Now, this reason, which you have chosen, would it necessarily be a rational reason, for you to have chosen the box you did?
Presumably, yes, unless you’re going to argue against yourself, and say that, in this instance, it’s actually good to be irrational. In this instance, then, you’ve made a rational decision, you had a reason to believe the thing that you did. Now, taking this example, and what I’ve formerly said, about you not being irrational, in mind, can you think of any given scenario in which you’ve ever made an irrational decision? Perhaps you can, even, and it was bad, but also, presumably, you thought it was a rational decision at the time. It was probably (here is maybe where it gets iffy) only in hindsight, that you thought your previous belief was irrational.
Taking this into account, and extrapolating off of that experience, we can intuit that they probably didn’t mean what you meant when you (not you, the other guy, but also you right now I suppose) said the word “irrational”, they don’t share your definition of it. Because, kind of, based on these examples I’ve given, there would never be a circumstance in which it would make sense, i.e., “be rational”, for someone to make an irrational decision. This is a straight paradox, if we take that definition to be what they meant.
Then, considering this, right, we can assume they probably meant something else, other than what you have assumed. I will not claim to know what they meant.
Blam, sea lion that, motherfucker. You probably can if you tried really hard, but blam. Sea lion it. (this could be a pretty good example of sea-lioning, too, I gave you some pretty low-stakes, specific stuff to contest, there, that isn’t really part of the main argument, i.e. it’s the definition of a sealion).
Nah, I don’t feel like it. But if I were to do so, I’d probably say something like “this is laughably absurd, come back when you know how to debate” so as to avoid letting you steer the conversation.
No, that’s a frankly absurd request. What is or is not “good” is not something sourceable, it’s an entirely subjective question. What makes you think everything has some definitive source?
Excuse you, I’m being polite here and you’re calling me absurd. Can’t a person have a civil conversation without devolving into name-calling? And why haven’t you given a source? Are you unable to back up your claims, or are you unwilling to engage in rational dialogue?
they don’t shut up though, they just change topics
e.g. @clubbing4198/lemmy.worldyou tried to provide an argument and then failed when i replied with evidence as to why you were wrong and then you just responded to as many comments as you could saying im spam after saying “fuck you”. you labeled me as MAGA when you have no evidence other than im critical of biden and establishment dems.
i clearly disproved your point but you just continue on… pretending like you “won”
and im calling you maga spam because of the shear volume of lie and disinformation that is anti-biden, and “biden is worse than trump”fuck off, maga spam
im not pro biden, anyways… im anti-trump
Show me one thing i have said that is pro tump? Biden is just as bad as trump not worse. Do not put words in my mouth
i clearly disproved your point
the one about immigration. the one regarding this information: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/13/title-42-migration-biden-new-policy-tougher
But for more than a year, Biden kept, and defended in court, Trump’s most sweeping border restriction: the Title 42 emergency order that allowed agents to cite the Covid-19 pandemic to quickly expel migrants without hearing asylum claims.
And this:
cause you were saying that biden has done well for immigration. those articles read contrary to that narrative
fuck off, maga spam
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if you start the line with a # it is a LOT bigger. be sure to include a space after the # though
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Pardon me, I couldn’t help but overhear. Would you mind showing me evidence of any negative thing Biden has ever done to you personally?
You seem like the AT&T of people.
Just call it out and redirect back to the topic. It’s like training a dog.
you can train a LLM like a dog…
Sealioning is a type of trolling or harassment that consists of pursuing people with relentless requests for evidence, often tangential or previously addressed, while maintaining a pretense of civility and sincerity, and feigning ignorance of the subject matter.
Often the troll will just shift slightly and keep making demands regardless of evidence.
Don’t let them dictate the convo. You can assert control as well, don’t let them lead uncontested.
What’s your usual method of parry?
i don’t answer questions (present thread excepted). i insist someone say plainly what it is they are getting at. and if they refuse that’s that. if they persist in asking, i tell them not to be petulant. and if they present an argument, and it’s sound, i usually just let that stand. if it’s unsound, i let them know.
and, of course, one of the best ways is to never take a strong position yourself that can be sealioned.
It depends too much on way too many factors. Generally I’ll be almost as polite as they’re being.
Convos usually involve turn-taking though, so once you’ve provided evidence or a sound argument, you should not be forced to do it again. It should be their turn to assert something, and then possibly have to provide whatever.
Just don’t let the opportunity pass to treat them exactly, or potentially slightly worse, depending, than they’re treating you. Don’t stay on defense, assert, ask questions, directly contradict, whatever is needful.
When repetition occurs I link to the previous point in the conversation.
For me, relentless mockery is best
Inform them that you’re wise to their game, and furthermore, they’re an idiot. Doesn’t cede the field to them but doesn’t let them persist in bad faith questions.
Internet arguments are like a rock paper scissors game of evidence based arguments, sealioning, and good old fashioned trolling.
Remember the original discussion and don’t take the bait to deviate. “We are not talking about X, we are talking about Y as originally posted by OP and I will not follow you down your rabbit hole.”
Still sounds like feeding the troll
The point is not to fight the troll.
The point is to inform the lurkers.
Exactly this.
If done poorly it very much is. But practice makes you better at it.
It’s easier said than done, but it can be done. The key is to unleash your inner troll and embrace the “u mad bro” while being
I recommend engaging once or twice in good faith, then hounding them to make a hard claim you can disprove. If they don’t, start politely asking if there’s any part they’d like to elaborate on while dropping implications they didn’t read or understand what you said, and then asking about their beliefs on the topic.
It happened to me on Lemmy a while ago, I don’t think the guy was actually a troll (I think he just didn’t like what I had to say about the world bank and imf being the reason central and South America have stayed so poor despite incredible natural resources)
The dude got so mad he started going through my old posts and calling me a hypocrite. But he made a mistake, that was a hard claim - there was no contradiction in my beliefs and stance. I slapped him down a few times before realizing my posts from days ago were getting a lot of responses
Once I started recognizing the username and realized what happened, I started getting patronizing… It was oh so satisfying. I kind of wish he’d kept going for longer
I love reverse trolling trolls, all of the fun and none of the guilt
This strip has always rubbed me the wrong way. If you make a statement in a public forum, don’t be surprised when the public responds. They are not entitled to your attention, but you’re not entitled to their silence. I will not be providing any sources to back up my position, but I’m sure your requests for them will be very witty.
If you make a statement in a public forum, don’t be surprised when the public responds
Sure. That’s not what sealioning is, though. As the comic illustrates, sealioning is bad faith weaponizing of false politeness and feigned high mindedness, not honest inquiry.
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Sure, but the comic both starts with a public comment that they still refused to engage with and makes it like, weirdly racist?
It’s funny, but diffuses the message a bit.
It does stick with you though, so it has that going for it.
How was it a “public comment”? Two people were talking to one another. The sealion interrupted their conversation and inserted itself into it. Then it followed them around instead of fucking off when shown it was not welcome in their even more private lives. Not everything needs to be a debate, not everything said needs to be debunked / supported by evidence beyond every miniscule amount of doubt. Know when to leave, simple.
Mr. Sealion overhears a conversation in public with clearly racist messaging and politely asks why he’s hated.
Then he does things that depict the blatant stereotyping as correct.
You guys can pretend it’s not on the whole a weird message if you want, it just makes you the lesser for it.
Or the “sealion” represents the kinds of people that engages in that behavior and has nothing to do with race.
that’s the cool part about “representing” and “racism”
I don’t hate POC, I just hate the “urban”, “lazy”, “criminal”, etc…
you know those KINDS of people (look, I can’t help it that the terfs who made this shit also happen to side with nazis)
So why did the author use language deliberately evocative of racial debates?
Because the author, humorously, made the sealion a sealion
“sealion” is not a race.
So why did the author use language deliberately evocative of racial debates?
Her: I don’t mind most people. But racists? I could do without racists.
Him: Don’t say that out loud!
racist: Pardon me, I couldn’t help but overhear…
Him: Now you’ve done it
[…]
My edit kind of ruins the whole sea lion sealioning visual joke but I hope my point comes across well enough.
I am sure some people who troll racist would do some sealioning but they are doing it in bad faith cus. Ya know, racists.
I get that you can group people based on race but you can also do it based on what they believe in, which I feel the latter is what most people thought David Malki was going for.
…is this satire?
To add what other people have said: the sealion in the comic is following them around and being obnoxious. It even follows them to their bedroom.
One aspect of sealioning is continually trying to “debate” someone for something they once said, even if they’re currently engaged in a completely unrelated conversation.
But the reality they’re referencing is someone being “in their house” in the sense of being in their tweet replies. Nobody is following you around online, you’re carrying them around in your pocket.
Nobody is following you around online
i invite you to look at my inbox
What inbox? Like people are sending you angry emails? Still doesn’t really have a “following you around” vibe.
my inbox on lemmy. there are users who will follow me from thread to thread harassing me about an argument we had days ago, or will bring it up out of context if i reply to them, which happens often when i don’t pay attention to the username. some of them make posts an comments whining about how biased the mods are when their harassing comments are removed or they get banned, and some have even gone so far as to start maintaining multiple identities to continue to spread misinformation and harass me and other users.
and the invitation to see my inbox was a bit hyperbolic. in truth, you only need to look at my comment history and the few individuals with whom i have had protracted disagreements should leap out at you.
some people will definitely follow you around online if you rub them the wrong way.
That seems more like you are going to hang out in a place where those people also hang out, and are encountering them there, as opposed to them following you around.
that’s, obviously, not how I would characterize it, but if you need to be right you can think whatever you want.
I invite you to not look at your phone, the internet is ironically not a private place
i don’t understand what this means
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The proper response would have been to apologize at the first opportunity.
I wonder if Malki finds the coining of this term to be his greatest accomplishment. I know I would.
I asked for Malki’s authorization to put a translated version in my Spanish-language website and he was very quick to allow it. He seems to be a nice guy.
I love that he has made his site accessible and even friendly to people who view it in different ways. His RSS feed is pristine, for example.
Hee hee. I feel like the one being sealioned most of the time. It doesn’t matter what I say, “I should like to have a reasonable debate about what you said. What proof do you have that this has ever happened, and if you don’t say something I like I’ll be back again to hound you about it until you validate me in a way that I sorely need.”
Some people view every exchange on the internet as some sort of formal academic discourse, it’s pretty weird. Can you imagine someone acting like that in person? You’d clearly tell them to fuck off, it’s totally obnoxious.
Exactly. And some people view every post as some kind of assault on their own views or values. It makes me reluctant to post anything that may be quite radical or a unique take on something, because no matter my intentions, someone takes umbridge at it (and they really shouldn’t, we need the wood).
Anyway - I don’t mean to step on anyone’s sacred cow when I post things, I’m just trying to bring a new slant or point of view most of the time. I’m fine with someone saying “I disagree, and here’s why.” I’m not fine with people saying, “I disagree because you’re a stupid idiot.”
Is is weird that when I see a comic, there’s an inverse relationship between the depth and detail of the drawing and my likelihood of reading the strip?
Entirely irrational, I know.
Not irrational. The “detail” in this style of comic is visual clutter that makes it actually significantly harder to see what’s in the panel right away
“I think eggplant tastes horrible”
“Got a source to back that up?”
Yep, sounds about like some motherfuckers around here.
Yep, sounds about like some motherfuckers around here.
Got a source to back that up?
Sure, Right here.
