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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The statement was “I could do without sea lions”. That’s a statement of opinion, not a bold claim.
Depends if the person wants to answer or avoid the question. If they want to avoid it, you’re sea lioning.