I don’t think so, obviously (given my reply above). I know I had the same initial impression that the cartoon was a bit odd, and only got the point later (I think) when sealioning was explained to me more explicitly.
Over the years I’ve seen too much of that shit. People (assholes) keep asking for cites and proof and evidence, and then they ignore it and keep blabbering the same lying bullshit as before.
So, I stopped playing their game. I won’t provide cites because they will be ignored. More cites will be “asked for”. I won’t give “evidence” because it will be ignored. More “evidence” will be asked for.
So now as soon as it starts, I jump right to the bile and insults. It’s a huge time saver.
But even when everyone is debating in good faith, it’s pretty naive to enter any debate and ever expect to change the opinion of someone who has enough to conviction to support the opposing position. In general, the people you may influence in carefully laying out evidence and arguments are third party lurkers who may be less familiar with the issue - genuinely open-minded people are less likely to comment at all, I think. I don’t think it’s worth expending too much thought on somebody’s motivations except when they are actively disrupting. Best to just participate when you think your contribution may be of value to another reader in context.
I still think the cartoon is odd as it seems more to be based on attacking someone personally and then being unwilling to make a case for your attack. I may be missing something here but the woman did state that she didn’t like sealions did she not? If i insert any other race, nationality, sex etc. into that cartoon would you not think it perfectly reasonable for the woman to be challenged on such an opinion?
The debating technique supposedly embodied by the cartoon is real and annoying but the cartoon makes a terrible case for it. The point is well worth making but that cartoon doesn’t do it. Of course now that it has been wrapped up in the handy shorthand term “sealioning” it becomes possible to just chuck that accusation at someone in lieu of actually having to defend what you say safe in the knowledge that no further effort is required on your part.
And sure enough it has already happened to me right here. If I criticise the cartoon and the weakness or muddled thinking of its message it gets labelled as “sealioning” which pretty clearly shows the weakness of the concept.
How about animal? What if she says she doesn’t like horses, or cats, or wombats? She’s not talking about a person, she is not taking about a race, the author chose very specifically to make it an animal. A talking animal, sure, but apparently in that universe * that’s what sea lions do*. They follow people around, askng for cites and evidence and even following them into their home! I wouldn’t like that either. Maybe you would.
No, it is being unwilling to engage with any and all who demand that one’s opinion be justified to their satisfaction before any conversation can continue.
You could also insert any movie, band, or celebrity into the cartoon, and the point would be just as valid. My personal distaste for something, whether it is socially acceptable to have such a distaste or not, does not need to be justified to you,just because you demand I do so.
No, the cartoon does not tell the whole story, it is simply an “parable” as it were. It strikes the right chord, and puts a name to a very real form of trolling.
Ravenman’s list is a much better descriptor than the cartoon, which only showed a snapshot of one aspect of the technique.
To be fair, between several intentional over the top sealions in this thread, and the fact that your post was essentially asking for a cite that the woman in the comic had a reason to not care for sealions, I really couldn’t tell for sure if you were messing with us.
Though it takes more the repeated insistence for citing of irrelevant information and justifications of opinions to make it into a trolling tactic.
Lets say you say you could do without the Beatles, and so I then start demanding you justify your opinion, as obviously, the Beatles are the best band ever, and you must convince me that I am wrong about this before I allow you to talk about anything else.
Regardless of that disingenuous explanation, it’s pretty clear that the bigotry is a feature and not a bug. “Sea lions” are obviously straight cisgender white guys. This insult, like “mansplaining”, is intended as some sort of force field to prevent woke people (mostly women) from having to actually defend their arguments when challenged in a civil manner* by straight white dudes. A not terribly distant cousin is “Islamophobia”.
*This is key, because we have seen a lot of feminists getting attacked by non-civil and even threatening straight white dudes. That was easy to dismiss for obvious reasons. But when they increasingly encountered guys who challenged their arguments without being threatening or even using abusive language, they had to come up with some excuse to not be expected to defend their points with evidence and logic.
True, but that’s a point clouded by the clumsiness of the cartoon.
It clearly was nothing of the sort. There was no request for any citation at all. You have had to insert that in order to make your mistaken accusation credible. Here’s my first post in full
No request for a cite in any way shape or form, not a hint of “sealioning” either in the narrow form within the cartoon, nor with regards to the expanded list that **Ravenman **provided.
What I actually did was criticise the cartoon for being unclear and ambiguous, the fact that a further clarification was needed by the author is an admission of this. The fact that a thread is needed to unpick what it means suggests it is not as simple as some may think. I suspect we’d not need a thread to explain what point 4) of Ravenman’s list means
Ravenman’s list is a far more helpful reminder of debating techniques that can be deployed dishonestly and they are a very common technique used particulary (in my experience) for debates of a religious nature. I’d include the famous “Gish Gallop” in there as well. But there is a danger in creating a term such as “sealion” which purports to encompass those terms and even more nebulous stuff because, guess what, asking for citations and pushing people to define their terms and back up their arguments can all be absolutely valid and necessary for productive debate so being able dshonestly label any such examples of that as “sealioning” is not helpful.
