It is much easier to see if you see participating in a discussion to have intrinsic value in and of itself than if you just want to win arguments.
That’s fair, but I personally don’t think people should be making clearly opinionated statements in Great Debates or in Elections.
Well, the original comic for one.
The thread where HD got a warning for another. Seems strange for posters to just throw around “TREASON!” and when asked to define treason, or what is “treasonous” about Trump’s actions, instead of simply saying “Well, in my opinion, it’s treason because of such and such” or “In my opinion it is treason, I don’t care what the definitions are or what legal precedents there are” they simply double-down by implying the questioner agrees with Trump and hates freedom or whatever. And then later get moderators involved because they don’t want to admit that their opinion has no basis in anything.
I face that a lot when I’m looking for someone’s opinion or clarification of what a poster means when they state something “opinionated”. Seems a lot of people are afraid to give clear, direct answers to what their opinions are, lest they be accused of having the “wrong” opinion or end up looking stupid because their opinion is baseless.
[Moderating]
It’s against board rules to replace another poster’s quoted text with editorial content, even when it’s complimentary.
No warning issued, but please try to avoid this in the future.
[/Moderating]
Where is Annoyed Grunt when you need him, anyway?
I remember his post and that one really got under my skin. Here’s why – if you think a poster has said something incorrect, don’t just, Socrates-like, ask why the poster thought what someone did is treasonous. Explain why the poster is wrong – HD clearly had something in mind, so just put it right there in the post. That post was like fingers on the blackboard to me.
Sorry about that. I thought the brackets may have made it OK – what is the best way to respond to a poster without reproducing the whole post? Just three dots? @[poster]?
All opinions are ultimately baseless.
And I do see the posters justifying their opinions about whether or not a given action is treason or some such, but it is impossible to justify an opinion to someone else’s complete satisfaction, even if those two people are in agreement, much less if they are not. If you keep digging at it, then yes, you will eventually run into where the poster cannot justify their opinion any further, and as you just said, if someone’s opinion is baseless, then they look stupid. That is the entire point of the tactic, is to try to make someone else look stupid for daring to venture out an opinion that they cannot justify to your satisfaction.
Once again, it is not the request for further information that is sealioning. It is the repeated demand for further and further information and justifications that is sealioning.
For instance: tell me your favorite color, and then tell me why.
Pretty sure Supreme Court opinions are based on something 
I don’t believe asking someone to explain their opinion is making them look stupid, unless the opinion is, in fact, stupid.
Sorry, that tactic doesn’t work on me 
But since you asked:
I don’t really have a favorite color, but most of my dress shirts are blue because I can mix and match my blue ties with my blue shirts and know they usually don’t clash. So I guess it’s blue.
I don’t know about “best,” but I’d probably just quote take the post’s first sentence, or first clause of the first sentence and throw in some ellipses, then make “That’s a thoughtful post,” part of your response.
That would mean no single opinion has a foundation in fact. That is a helluva claim.
I realize that it doesn’t help much to say that this is a “one knows it when one sees it” phenomenon, but it applies here. I only happened upon the Internet term “sealion” recently. It perfectly captures a common variation of “concern troll” that I’ve occasionally laboriously described from scratch, as it were; the term provoked a “Eureka!” response.
It immediately took me back to “Old Joe”, an archtypal sealion: “Old Joe” turned up at Glenn Greenwald’s Salon comments threads, c. 2005 or so. He presented himself as a well-meaning older geezer who was impressed as hell by the general quality of the comments threads, and very 'umbly hoped that the intelligent, well-informed, astute commenters would be willing to better “help” him understand domestic political and geopolitical matters.
He began with pathetic self-abnegation, admitting that he wasn’t too knowledgeable about current events and couldn’t contribute much. But was it OK if he hung around to ask some questions and maybe learn a few things?
Beneath this deferential Uriah Heep guise of participating as a late-blooming political novice, he slowly but surely disclosed his own ironclad reactionary, right-wing views. Meanwhile, he came to hijack and dominate threads by constantly feigning submissive ignorance or confusion; for a long time, many commenters took him at face value and obligingly stopped to answer his questions and attempt to resolve and clarify his piteous perplexity.
I never really fell for Old Joe’s act, especially when I noticed that he remained entirely unaffected by all of the worthwhile discussion and responses he got; in a nutshell, Old Joe posed the same questions and apprehensions over and over again, as if he were expressing them for the first time. The courtroom objection “Asked and answered!” comes to mind.
Moreover, he came to defend his positions by repeating alleged facts and arguments that had previously been aired out and debunked or refuted, usually more than once-- at which time, Old Joe would 'umbly admit that he “stood corrected”. This went on for too long, because there were always a few new or imperceptive commenters willing to be strung along; well-meaning commenters unfamiliar with his MO would sympathetically defend him.
As the more perspicacious commenters began to catch on and call him out, Old Joe retreated to hand-wringing dismay-- gee whiz, why were people being so mean to him, since he was just an 'umble guy trying to get a better understanding of important sociopolitical issues? But his air of injured defensiveness was clearly passive-aggressive-- clearly to me, anyway.
I can’t remember if Old Joe finally just disappeared, or if he was still going strong when I moved on. But I regard him as an Alpha Sealion.
Yes, upon the opinions of the judges.
If you start from the standpoint that their opinion is stupid, and your goal is to make them look stupid for having that opinion, then you asking them to “explain” their opinion is trying to make them look stupid.
So, what do you have against red? I don’t understand why you don’t prefer red to blue, as obviously, red is a far superior color. Could you explain your reasoning in choosing blue over red, please? I’m just trying to have a reasonable civil conversation about why you seem to have something against red.
Conclusions have foundations in fact. Opinions do not.
Hmm. I guess I was wrong!
That hurts almost as walking out of the basement and into the sun. 
See, Shodan? Someone admitting error!
Because insulting someone and being hostile like your example is relatively clear cut. Asking for proof when someone is accused of treason, which is a capital crime, seems like it’s actually relevant to a thread talking about impeachment. Too often words like treason are used with absolutely no justification merely to shape a narrative or score political points. I actually have more of a problem with people who dishonestly call others treasonous, or nazis, or whatever or use the deliberately inflammatory word of the day than I do with those who want those words used narrowly and properly.
<collapses onto fainting couch>
Well shit, you might as well shut down those forums then.
I think your obsession with the meaning of treason is nothing more than trying to silence people you disagree with.
It’s used for various reasons and in various circumstances. However, a very common one is when the so-called “sea lion“ has put the person they are politely questioning in an awkward position, and that person would rather not have to actually justify their stance because they really can’t, other than “this is what we woke people have collectively agreed to insist is the truth, without need of logic or evidence; and by asking that some be provided, you are demonstrating yourself to be right wing scum and beneath my contempt”. :dubious:
…I can assure you that there is no bad faith going on with my argument. On the contrary, in that particular thread **you **argued in bad faith.
But that’s beside the point.
I think everyone here is pushing the boundaries of what sealioning is: at least in terms of the original meaning. Sealioning had its origins around the goobergate debacle, and while “trolling” is a key component to what sealioning is, the other part of the definition, harassment, is an **intrinsic **part of the definition in my eyes. Without it then you simply have trolling, or disingenuous/bad faith debating. I don’t see Hurricane’s behaviour as sealioning. His intent isn’t to harass. There are millions of Americans that agree with him. He holds positions that I find infuriating. But I personally can’t separate the term from the way I saw it being used during goobergate, and not much on this board comes close to meeting that definition in my personal opinion.