How do you tell the difference between someone asking you to show evidence for your claims, or clarifying your point, or having a normal conversation with you - and sealioning?
The bottom line, especially on the internet, is that you can’t be certain. But there are telltales that might clue you into whether or not they are asking a legitimate question or just throwing out doubt by stringing along the conversation. In this particular case, probably the easiest thing to do is just look at his user profile. He is a troll. There is no reason to assume good faith and no reason to pay any attention to what he has to say. Best to just block and move on.
I just think that whenever there is any discourse on the internet where 2 people disagree (for the record I disagree with that guy as well), people just immediately throw out buzz words as a way to shut down the conversation. It’s so irritating to me.
Sealioning!
Slippery slope!
Bad faith!
Gish Gallop!
It’s so cringe to me. People just try to figure out a word for what the other person is doing so they get to stop actually trying to intelligently debate them.
There’s some truth to that but the problem is you don’t have the time or mental energy to deal with every single instance like this, especially if you spend much time online. The poster has absolutely nothing to contribute. They’re dragging it out for the sake of dragging it out, and in effect it’s arguing in bad faith. whether you want to follow up on that and try to engage everyone fully, that’s your call. But I don’t think most people would care that much because the poster just doesn’t have anything to contribute.

I guess I very rarely see anyone try at all. And in lots of cases it just eliminates any possibility of actually changing a person’s mind. Just calling them a name makes them hate you more and entrenches them in their opinion.
I guess I don’t have a solution the internet is just a fucking sewer.
“Sealioning (also sea-lioning and sea lioning) 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 (“I’m just trying to have a debate”), and feigning ignorance of the subject matter. It may take the form of “incessant, bad-faith invitations to engage in debate”,] and has been likened to a denial-of-service attack targeted at human beings.”
It’d be great if we had some kind of tool for looking up information on the internet. Some kind of engine that does searching for you. It’d make things so much easier when people don’t understand something. They could look it up themselves instead of acting like they can’t and don’t know what it means. I guess we can always hope for such a thing someday.
How do you tell the difference between someone asking you to show evidence for your claims, or clarifying your point, or having a normal conversation with you - and sealioning?
Can you give examples of both cases?
The bottom line, especially on the internet, is that you can’t be certain. But there are telltales that might clue you into whether or not they are asking a legitimate question or just throwing out doubt by stringing along the conversation. In this particular case, probably the easiest thing to do is just look at his user profile. He is a troll. There is no reason to assume good faith and no reason to pay any attention to what he has to say. Best to just block and move on.
I just think that whenever there is any discourse on the internet where 2 people disagree (for the record I disagree with that guy as well), people just immediately throw out buzz words as a way to shut down the conversation. It’s so irritating to me.
Sealioning! Slippery slope! Bad faith! Gish Gallop!
It’s so cringe to me. People just try to figure out a word for what the other person is doing so they get to stop actually trying to intelligently debate them.
There’s some truth to that but the problem is you don’t have the time or mental energy to deal with every single instance like this, especially if you spend much time online. The poster has absolutely nothing to contribute. They’re dragging it out for the sake of dragging it out, and in effect it’s arguing in bad faith. whether you want to follow up on that and try to engage everyone fully, that’s your call. But I don’t think most people would care that much because the poster just doesn’t have anything to contribute. 
I guess I very rarely see anyone try at all. And in lots of cases it just eliminates any possibility of actually changing a person’s mind. Just calling them a name makes them hate you more and entrenches them in their opinion.
I guess I don’t have a solution the internet is just a fucking sewer.
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To add another buzzword or rather proverb: pick your battles!
I 100% agree. If you disagree with the hivemind you’re a troll or some other pejorative label and they try to just shut you down and dismiss you.
People on here like to think they’re better than on reddit but they are exactly the same.
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What’s a leading question?
Hehe.
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“Sealioning (also sea-lioning and sea lioning) 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 (“I’m just trying to have a debate”), and feigning ignorance of the subject matter. It may take the form of “incessant, bad-faith invitations to engage in debate”,] and has been likened to a denial-of-service attack targeted at human beings.”
It’d be great if we had some kind of tool for looking up information on the internet. Some kind of engine that does searching for you. It’d make things so much easier when people don’t understand something. They could look it up themselves instead of acting like they can’t and don’t know what it means. I guess we can always hope for such a thing someday.
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