Have you come across the term “sealioning”? First time I saw it in the sidebar of a liberal lemmy instance and now I noticed it was mentioned off hand in a blog post I was reading where another blog post about it was casually linked: http://simplikation.com/why-sealioning-is-bad/
For the longest time I had never heard of this term. It seems to be related to someone persistently asking for evidence. Most of the discussion and truth seeking I have done online has been in Marxist circles and while it is not always high quality I have never once preceived someone or been perceived as a troll for asking for evidence which is why this whole thing is confusing to me.
There is some thing that I would like to acknowledge first. It is completely possible to use a Socratic line of questioning to argue in bad faith and waste someone’s time. If you dig deep enough into someone’s worldview it is likely you will hit a wall of presupposition or common sense for which the person does not have any supporting evidence at hand.
But I have never seen this tactic being deployed systematically. I have never been sealioned. Sometimes I have made claims which I haven’t been able to support with evidence but when that has been pointed out, it has been embarassing but I haven’t felt like some cheap tactic was used to discredit. And this has happened very rarely. If you read the linked comic strip in the linked blog post, it reads very weird. It feels like circular logic but I think its not quite that.
I feel like I’ve been sealioned in the federated instances. It’s why I only browse by local/subscribed now, and if I do venture out and talk politics, I cut myself off if the liberalism/reaction is terminal.
I met it in particular with Ukraine. I would explain my view and be met with a question like, ‘but don’t you agree that Putin is a bad man?’ as if the answer or question were relevant. Then I’d clarify my point and get asked another asinine question, perhaps the same question re-phrased in a hundred different ways.
It’s the everyday-liberal’s filibuster.
I think sealioning can be coupled with moving the goal posts, as the sealion will refuse to understand your point and ask a question that is transparently intended to make you agree with them and admit that you were wrong.
You see a similar thing with Palestine. You can give whatever analysis you like and your interlocutor will repeatedly spam variations of ‘Do you condemn Hamas?’ It could be a mental block for them. Like they’ve been trained not to understand that Israel is a genocidal settler colonial apartheid state unless you agree that it’s justified in some way (only then can you try to find common ground that genocide might be bad).
Idk. When it’s happened, I’ve maybe given people too much credit. Maybe they really just don’t understand, can’t comprehend what I’m saying. I guess it’s like this: liberalism stands for unprincipled compromise and liberals naturally sealion until every critic has given up or abandoned their own principles, too.