Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
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Sealioning is not about the content of the discussion. It is about a discussionstyle.
Don't get the two mixed. If you're trolling: good job! Have some meaningless internetpoints from me!
If you genuinly don't know what the problem with sealioning is, I suggest you read up on it some more:
"Rhetorically, sealioning fuses persistent questioning—often about basic information, information easily found elsewhere, or unrelated or tangential points—with a loudly-insisted-upon commitment to reasonable debate. It disguises itself as a sincere attempt to learn and communicate. Sealioning thus works both to exhaust a target's patience, attention, and communicative effort, and to portray the target as unreasonable. While the questions of the "sea lion" may seem innocent, they're intended maliciously and have harmful consequences. — Amy Johnson, Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society (May 2019)"
I can see why only seeing that comic makes you come to questions like you asked ("what if it were black people?") But these questions are questions about content rather then the form of sealioning. Of course it is not wrong to ask for sources in a debate. Or to ask questions. It is however, harmful to impose bad-faith, or even ignore boundaries that are given by the other party (hence the sealion being in bed with its debater in the comic, which is entirely inappropriate of the sealion.)
Or another definition:
*"Internet trolls sometimes engage in what is called 'sealioning'. They demand that you keep arguing with them for as long they want you to, even long after you realize that further discussion is pointless. If you announce that you want to stop, they accuse you of being closed-minded or opposed to reason. The practice is obnoxious. Reason should not be silenced, but it needs to take a vacation sometimes. — Walter Sinnot-Armstront, Think Again: How to Reason and Argue (June 2018)." *