I understand where you’re coming from, but it’ll be easy to tell. Someone who’s sealioning will skip or “forget” points you’ve already made when they’re making their counter arguments. The conversation will be irritating and demanding.
Someone who genuinely wants to discuss and learn won’t wear on you that way. Their replies won’t have that “I outsmarted you and you’re an idiot” kind of feel. It’s hard to explain, but people can recognize the difference. I don’t think there’s a threat to honest debate here.
Yes, it’s possible to confuse sealions with people who are simply rude and obnoxious, but since I don’t like talking to either one, I don’t much care.
The problem is not that it’s hard to to tell who is or is not sealioning. The problem is people using “sealioning” to go on the offensive against those who ask them to provide evidence or citations for their statements.
Fortunately, common sense usually works there, too. If person A makes highly specific or unusual statement, person B reasonably asks for a source, and person A angrily responds with defensiveness and accusations, then it’s pretty clear that person A was talking out of their ass.
Forgetting points that were already made is something that I commonly encounter, but I just attribute that to people being generally forgetful. I don’t have any expectation of other people putting in much effort in rereading the whole thread before each response; so if someone forgets what was previously discussed, I’ll just respond with a summary and continue from there.
I understand where you’re coming from, but it’ll be easy to tell. Someone who’s sealioning will skip or “forget” points you’ve already made when they’re making their counter arguments. The conversation will be irritating and demanding.
Someone who genuinely wants to discuss and learn won’t wear on you that way. Their replies won’t have that “I outsmarted you and you’re an idiot” kind of feel. It’s hard to explain, but people can recognize the difference. I don’t think there’s a threat to honest debate here.
Yes, it’s possible to confuse sealions with people who are simply rude and obnoxious, but since I don’t like talking to either one, I don’t much care.
The problem is not that it’s hard to to tell who is or is not sealioning. The problem is people using “sealioning” to go on the offensive against those who ask them to provide evidence or citations for their statements.
Fortunately, common sense usually works there, too. If person A makes highly specific or unusual statement, person B reasonably asks for a source, and person A angrily responds with defensiveness and accusations, then it’s pretty clear that person A was talking out of their ass.
Forgetting points that were already made is something that I commonly encounter, but I just attribute that to people being generally forgetful. I don’t have any expectation of other people putting in much effort in rereading the whole thread before each response; so if someone forgets what was previously discussed, I’ll just respond with a summary and continue from there.