this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2024
747 points (96.3% liked)

Comic Strips

12569 readers
3882 users here now

Comic Strips is a community for those who love comic stories.

The rules are simple:

Web of links

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
747
Sealioning (lemmy.world)
submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by ahlooolahhh@lemmy.world to c/comicstrips@lemmy.world
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] rwhitisissle@lemmy.world 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

A big component of sealioning, as I think you've pointed out, is one party pretending to not understand the intent or argument behind your reasoning and rephrasing it in a way to make it sound ridiculous, but in the form of a question. The goal is to counter someone's argument by hoping that they don't have the argumentative or expressive capacity to succinctly clarify themselves or identify that you're asking questions in bad faith.

[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 1 points 8 months ago

A big component of sealioning, as I think you’ve pointed out, is one party pretending to not understand the intent or argument behind your reasoning and rephrasing it in a way to make it sound ridiculous, but in the form of a question.

Yup. That's called a strawman. Strawmen are really common when sealioning, as they increase the effort necessary for a meaningful reply - because first you'll need to dismantle the strawman, then counter-argument.

It isn't a key component though. You can achieve the same effect through a red herring, tu/ille quoque (aka what-about-ism), or even a false dichotomy.