What exactly is sealioning?
In: 319
Its where you attempt to “win” an argument by drowning out the other side’s arguments by repeated demands for more evidence of their statements. It’s a disingenuous form of debate – on the surface it appears legit, but no matter what argument – with or without supporting evidence – you make they just demand additional ‘proof’. But while being civil and “just wanting to have an intellectual debate”.
Its like anti-vaxxers or climate change deniers. “Well what proof do you have that vaccines work” so you show a peer reviewed study or something from the CDC to which they reply “well how do you know THATs legit? More proof!”…. to which the answer is … uh.. the entire academic community and the whole body of scientific knowledge? Since you can’t succinctly summarize _that_ in a paragraph on Facebook, they point to that as an inability to back up the claim that vaccines work.
I think the quote from the Wikipedia entry says it best: ” has been likened to a denial-of-service attack targeted at human beings” – you spend all your time/energy in trying to throw legitimate sources of information at them, but they’re just gonna ignore it anyway and demand more.
[It comes from a Wondermark cartoon by David Malaki.](http://wondermark.com/1k62/)
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