Sealioning!

[TommyTV]

They’ve got a name for it!

Sealioning

A subtle form of trolling involving "bad-faith" questions. You disingenuously frame your conversation as a sincere request to be enlightened, placing the burden of educating you entirely on the other party. If your bait is successful, the other party may engage, painstakingly laying out their logic and evidence in the false hope of helping someone learn. In fact you are attempting to harass or waste the time of the other party, and have no intention of truly entertaining their point of view. Instead, you react to each piece of information by misinterpreting it or requesting further clarification, ad nauseum. The name "sea-lioning" comes from a Wondermark comic strip.

[Tall_Allen]

Thanks. I get sea-lioned often. I thought they were just cute animals that swam near me when I kayaked in the ocean.

[AAhealth in reply to Tall_Allen]

Tall-Allen please don't get burned out or frustrated by difficult discussions or on line trolls.

You are literally a life saver. My husband is so happy that he found you and both if us are amazed at the level of scholarship you bring to these discussions.

You are a treasure.

[cfrees1 in reply to Tall_Allen]

I definitely thought of you when I read this definition. Thank you for always arming your "argument" with links to various studies, and other third-party verified facts rather than innuendo and anecdotal comments. You will never be able to convince those who do not want to be convinced, but you do a great service for the rest of us. I almost always follow the links you provide to educate myself more. Honestly, I would LOVE it if there were some silver bullet out there that could eliminate this cloud hanging over my head. But I neither chase after false hopes nor want others to do so. That doesn't mean I don't have hope.

[jimreilly]

gotta remember this

[Break60]

Really sad to think people take the time to play games with folks with life threatening diseases😡

[AAhealth]

Many thanks! Our culture is developing deeper and deeper understandings of subtle forms of abuse.

This reaffirms the need to work together in good faith and gives us a tool to assess if we are communicating in a clear respectful way.

[Stegosaurus37]

I've seen something similar that was non-medical related. There was a bond issue on the ballot for a new jail. My friend, John, opposed it saying not enough analysis had been done. I replied "John the only way you'd say enough analysis has been done is if it showed we didn't need a new jail." His mind was made up; he was just trying to sound reasonable. Another case is the person who keeps wanting to revisit a subject. Roberts Rules of Order deals with this: any reconsideration has to be proposed by someone on the winning side of the original vote. Stalling tactics. We don't need them here.

[j-o-h-n]

j-o-h-n <===<<< SeenLying all the time...

Good Luck, Good Health and Good Humor.

j-o-h-n Wednesday 11/07/2018 6:28 PM EST