More Issues Regarding Aquatic Mammal

[degringolade]

 

Expressionism / Gustave de Smet/ De Wiedster

Mike in a sense showed me the positive ways that “sealioning” could be used in a social setting.  By taking the time and asking questions, one could gently let other folks take to time to transition their views to something more accurate.

That isn’t what I had in mind at all.  

I see the act of sealioning someone who is missionary as a twofold kind of thing.  I have a sick kind of enjoyment in watching folks explain crazy ideas that they firmly believe.  Especially if they are just completely wrong in my mind.  The idea of a person sitting down and sincerely explaining something that makes no sense whatsoever is always entertaining.  I think that is a carryover from my younger days growing up in Utah with my friends trying to explain the theological tenets of Mormonism.  It always made them happy to do this and the hardcore training that I got from the Jesuits let me let them guide my “hosts” into any number of dead ends and internal contradictions.  

That is the bad person part of it.  I don’t make any effort to “guide” them to the proper way of thinking.  I just ask questions about what they are telling me and enjoy the process of having them inform me where they haven’t thought it through well enough.

Lately though, I have been operating a little differently.  My sealioning seems to be getting more sincere.  I still look for what I see as errors, but that is becoming less and less important.  It is more like someone telling me where the land mines are in the worldview that they are using.  What I am looking for now is the parts that I can use to clean up my own worldview.  

The hardest part about this is that a lot of the time the ore that I am mining is pretty thin.  Sometimes there is nothing there at all.  

I think that the degree of true sealioning depends on whether or not I like the person.  Some of the folks that I know and that I like have some decidedly odd worldviews.  So they get a pass and if they want to talk about it and explain their way of thinking, I will be happy to provide them the dumb questions that let them expound.  When I run across a person who rubs me the wrong way and goes all missionary on me, I change my tactics and use sealioning as a way to fuck with him/her.  

So I guess that kinda explains my take on things.  Like everything else, Sealioning is a tool.  How it is used is what is important.  If you use it to make someone happy, I suppose it isn’t sealioning but a kindness to allow folks to talk about themselves (always a good thing for them and an important part of day-to-day conversations).  I suppose that using it to fuck with people you don’t like is a mark of immaturity and self-absorption.  I guess I am not above that.

Comments

[mschmidt]

What did a sea lion ever do to wind up getting involved in this subject?

Maybe the moral question (of using a human being as a means of entertainment without paying them) could be handled by beginning with: "now just because I ask, does not mean that you have to answer my question". From then on, whatever happens is their own fault. If at some point you think they forgot, you could repeat as necessary if you want to be kinder.