Bad Faith and Sealioning

[Micah Sweet]

It is ENWorld. This behavior has been happening for 20 years or more. It is constant. You state an opinion and you get bombarded by calls to justify it with examples and proof in an effort to generate a "gotcha" moment to prove your opinion is wrong.

Sometimes, it is best not to keep responding to that person.

Usually, I get where the opposite poster is coming from in their arguments. The big thing that annoys me is when someone cannot admit that there is any truth in the other persons view.

Agreed. It is extremely frustrating. Why can't you just have an opinion without constantly having to justify it to people who will never agree with you anyway?

 

[TwoSix]

It is ENWorld. This behavior has been happening for 20 years or more. It is constant. You state an opinion and you get bombarded by calls to justify it with examples and proof in an effort to generate a "gotcha" moment to prove your opinion is wrong.

Huh. I disagree with that.

</calmly sips tea>

 

[Umbran]

Counterpoint: One doesn’t know what might change their mind until they see it. If they did then their mind would have already been changed.

Counter-counterpoint: One doesn't know, in the sense that there's no absolutes. But, if one steps back a moment and is honest with oneself, one can often realize when one's own unconscious biases were in play. There are cues. But, one will not actually have that realization if one falls back to the excuse of, "I just haven't been given the right argument yet."

 

[Umbran]

Agreed. It is extremely frustrating. Why can't you just have an opinion without constantly having to justify it to people who will never agree with you anyway?

You can have whatever opinion you want.

If you post your opinion in an open discussion forum, you should expect folks to start discussion around it. That will include questioning and challenging your position.

There are places you can go to state your opinions such that you will not be questioned about them. This ain't it.

 

[FrogReaver]

Counter-counterpoint: One doesn't know, in the sense that there's no absolutes.

I’m saying ‘you just don’t know what you don’t know’. That’s a much different thing than ‘there’s no absolutes’.

But, if one steps back a moment and is honest with oneself, one can often realize when one's own unconscious biases were in play.

There still has to be a seed to start that question. Something to make one go, hmmm that’s a good point, maybe I should think through this some more.

There are cues. But, one will not actually have that realization if one falls back to the excuse of, "I just haven't been given the right argument yet."

They will when they are given the right case and have had time to validate the relevant facts and mentally process the implications of the logic and reasoning.

What people mistake online is that the process of changing one’s mind is almost never instant.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Agreed. It is extremely frustrating. Why can't you just have an opinion without constantly having to justify it to people who will never agree with you anyway?

One; You do not have to respond to every challenge to your opinion or if the response makes no difference, then you do not have to keep responding.

If one is offering an opinion in response to another's opinion, then one should expect to be challenged.

If you do not want to respond to that challenge than perhaps the question, what are you intending to achieve with your interjection?

 

[Deset Gled]

It is ENWorld. This behavior has been happening for 20 years or more. It is constant. You state an opinion and you get bombarded by calls to justify it with examples and proof in an effort to generate a "gotcha" moment to prove your opinion is wrong.

Sometimes, it is best not to keep responding to that person.

Agree, disagree, and agree.

Has the behavior been happening for all of ENWorld's existence? Sure. Has it been constant? Absolutely not.

Conversations ebb and flow. Some topics get hot, some get cold. Sea lioning has been en vogue this season, but I doubt it will be this strong forever. Fallacies, like fashion, are short lived and cyclical. Strawmaning was big for a while but is now passe. False dichotomies have a trendy history. And like a classic suit, being an overconfident pompous newbie never goes out of style.

But you are completely correct that not responding to problematic posters is always a good option.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You can have whatever opinion you want.

If you post your opinion in an open discussion forum, you should expect folks to start discussion around it. That will include questioning and challenging your position.

There are places you can go to state your opinions such that you will not be questioned about them. This ain't it.

I don't mind questions. It's the degree of interrogation I am objecting to. At some point everyone has stated their position, and IMO further inquiry begins to cross the line of insult.

 

[Morrus]

I don't mind questions. It's the degree of interrogation I am objecting to. At some point everyone has stated their position, and IMO further inquiry begins to cross the line of insult.

With respect, I feel a little self-awareness might behoove you here. Why are people doing this? Maybe it's not everybody else. Why are you blocked by so many people? I mean it's enough that the forums must seem very quiet to you.

I wouldn't normally say this in public, but, well that's the topic of the thread and you brought it up. My advice is that next time the urge takes you to tell everybody how much you don't like WotC or DnD, maybe take a break that time. We know. We get it. We all got it years ago. Please don't think you have not succeeded in making yourself clear. You really, really have.

Just a tip. It might make your experiences on the forum better.

 

[pemerton]

You state an opinion and you get bombarded by calls to justify it with examples and proof in an effort to generate a "gotcha" moment to prove your opinion is wrong.

Why can't you just have an opinion without constantly having to justify it to people who will never agree with you anyway?

There are a few different types of opinion I see posted quite often:

(1) I don't like <this thing>.

(2) I don't like <this thing> because <in play it generates this effect>.

(3) RPGs and/or RPGing must be like <this thing>.


Typically, the poster of (1) is best-placed to know the truth of (1).

But when it comes to (2), it's reasonable to expect posters who have had a different play experience of <this thing> to chime in.

And when it comes to (3), especially if the evidence adduced for the claim is obviously limited to a single sort of approach to RPGing (typically, that will be D&D and other RPGs with basically the same process of play as 2nd ed AD&D), posters who have experienced other sorts of RPGing may want to push against the universality of what is being asserted.