On “Sea Lioners” and Endless debates

ybsmaR belaC
Aug 9, 2017 · 3 min read

I’ll make this very clear, because I see people I follow become engaged in prolonged debates with people, that end up going nowhere.

Here’s the jumping off point a conversation between me and Shibboleth about the “Google manifesto”:

At the heart of the matter are facts. At the heart of facts are studies. The majority of your timeline is a refutation of facts and studies, in particular those in the social and humanity sphere.

Those are also the key elements of the basis of the Google employee’s manifesto. His belief, as stated in that document, that the studies conducted by those in the social and humanity sphere are erroneous due to the typical political leanings of the people conducting said studies. Thus, he provides himself with a basis for dismissing them and stating that they are simply projections of how people want the world to be.

Thus, his statements that attempts to bring more women and minorities into a field such as coding are wasteful, because the natural limit has already been achieved and anything more is fantasy based augmentation of reality.

What this dismisses is the substantial cultural and social repression of women and minorities who are born with the latent capacity to excel in those and many other fields.

Your timeline is representative of your disbelief in the majority of social and humanity studies and it displays that you tilt heavily towards seeing white Christian men as being repressed, underrepresented and unduly disparaged.

By defending the author of that manifesto, you endorse his belief. Your timeline shows that you hold very similar opinions to his. Your issue with people like me pointing to his views not being substantiated by fact and his stance instead being based on a sense of persecution, superiority and what not, is that you associate yourself with him. And, as your timeline shows, you also believe that his proclamations are “true fact” based. IE. That facts which don’t support your belief are not actually facts, but premeditated lies.

All of the above is a result of a general perception of uncertainty of facts, based in great part on the “anti elite” ideology and a sense of unjust persecution by people such as yourself.

Thus, a direct engagement with someone like you on an issue like this is futile. I could write a 100 page essay, citing peer reviewed studies and numerous interviews of women and minorities in or pursuing tech. Yet, it would all be brought into question by someone like you, because you wouldn’t see the facts presented as being “honest” or “unbiased”. The proof of that is in your timeline.

As to “Sea Lioning” in particular, this is represented by your being on the internet and being able to access intense and exhaustive studies on the matter which directly disprove the manifesto author’s stance and your own stance. Thus, if you really wanted to “see proof” that you and him are wrong, you would look it up and read it.

But you don’t, the majority of your timeline is demanding that other people prove themselves to you and then you dismissing their facts as biased or false.

This isn’t a case of singularity, IE. Shibboleth is the only one doing this and needs to be called out on it. No, this is typical for a certain personality who has a certain world view. This is also not limited to internet discussions, I’ve known and know many people who are “Sea Lioners” in real life and any form of debate with them is pointless. Unless one simply wants to hear themselves speak.

As always, there is a range of “Sea Lioners”, some worse than others and it sure isn’t a simple matter of liberal vs. conservative, I’ve known plenty of “Sea Lioners” that represent the entire breadth of political and social beliefs. The affectation is one of personality, not politics.

I’m writing this as much to myself as a reminder, so as to avoid prolonged and pointless debate, than to anyone else who may be reading it.

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