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"Concern trolling" is an almost entirely BS concept/dismissal
- Thread starter PogiJones
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Other than the home invasion, I'm totally with the sea lion, and I do not understand how the author and the many people who re-post this think the humans are not the primary wrongdoers here. They insulted him with a stereotype, and when he asks why, they won't even tell him or talk to him. At the very least they could say, "I don't have the time or will to provide evidence to prove my prejudices, but here's why I don't like you peop--... I mean, you sea lions."
This comic is essentially saying, "I should be able to say I don't like a group of people without anyone, even a stranger who is a member of the group I insulted, asking for an explanation. If they do ask, they're the bad guy." Think about the implications of such a message.
Cause the Sea Lions are home invading assholes.
faceless007
Member
The comic isn't really complementary to either "side" but the point is one is far more unreasonable and self-absorbed to the point of delusion than the other and in doing so, ends up confirming the very prejudice it gets defensive of. Saying "other than the home invasion" literally dismisses half of the comic.
Freedom of speech is not, and never has been, freedom from criticism for your speech.
Yes, the humans have every legal right to do what they're doing. They have every legal right to act like the villains of the situation. But the legal right doesn't mean they're not the villains for doing so.
If my last post wasn't clear enough, replace sea lions with black people, and then tell me that (again, other than the home invasion) the sea lion didn't show an extraordinary amount of restraint.
Seriously, while I understand that someone wouldn't want to spend hours gathering evidence, if you have the time and energy to state a generalized negative prejudice you harbor about a group, you should at the very least have the time and energy to say why you hold that prejudice if you're asked by a member of said group. If you're spending 10 times the energy repeatedly saying "go away" as you would explaining why you hold the prejudice, you're the villain of the situation, not the people who call you out for an explanation.
I think Driveclub threads prove OPs point. People can bring up something that they are disappointed with and are instantly berated with a bunch of "haha concern troll" posts. There's no way to tell whether or not something genuinely concerns someone over the internet, so it would be better for everyone to assume they are and just ignore them if they suspect trolling. Though there are obviously trolls out there that do it, it can really harm discussion on a forum dedicated to discussion.
The comic is a statement on real discourse behaviors in online controversies. Exaggerating one type of behavior by turning it into home invasion, whilst leaving the other type of discourse unexaggerated, does not make any real point or show anything. By saying "other than the home invasion", I was stripping the comic of all exaggeration, which happened to only exist for one "side." Without that one-sided exaggeration and only the base discourse remaining, the people unwilling to state the reasoning behind their prejudices are far more in the wrong than people that are persistent in asking them to back them up with, at the very least, a reason. Yes, it's true that asking for evidence can go to far. But better that than a person completely unwilling to even acknowledge or address the group that is slandered.
Nope
Kai Dracon
Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
The comparison to false flag operations is pretty much on target as I see it. It's a common stunt people pull, and always have long before it was referred to as concern trolling. You simply pretend to be a friend of something, in order to get inside and undermine that thing.
Sometimes people do it just to cause trouble, because they like to watch the world burn. Other times they do it in an authentic attempt to wage war against the subject. Pretty common example is people who hide behind religion to justify hatred of homosexuality. "Love the sinner, hate the sin" is used by many people in a textbook example of "concern trolling". You're a friend of gay people! You just think they shouldn't act gay!
In many circles this is called reverse psychology. On the internet, it's practically a spectator sport. I wouldn't be surprised if there are underground concern trolling leagues with seasons and brackets somewhere.
Sometimes people do it just to cause trouble, because they like to watch the world burn. Other times they do it in an authentic attempt to wage war against the subject. Pretty common example is people who hide behind religion to justify hatred of homosexuality. "Love the sinner, hate the sin" is used by many people in a textbook example of "concern trolling". You're a friend of gay people! You just think they shouldn't act gay!
In many circles this is called reverse psychology. On the internet, it's practically a spectator sport. I wouldn't be surprised if there are underground concern trolling leagues with seasons and brackets somewhere.
Incitemaybe
Member
Where I live the Tone Police are on every street corner and nearly every conversation. It's terrible.
I'm glad this thread is here.
I'm glad this thread is here.
umop_3pisdn
Member
You can't prove it but it can be amazing how conspicuous it is as something that's supposed to be covert. Real concern is marked by a degree of sincerity that tends to come through in arguments, even in text over the internet.
faceless007
Member
I'm guessing you're not familiar with what the comic is presumably in response to, which is understandable since it was posted in this thread without context and not everyone has been following the utterly faith-in-humanity-destroying shitshow that is GamerGate. But the comic can easily be read as an analogy to GamerGate and, well, let's just say the comic isn't really exaggerated if so. But that's probably a conversation for the other thread.
Something that's similar to concern trolling is when someone invokes the phrase "but what about black on black crime?" in a discussion about racial discrimination. It's not the best example of concern trolling itself but it does illustrate how harmful and disingenuous concern trolling can be. The person who would say this doesn't care about black on black crime, at all. It's a rhetorical game they're playing to get the discussion to stop being about a subject they're not comfortable with discussing for various reasons.
Same kinda deal with health and body positivity discussions. Usually, people don't actually care about a fat persons health. They just find fat to be unsightly to them and assume that the reason someone is fat is because they're lazy. They don't acknowledge the fact that a "fat" person can be metabolically and mentally healthy and thus comfortable with their body. This is why trampling on body positivity discussions with "but what about your health?" is concern trolling because the idea of fat being associated with positive creates cognitive dissonance for a lot of people.
Same kinda deal with health and body positivity discussions. Usually, people don't actually care about a fat persons health. They just find fat to be unsightly to them and assume that the reason someone is fat is because they're lazy. They don't acknowledge the fact that a "fat" person can be metabolically and mentally healthy and thus comfortable with their body. This is why trampling on body positivity discussions with "but what about your health?" is concern trolling because the idea of fat being associated with positive creates cognitive dissonance for a lot of people.
TwEE-N-Toast
Banned
But that doesn't make anything he said wrong.
cubicle47b
Member
Why is that awful lady prejudiced against sea lions?
After reading the mod's explanations about what concern trolling is, I give up, this is just way, way, wayyyyy too much meta for me to handle 
I already have a hard time trying to read the intentions of people in the real world in order to try to guess them on the goddamn Internet.
Time to get some time off GAF, forums, Internet, or mankind in general, I suppouse that I am too much of a simpleton for this world since I always assume well-meaning on people. Still, I think that live better because of it.
I already have a hard time trying to read the intentions of people in the real world in order to try to guess them on the goddamn Internet.
Time to get some time off GAF, forums, Internet, or mankind in general, I suppouse that I am too much of a simpleton for this world since I always assume well-meaning on people. Still, I think that live better because of it.
faceless007
Member
He said the comic is exaggerated. In the specific context the comic is supposedly replying to (the author's intent isn't explicit but the timing of events is suggestive), it isn't. It's not his fault for reading that wrong because it was posted without context and the comic isn't really about concern trolling anyway, so its relevance in the thread is debatable.
umop_3pisdn
Member
After reading the mod's explanations about what concern trolling is, I give up, this is just way, way, wayyyyy too much meta for me to handle
I already have a hard time trying to read the intentions of people in the real world in order to try to guess them on the goddamn Internet.
Time to get some time off GAF, forums, Internet, or mankind in general, I suppouse that I am too much of a simpleton for this world since I always assume well-meaning on people. Still, I think that live better because of it.
I can't imagine any possible world where trying to or being capable of correctly assessing the intentions of others isn't an asset. It seems like you're assuming that everyone is just reading malice into everything so they can get upset.
Neoriceisgood
Member
I totally see your point, though people'd be more inclined to agree with you if you'd [implicitly disagree with every single point made by you].
Allowing a person to be insular in their prejudices and never forcing them to confront why they hold that prejudice is exactly how such prejudices thrive. Of course someone with a prejudice not based in observable fact and reason will avoid all discourse on why they feel the way they do: they unconsciously know their deeply held prejudices are rooted in nothing, and if that nothingness is exposed then they will experience cognitive dissonance and be forced to confront the irrationality.
Of course, this doesn't eliminate the "they're one of the good sea lions" line of reasoning, but forcing people to explain why someone holds and opinion is a good litmus test for intelligence of the speaker and validity of the opinion.
Of course, this doesn't eliminate the "they're one of the good sea lions" line of reasoning, but forcing people to explain why someone holds and opinion is a good litmus test for intelligence of the speaker and validity of the opinion.
speculawyer
Member
Yep. There is a lot of it in politics.
For example, Billionaire fossil fuel magnates will concern troll over wind and solar power raising electricity prices for poor people and elderly people. In reality, they don't give a shit about those poor people and elderly people . . . they just don't want to the competition. But obviously they can't go out there and say "Hey! Stop this green energy stuff, it is cutting into our business!" So they concern troll for poor people and elderly people.
Neoriceisgood
Member
Something I almost never see pointed out about the sea lion comic:
sea lion: "politely" asks to be heard/discuss.
women: explicitly rejects to have a conversation.
sea lion: Completely ignores her and keeps discussing.
^
The sea lion absolutely ignoring her rejecting makes it obvious that his politeness is a complete Façade.
The point of that comic was never about if the woman is right in her opinion or not. It's that "sealioning" as a debate tactic has someone appear to be polite and reasonable; but their actions directly contradict their words.
sea lion: "politely" asks to be heard/discuss.
women: explicitly rejects to have a conversation.
sea lion: Completely ignores her and keeps discussing.
^
The sea lion absolutely ignoring her rejecting makes it obvious that his politeness is a complete Façade.
The point of that comic was never about if the woman is right in her opinion or not. It's that "sealioning" as a debate tactic has someone appear to be polite and reasonable; but their actions directly contradict their words.
PeregrinSe7en
Member
yeah it's always the xbox guys that do that, and that sucks cause i kinda like the xbox brand.
concern
ps. i like your avatar
this is the ultimate concern trolling
and tone policing is telling queer people to calm down when they get rightfully upset over someone saying "but think of the children"
The fact that the topic of discussion IS irrational prejudice towards the sea lion makes this a special exception case, in my opinion.
Both sides are poked fun at: the unintelligent who hold prejudices that they themselves who cannot justify and those who fight prejudice by overbearingly attempting to get those who hold such prejudices to actually attempt to explain the basis of their prejudices (which in most cases is nonexistent or flawed at best).
Had the topic been some external issue the sea lion merely had strong feelings about, the sea lion would not be justified in being so overbearing. But considering the topic is prejudice towards the sea lion, I feel as though it is perfectly fine for the sea lion to force a rational discussion as to why he is hated so much. Other wise, how would such insular thinking be combated?
WrenchNinja
Member
I don't get it.
Maintenance
Member
This is pure gold.
Inflammable Slinky
Member
yeah the sea lion comic is a lot funnier to people that agree with whatever stance it was made in response to.
To everyone else it just looks like bigotry, with the standard nonhuman animal = ethnic minority stand-in.
The comic is bad
To everyone else it just looks like bigotry, with the standard nonhuman animal = ethnic minority stand-in.
The comic is bad
this is the only way I can rationalize this, it just looks like something that would be printed in a conservative magazine
alexthekid
Member
To me it seems to be two different issues discussed here, but no one else is pointing it out (at least in the way I see it).
I understand the the concept if it actually is that you are trying to look like you are supporting the other side of the argument.
This is how I see many of the arguments in the thread regarding video games but also:
speculawyer: "For example, Billionaire fossil fuel magnates will concern troll over wind and solar power raising electricity prices for poor people and elderly people. In reality, they don't give a shit about those poor people and elderly people . . . they just don't want to the competition. But obviously they can't go out there and say "Hey! Stop this green energy stuff, it is cutting into our business!" So they concern troll for poor people and elderly people."
etc.
But I really cant connect this to the overweight discussions that devolution and backslashbunny are talking about.
How would you come in and concern troll in an overweight discussing by pretending to be concerned?
How are you pretending to take the other parts side in an discussion, by saying that you are concerned about their health. This might be annoying and just a nice way (or sneaky) to say that they are fat, while you actually dont care about their health.
But I still cant equate it to trying to take the side of the person your are trying to argue against. You are just saying that they are fat, not trying sneak in an argument against their point.
I understand the the concept if it actually is that you are trying to look like you are supporting the other side of the argument.
This is how I see many of the arguments in the thread regarding video games but also:
speculawyer: "For example, Billionaire fossil fuel magnates will concern troll over wind and solar power raising electricity prices for poor people and elderly people. In reality, they don't give a shit about those poor people and elderly people . . . they just don't want to the competition. But obviously they can't go out there and say "Hey! Stop this green energy stuff, it is cutting into our business!" So they concern troll for poor people and elderly people."
etc.
But I really cant connect this to the overweight discussions that devolution and backslashbunny are talking about.
How would you come in and concern troll in an overweight discussing by pretending to be concerned?
How are you pretending to take the other parts side in an discussion, by saying that you are concerned about their health. This might be annoying and just a nice way (or sneaky) to say that they are fat, while you actually dont care about their health.
But I still cant equate it to trying to take the side of the person your are trying to argue against. You are just saying that they are fat, not trying sneak in an argument against their point.
This is amazing.
Neoriceisgood
Member
Maybe I'm wrong here, but I've never ever seen the "Sealioning" debate style used by anyone from a relatively powerless social position (e.g. an ethnic minority.)
The extreme emphasis on verbal politeness combined with an extremely intrusive way of imposing oneself in the conversation is generally a tactic used by people who feel confident & have little worry for harassment or backlash.
In 99% of cases where Iv'e seen "Sealioning" used it's a non-minority (usually white dudes, if I'm completely fair) imposing themselves on anyone from a minority that speaks out in frustration about "men" or "white people". (some other groups apply as well, obv.)
Regardless if the opinion on "Sealions" is appropriate or not, violently pushing yourself into someone's conversations & life under the false guise of "politeness" is a digusting and common online trend.
I've only ever seen it used against minorities for daring to generalize about the majority, I've essentially never seen the reverse.
The extreme emphasis on verbal politeness combined with an extremely intrusive way of imposing oneself in the conversation is generally a tactic used by people who feel confident & have little worry for harassment or backlash.
In 99% of cases where Iv'e seen "Sealioning" used it's a non-minority (usually white dudes, if I'm completely fair) imposing themselves on anyone from a minority that speaks out in frustration about "men" or "white people". (some other groups apply as well, obv.)
Regardless if the opinion on "Sealions" is appropriate or not, violently pushing yourself into someone's conversations & life under the false guise of "politeness" is a digusting and common online trend.
I've only ever seen it used against minorities for daring to generalize about the majority, I've essentially never seen the reverse.
I wouldn't say that this is concern trolling. This is actually why they think they oppose gay marriage, or it's at least one of a couple of intertwined reasons. It's easy to argue that they only hold beliefs about the effects of gay marriage on the basis of prejudice, but these beliefs are sincere and the people holding them think they can be supported independently of anything else they believe about gay people. If you could convince them that gay marriage wouldn't hurt children at all - which, granted, is going to be basically impossible just because it's the fig leaf they're using to convince themselves they're not bigots - many of them would be okay with gay marriage.
I think a pretty useful test is to look and see how people talk amongst themselves. If people are making the same arguments to people they disagree with as they're making to people they agree with, these arguments are likely sincere. And that's pretty much what the anti- gay marriage crowd does. When they're talking to themselves, they do spend more time on the sinfulness of homosexuality, but this sinfulness is a public policy problem in part because it's supposed to have real-world effects on children and families.
Maintenance
Member
That's some nice reaching.
You can read my post too but I'll explain it again. In the context of health and or any kind body positivity discussion, waltzing on into those topics just to say "yeah, but what about their health?" is concen trolling. It is so not only because the person isn't actually concerned with the health of fat people but because the idea that "fat" people can be healthy both metobolically and mentally and thus comfortable in their own skin, and likewise how "thin" people can be unhealthy and not comfortable with their bodies, creates cognitive dissonance within them and makes it an uneasy subject for them to discuss. By reasserting "fat people are unhealthy and fat people such because they are lazy so they should lose weight because they will live longer healthier lives" but in a 'nice' way, in a health and/or body positivity discussion, you are not coming into terms with the reality that is being presented to you and you are putting the conversation back on terms you're comfortable with. That is effectively concern trolling or just flat out trolling.
I did it in the escalator thread by saying that I was bummed by a lot of responders mentioning knee discomfort/pain in that thread.
Someone else ran with it and went with the American Obesity problem. I'm not trying to make fun of fat people, cuz I am an overweight person myself, but I am in a lot better shape than I used to be, and want more overweight people to move their bodies in general.
I've done it through hiking and biking myself, great for the legs and cardiovascular system, and it wasn't too hard in my opinion. So if I can get some more big people to move through some trolling, then I'll do it; if my trolling offends you, then I am sorry, but I say it for motivation, not for discouragement. "Fat shaming" or whatever doesn't work for most people, especially if done the wrong way, but the kind that gets you to really introspect and make changes for yourself, is overall, a net positive.
This is all kinds of fucked up. Are you one of those self hating fatties?
Not at all, just honest with myself. I've mentioned this before, but I know what I should eat, and how I should exercise to lose weight, it's not a mystery to me. I can choose not to and be obese and unhealthy, or I can make changes and expect results.
Negative reinforcement can work for an individual, so long as the individual knows it as a self-truth. It's when someone else tries to scream that shit in your ear, that it usually doesn't work.
Obesity is a lot more complex than the individual choosing to be obese but this is off topic.
This could be considered concern trolling to me. PM me if you have more to say but don't want to be Off Topic.
It is undoubtely an asset, and one that I would very much like to possess, too. But it is a type of questioning that I would rarely want to employ too. I like to consider concern as genuine concern by default.
Just playing Devil's Advocate here, but the argument would be that the biological parents would have an easier time explaining how their child was created. How their love/sexual intercourse led to creating a child with sex between a man and a woman that resulted in creating a child.
Of course gay parent's could explain that their love for each other helps to empower their mutual interest in raising a child. They could provide a great education, shelter, healthcare and everything else involved in raising a child. But the core tenets of creating a child would obviously be easier to explain from the biological parents of a child, rather than anyone else raising a child.
I think that the education and care for a child, supporting its interests, is far more productive to its development than a biological explanation of where it came from. But, that could be a legit argument for a heterosexual couple for a child that they created.
Messofanego
Banned
This thread is 2meta4me
The discussion on the sealion comic is weird. Like, how are people not realising the dude is getting all up in people's personal spaces to continue his argument? Pick your battles in the right places.
The discussion on the sealion comic is weird. Like, how are people not realising the dude is getting all up in people's personal spaces to continue his argument? Pick your battles in the right places.
Liu Kang Baking A Pie
Member
Probably the same sort of people who text like "please respond" and then go fucking nuts on the person.
Massive Duck. C.M.
Banned
That's pretty good
Messofanego
Banned
I mean, they've got plenty of arguments. The social science ones don't seem to be true and the rest are clearly religiously motivated and so don't get used in court, but they've got arguments.
They commonly advance a pretty straightforward complementarian argument that men and women are different in important ways such that a child with two mothers is missing out on the benefits only a father can provide and vice versa. They also argue that gay couples are less likely to stay together or similar and are worse parents for that reason.
Similar to the complementarian position is the idea that you can't explain the existence of gay marriages to children without introducing them to the idea of sex much earlier than parents would like to. The idea here is something like that heterosexual marriages can be glossed as basically male-female friendships, since the people concerned about this don't have close opposite-sex friends, but that you can't distinguish homosexual romantic relationships from same-sex friendships without explaining how marriage is not like a friendship.
Explicitly religious arguments are common, and would seem to be clearly not concern trolling insofar as they're infrequently made to people who aren't already opponents of gay marriage. The easy version is something like: "I'm raising my kids to think homosexuality is sinful, and legal gay marriage is only going to confuse them." There's a similar argument for all children, where the worry is that society is teaching all children bad moral values.
There's also sort of a combination sociological/religious argument where it's assumed that everyone else can't help but make the same sort of sinful / not sinful distinction as the SSM opponent. This is where the man on dog stuff comes from. The person is splitting relationships up into two categories, moral and immoral, and not admitting that there's any possibility that they've drawn the wrong line or that there are gradations or whatever (if you press on this you'll get a lot of objective morality talk). So if you've got an argument that one type of immoral relationship is fine, what you actually have is an argument that there are no distinctions (moral relativism, etc., etc.). And so it's an inevitable slippery slope to the destruction of the family and widespread sexual depravity.
Now, these are all really bad arguments. But I really don't think it's plausible that people don't actually believe them. Actually, I think the reason your impression is that there are no arguments is because SSM opponents are engaged in a totally different sort of strategy - SSM opponents are often unwilling to advance specific arguments as to how gay marriage harms children just because their specific arguments get them called bigots. The sort of arguments I've described above crop up all the time within anti-SSM circles, and in court cases where states have to defend anti-SSM laws to a judge, but in the public square they rely almost exclusively nowadays on what are really very bizarre 'arguments' like "I believe marriage is between one man and one woman". Stuff that doesn't even look like a reason to oppose civil gay marriage. If anything, this is the insincere argument being made, insofar as this is an argument, and non-arguments like it are advanced just because they don't want to talk about their real concerns re: the children, because those concerns make them look like bigots.
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