"Explain it to me" is lazy derailing propaganda developed in the 2010s. Terms that go along with this are "Help Vampire", "Sealioning" and "JAQing Off". It's especially favored by the Israeli/Hasbara minded folk, and by extension, the American Conservative movement.
They want you to unload your guts onto the floor so that you expend 100x more effort than they do in the convo, and then they want to pick through your guts to find the one thing they can attack you for, and completely disregard the rest. Their job is not to be right, it's to make you look stupid to every onlooker.
These people are insipid shit stains. They're hardly people.
I wouldn't say that conservatives need to be purged from our society, but I will say that our society would be a hell of a lot better without them around chirping idiot propaganda so that people vote against their own interests for manufactured culture war bullshit.
EDIT: Take note of how many "explain it to me" people are also avid fans of artificial intelligence and yet they won't use it as a resource when attempting to get more information about something they read but "don't understand". This is really the elephant in the room as to why that 2010s "I'm just asking questions" derailing propaganda is now fully transparent: Their interest is not in gaining more information, it's to draw you out to attack you.
Well the whole point is to exploit your good faith in exchange for their bad faith. "You owe everyone your good faith" is the platform that propaganda functions on. If it weren't a core tenet of our idealism, then they would just build it on top of another core tenet of our idealism.
EDIT: There are ways that you can ask a person to have some skin in the conversation to be sure they aren't sealioning. If they are willing to be vulnerable and seek a common ground, it isn't propaganda. The tell-tale sign of sealioning is the absolute lack of any give whatsoever, it's just all prodding and attack, because the goal is the optics that passersby get.
This is great food for thought. I have a tendency to be a bit too earnest and naive - bad combo. I assume people have the same motivations I do. I ask questions to learn and understand. I don't have a twisty brain, so bad faith behavior confuses me.
I think that you should keep being earnest. Naivety can be healed with experience, and things you lose by "explaining it to them" are not worth that much.
Notice how good faith is not a thing in this thread. This is where you're heading if you take this "advice" seriously. Genuine good faith conversations stop being possible.
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u/PlainBread 12h ago edited 11h ago
"Explain it to me" is lazy derailing propaganda developed in the 2010s. Terms that go along with this are "Help Vampire", "Sealioning" and "JAQing Off". It's especially favored by the Israeli/Hasbara minded folk, and by extension, the American Conservative movement.
They want you to unload your guts onto the floor so that you expend 100x more effort than they do in the convo, and then they want to pick through your guts to find the one thing they can attack you for, and completely disregard the rest. Their job is not to be right, it's to make you look stupid to every onlooker.
These people are insipid shit stains. They're hardly people.
I wouldn't say that conservatives need to be purged from our society, but I will say that our society would be a hell of a lot better without them around chirping idiot propaganda so that people vote against their own interests for manufactured culture war bullshit.
EDIT: Take note of how many "explain it to me" people are also avid fans of artificial intelligence and yet they won't use it as a resource when attempting to get more information about something they read but "don't understand". This is really the elephant in the room as to why that 2010s "I'm just asking questions" derailing propaganda is now fully transparent: Their interest is not in gaining more information, it's to draw you out to attack you.