Tobacco shills
I run a blog about medical ethics, and last week I put up a post tangentially related to the BMA's proposal that smoking in cars be banned.

Most posts on the blog attract few comments, if any. This one attracted a deluge of shills for the tobacco industry. It didn't take long for the Godwins to appear, either: since the Nazis used terms like "public health", that means (apparently) that public health is morally suspicious, and anyone who talks about public health is a Nazi.

So it was that one respondent accused me of being a Marxist, fascist, Nazi sociologist.

Marxist I can accept. I'm much less happy about being called a fascist and a Nazi. But to be called a sociologist... Ugh. That's just nasty.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 25 Nov 2011, 10:36, 28 replies)

Clearly not
an objective blog though.
(username failed moderation, Fri 25 Nov 2011, 10:43, closed)

Depends what you mean by objective.
The post in question responded to a pissweak argument presented by an incompetent. All I did was point that out...
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 25 Nov 2011, 10:47, closed)

Well, to be fair (and objective)
I can't really say what your blog is. I can see what you are though.

I'm guessing that you're not in favour of smoking. I get that from what you posted.

'Shill' is rarely ever used outside of a hysterical opinion, being masqueraded as a fact.

Is your blog about ethics?
(username failed moderation, Fri 25 Nov 2011, 10:56, closed)

Shill means stooge - these people are paid to post these comments
Go on freelancer.co.uk and you can apply for these jobs yourself.

I think you might be thinking of 'shrill'.
(leviticus no longer likes the cut of your gib on, Fri 25 Nov 2011, 11:01, closed)

No, I'm well aware of what shill means, thanks
What are the job descriptions - do they ask for shills?

Or is it just a term used by a self obsessed windbag to dismiss any dissenting opinions to his own?
(username failed moderation, Fri 25 Nov 2011, 11:07, closed)

http://www.freelancer.co.uk/jobs/Forum-Posting/
No, but if you take one of these jobs, that's exactly what you are.
(leviticus no longer likes the cut of your gib on, Fri 25 Nov 2011, 11:13, closed)

I'm going to put this
argument down as willfully obtuse.
(username failed moderation, Fri 25 Nov 2011, 11:26, closed)

I give up
Although I still think you don't know what 'shill' means.

And here's my evidence: "It is a pejorative slang term, only ever used by someone who needs to quickly and easily dismiss another opinion."
(leviticus no longer likes the cut of your gib on, Fri 25 Nov 2011, 11:28, closed)

I haven't looked it up in a dictionary
But I am quite sure about what it means.

You are, I think, talking about a person paid to support someone else opinion, regardless of whether they really believe it or not. I wouldn't disagree with that.

But if you use the term to describe everybody who disagrees with you - you are assuming they're representing someone elses opinion, which might not actually be the truth.

So, using the word shill is dangerous territory. If you're not talking about specific people, you're generalising and dismissing any other opinion.
(username failed moderation, Fri 25 Nov 2011, 11:50, closed)

The fact that the blog is about ethics can probably be deduced from the phrase "I run a blog about medical ethics".
In respect of being in favour of smoking - well, I'm no great defender of it, but there might be a liberty argument to be had when the only person harmed is the smoker. If others are put at risk, then the argument shifts slightly: it's no longer about smoking, but about exposing others to your smoke; and it's perfectly coherent to defend the right to smoke to the hilt, and at the same time defend the idea that exposing others to your smoke is morally iffy.

Had the commenters' tone been different - and had it engaged with the argument in any meaningful way - I would not have labelled them shills.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 25 Nov 2011, 11:03, closed)

I'm a smoker
I think it's a filthy habit, I don't do it in the house, and I don't smoke around my kids.

I wish I had never started, and although I personally find it inconvenient, I am totally OK with the ban in public places.

On the other hand, ask me if I agree to being stopped from smoking by myself, in my own car, and you'll get a negative reaction.

Am I a shill? Apparently so.
(username failed moderation, Fri 25 Nov 2011, 11:30, closed)

Again, unless you were paid to post that opinion
you're not a shill.
(leviticus no longer likes the cut of your gib on, Fri 25 Nov 2011, 11:32, closed)

Not on the strength of what you've just said.
But what you've just said is markedly different from a great many of the comments received.

On the face of it, you're making a claim about individual liberty - a claim that may or may not be tenable, and one that certainly could be investigated further. What you're not doing is wailing about how all this is symptomatic of puritanism, moralism, bigotry, and the systematic persecution of smokers. That's why you're not a shill.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 25 Nov 2011, 11:36, closed)

That depends on whether you're driving or not.
I vaguely remember a post about this on Facebook, or some other waste of time website.

The argument is, that smoking while driving is a distraction, particularly if you're clumsy enough to drop your cig, how would you react? Particularly if you drop it as a reaction to an accident where you need to react quickly.

In this case, you're a danger to other road users and not just harming yourself.

One guy replied, "Oh, I wouldn't do that, I'd just calmly pull over", but the point is, it's not just about one person, it's about how the general public would react in such a situation.

EDIT: For reference, I'm not a smoker, but I'm not against it either, as long as you don't force it on other people, bit like religion really!
(anonymousreality tickled your fancy on, Fri 25 Nov 2011, 12:09, closed)

So you should ban talking, eating,
radios, electric windows, air conditioning, sat nav, passengers and manual gearboxes.

All of these require pretty much the same attention as smoking does.
(username failed moderation, Mon 28 Nov 2011, 16:52, closed)

Ooh. Someone likes that so much they're posted it
as a story.

That's me put in my place!
(username failed moderation, Fri 25 Nov 2011, 12:29, closed)

Yeah, but nobody would read an objective blog, would they?
If blogs were just dispassionate lists of things that are objectively and demonstrably true, then the blogosphere would just be a poorly organised encyclopedia.

What's wrong with having an opinion anyway?
(leviticus no longer likes the cut of your gib on, Fri 25 Nov 2011, 10:59, closed)

Nicely said.
When I was offered the gig, my only guide was that I shouldn't be libellous. I don't think I am. And this blog has the highest readership of any in the BMJ stable, by quite some way.

Is this because I'm brilliant? I'd like to think so, but it's almost certainly not that. Rather, it's that the other blogs do tend to be very, very dry indeed.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 25 Nov 2011, 11:05, closed)

You're just a shill for
medical ethics blogs.
(username failed moderation, Fri 25 Nov 2011, 11:10, closed)

*applause*

( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 25 Nov 2011, 11:11, closed)

Drat!
Foiled again...
(leviticus no longer likes the cut of your gib on, Fri 25 Nov 2011, 11:14, closed)

Can we have the link?

(leviticus no longer likes the cut of your gib on, Fri 25 Nov 2011, 10:51, closed)

blogs.bmj.com/medical-ethics/2011/11/18/smoking-in-cars-and-the-bma-the-counterwheeze/

There're some really strange comments there, from people apparently falling over themselves to defend positions that even the tobacco industry has abandoned. One even claims that there's a study showing that passive smoking in childhood protects against cancer. (I checked: the paper is old, seems to be an outlier, and doesn't say anything like that anyway.)

EDIT: Several people have pointed out that the claim I make about pleasure is debateable: there're lots of things that become pleasurable only with exposure (good whisky, for example), but that doesn't mean that they aren't really pleasurable. This is a good point, but I don't think it matters all that much: my rejection of Lyons' piece still stands.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 25 Nov 2011, 10:58, closed)

It's the fact that you didn't post the link until the 19th reply that concerns me.
& only when you were asked to.
(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Fri 25 Nov 2011, 11:52, closed)

Eh?

( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 25 Nov 2011, 11:56, closed)

My objection is
only to the term 'shill'.

It is a pejorative slang term, only ever used by someone who needs to quickly and easily dismiss another opinion.

You'll see it used often by 'truthers'. 9/11 was an inside job, right? No? You're a US government shill. Next question please.

Pfft.
(username failed moderation, Fri 25 Nov 2011, 11:22, closed)

There is also
A shill, plant or stooge is a person who helps a person or organization without disclosing that he or she has a close relationship with that person or organization. Shill typically refers to someone who purposely gives onlookers the impression that he or she is an enthusiastic independent customer of a seller (or marketer of ideas) that he or she is secretly working for. The person or group that hires the shill is using crowd psychology, to encourage other onlookers or audience members to purchase the goods or services (or accept the ideas being marketed). Shills are often employed by confidence artists.

eBay play fuck about shill bidders and have successfully prosecuted.

So there.
( His Popiness the Hole Invaded Poland on, Sat 26 Nov 2011, 23:23, closed)

sociology
I did a unit in sociology last year - in the last lecture we were asked to review what we had learned, and I said I now knew that sociology was all bullshit. Still managed to get an A+, but I really hated that wanky stuff.
(justin(e), Fri 25 Nov 2011, 15:29, closed)