How to Catch a Serial Shiller

son-of-satire (69)in #shills • 8 years ago

You've noticed it too, haven't you? The ever-increasing frequency with which we accuse one another of being "shills" in recent years. Whilst the word once held a very specific definition, it seems that lately, the word shill has become little more than an umbrella term that can be attributed to any person, doing any task, for any form of payment.

A man posting comments on a YouTube video, raising questions about Trump's counterproductive approach to 'draining the swamp', is clearly a Hillary shill that has been paid to damage the public's opinion of Trump.

The young girl who wrote a five-star movie review for the latest Harry Potter installment, is blatantly an agent of Hollywood, in receipt of a regular paycheck for influencing readers to go and buy tickets to see the movie.

Two men walking up a busy street in the morning, wearing suits and sipping Starbucks, are most certainly shills. They're not on their way to work. They are paid to walk up that road every morning, holding their coffee cups in full view of passersby, and looking refreshed and ready for a long day's work.

Even your close friend, who on a night out, suggests that the group should consider having Mexican for dinner, is an obvious shill. A corporation that manufactures toilet paper must have paid them to bring up that comment in order to increase sales.

Ridiculous examples, perhaps. Yet, those described are more deserving of such an accusation than most who are labelled shills on a daily basis. It is a tragic state of affairs, but the truth is, all one must do to be regarded as a shill in today's world, is have a differing opinion to that of someone else.

There are no doubt paid agents out there. Hired to promote or suppress agendas. To engage in subtle advertisements, or community influencing etc. These people are a reality, but they are nowhere near as common as some would like us to think.

But what if you are not paid by a corporation, or any other organization? What if the only payment you receive for propagating your beliefs, is a payment that you give to yourself? Are you still a shill?

I suggest yes. We are all shills, serving one agenda or another.

Take the government shill for example; they are paid to garner support for an upcoming war overseas, or for a political candidate, or perhaps a piece of legislation. He or she commits to promoting an idea, belief, or agenda. In return, they are rewarded with comfort. This comfort may come in the form of monetary rewards. They can worry less about bills, or buy things that will provide them with a more comfortable, more enjoyable time on this Earth. They may even be paid in favours or the likes. That promotion they have been wanting, or a high paid job at another department. Whilst the method of payment is different, the ultimate gift that those forms of payments will be spent on, is the same. Money is not real. It is a fiction. It is worth something, only because we all believe that it is. Comfort is a real experience, however. We can all feel it. When it's there, we know it is, and most of us will spend all of the money we ever get trying to buy it for ourselves.

Now let's look at a random person who is employed by no one, yet spends the majority of their time speaking ill of Donald Trump online, preaching about how anarchy is the only moral way to live, or circulating the Flat Earth as an immutable fact. They too are promoting a belief, idea or agenda-- only they're not receiving any money or favours for their efforts. So what motivates them to spend so much time doing what they're doing? Could it be that they are essentially receiving the same reward that the paid shill will spend their earnings trying to obtain? Comfort

Curiosity is a good thing, a helpful thing. But, when one cannot find the answers to any of their questions, the resulting feeling can be unsettling to say the least. There seems to be a ubiquitous fear of unanswered questions, and humanity has done an excellent job of hiding important curiosities beneath false or under-investigated truths, in an effort to escape that fear.

The case of the unwitting shill is no different. To them, they are championing their belief, ideology or agenda for no reason other than it is right to do so. But whilst they are altruistically propagating this and that for the good of all, they are conveniently being rewarded with the comfort that accompanies an immovable paradigm. If it is questions that bother us, then convincing ourselves that we have the answers is the easiest way to limit the amount of questions we need ask. The unwitting shill has effectively cast out the middle man, and receive their payment as an undiluted injection of self-assurance that allows them to make it through the rest of their day feeling comfortable in their understanding of the world.

Based on this definition, would you consider yourself to be a shill?

It takes an elevated level of awareness to answer such a question. It is difficult for us to know our true motivations when we are distracted by our current actions. But I believe that if we all practiced self-reflection, we would realise that each and every one of us is guilty of shill-like behaviour at times. We have all argued a point for the sole purpose of being able to tell ourselves that we are correct.

One can argue passionately that Saturn has 53 moons. It matters not that they have never seen those moons, or even the planet in question. Are they arguing because they know Saturn has 53 moons? No. They cannot know this to be factual without travelling to space and seeing it for themself. But, to accept that they might be wrong about Saturn and its moons, is to accept that all the the writing in those books they read growing up could be bullshit. Now, that's a very uncomfortable thought. Better then that they continue to argue a position that they are not entitled to, rather than admit to themself that they know no more than Jon Snow.

What can we learn from this?

The purpose of this post is not to expose you as a shill and shame you for your self-serving actions. As I said, we are all guilty of this type of behaviour, me no less than any of you. I am writing this now because I feel there is a great lesson to be learned through this understanding. If you can be more conscious of your own motivations when entering a discussion or a debate, then you will have the self-awareness necessary to spot the moment when your inner-shill attempts to hijack the conversation. I refer to the moment when the point of the conversation ceases to be about learning, and becomes about proving you have nothing left to learn.

If we can preempt that change in our own attitude, then we can suppress it, ensuring that the rest of our conversation remains productive. If we can spot that change in ourselves, we can then spot it in others. This allows us to recognize when it is time to stop arguing our point, because it is landing on deaf ears and an armoured mind.

This skill can improve our ability to communicate with others, and more importantly, allow us to understand our own understandings better. Hopefully then we may learn to see the difference between a belief and a fact, the truth and an opinion...