Shill gambit

[[File:Shill card.png|thumb|right|165px|Get-out-of-argument-free card.]]
{{logicnav}}
The '''shill gambit''', a type of ''[[ad hominem|ad-hominem]]'' and [[poisoning the well|poisoning-the-well]] [[rhetorical]] move, occurs when one party dismisses another party's arguments by proclaiming them to be [[Conflict of interest|on the payroll]] of some agency. It usually goes something like this:

{{cquote|'''Gallant:''' There is absolutely no evidence that [[9/11|explosives were planted in the Twin Towers]].
<br/> '''Goofus:''' I knew it! Another [[George W. Bush|Bush-administration]] shill spreading disinformation! Go spew your [[New World Order|NWO]] lies somewhere else, shill!}}

The shill gambit works as an attack because a conflict of interest<ref>{{wpa|conflict of interest}}</ref> can cause serious problems when addressing [[scientific]]/technical issues, where both lives and massive amounts of money can be at stake. In many cases, conflict of interest has caused problems in the past, notably when medical trials go awry because data was [[Coverup|covered up]] to save face and/or money.

==Why it's flawed==
Where this gambit becomes [[fallacious]] is where such conflict has not been demonstrated. Indeed, when a shill gambit is used fallaciously, the only "[[evidence]]" given of such a connection to a big company or government is that someone endorses a particular position – and therefore, they must hold that position ''only'' because they're being paid or receiving some other deal-sweetener. Such a move is less fallacious and can even be beneficial when such conflict of interest is demonstrated and shown to interfere with a person's judgment of the evidence.

There is further justification for some [[paranoia]] over internet-based shills as there are many online [[astroturf]] campaigns. However, such shills tend to spend their time flooding sites like Amazon.com with glowing reviews of their company's product using armies of [[sock puppet]]s. When shills actually go on message boards, they will seldom engage in [[debate]] – instead, they make one or two quick posts or perform a brief back-and-forth with a sock puppet and then leave permanently.

==Examples==
===Big Pharma===
{{main|Big Pharma}}
The shill gambit is a more general form of the "pharma shill gambit" coined by Orac of [[Respectful Insolence]].<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20100306221631/http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2006/09/the_pharma_shill_gambit_1.php</ref> [[Alternative medicine|Alties]] are especially prone to accusing anyone who calls their [[woo]] what it is of shilling for Big Pharma – leading many bloggers to say that they ''wish'' they were making that much money. 

Orac also defined the "reverse pharma shill gambit," which calls the altie on his connection to a company that peddles [[quackery]]. (c.f. [[Big Placebo]].) He pulled this gambit himself when he called [[Age of Autism]] out for taking money from [[alt-med]] [[woomeister]] Lee Silsby.<ref>[http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/05/the_reverse_pharma_shill_gambit_applied.php Reverse Pharma Shill Gambit]</ref> A similar situation occurred when people noticed that [[Andrew Wakefield]] suffered a major conflict of interest as he was financed by companies that had a lot to gain if the "triple-jab" MMR [[vaccine]] was revoked in favor of three separate ones.

===Politics===
{{main|Politics}}
[[File:Everyone I Don't Like is Funded By Soros.jpg|thumb|300px|About sums it up. (Thanks, [[Alex Jones|Alex]]!)]]
In [[United States|American]] politics, [[right-wingers]] will often try to discredit liberal groups by showing that they, or someone they work for, are in the pay of [[George Soros]], while left-wingers do the same to right-wing groups by showing that they have at some point received money from some corporation or other; at present (2010s), the [[Koch Industries|Koch brothers]] are popular "evil capitalist pig" figures for this purpose ([[Richard Mellon Scaife]] is so 1990s, and [[Rupert Murdoch]] was 2000s news).

===Climate change===
{{main|Climate change}}
{{cquote|[They are e]ither a bot or a paid shill. I generally find this true of anyone who disagrees with my POV. Just the other night, my wife criticized me for driving too slowly. After 40 years of [[marriage]], I find that I'm married to a petroleum industry shill!|||/u/JohnAlanTucker<ref>https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/4icd7h/over_40_rodent_feeding_studies_show_genetically/d2x1whf</ref>}}
Amazingly, people will allege a conflict of interest for grant money for showing evidence of climate change, never quite specifying what that conflict of interest '''is''', while also willfully ignoring the much more explicit conflicts of interest in studies funded by [[fossil fuel]] [[lobbying]] groups.

===Conspiracy===
{{main|Conspiracy theory}}
Conspiracy theorists also love the shill gambit, though "shill" is often replaced with "operative" or "disinformation agent." This is the driving force behind the parody [[Bielefeld conspiracy]] and its many variants. Even when presented with incontrovertible evidence for Bielefeld's existence, the "theorist" can always use the shill gambit to turn the argument in his/her favor. It's not uncommon to find a conspiracy theorist claim to "expose" a popular [[skeptic]]/website as a way to come across as a [[whistleblower]].<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67cWIFmeYjE like this Youtube video for example]</ref><ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VN5-C2ZUJ4&list=PL0i2qLgc7uAFI26vYHaTLVmC2I-h5UPP-&index=16 Video of poorly-disguised alt-med conspiracy-theorist [[Ty Bollinger]] pretending to be a BigPharma whistleblower].</ref> This is similar in the vein to other famous whistleblowers like [[Edward Snowden]], but infinitely more credible, as the [[mainstream media]] (Read: Shills) doesn't bring any attention to them.

Many leftists who defend authoritarian anti-Western and anti-American regimes portray their critics as [[Chickenhawk|warmongers]] and [[neocons]]. {{wpl|Max Blumenthal||,}} who was once a pretty intelligent progressive, has fallen from grace in the pro-interventionism circles and questioned the scale of Uyghur detention in camps in China's northwestern Xinjiang province and challenged reports of atrocities allegedly committed by the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. He  has appeared on [[Tucker Carlson]]'s show and multiple foreign state media outlets, including [[RT]], [[Press TV]], [[Turkey|Turkey's]] TRT World, [[Al Jazeera]], [[Venezuela|Venezuela's]] [[Telesur]], and China's CGTN. He attempts to cast doubt on those who criticize the [[authoritarian]] tendencies of [[China]], Putin's [[Russia]], and others as warmongering [[neocon]] shills. This behavior shows that Blumenthal has not only gone full [[tankie]] and also employs the shill gambit.<ref>[http://codastory.com/disinformation/grayzone-xinjiang-denialism/ Enter the Grayzone: fringe leftists deny the scale of China’s Uyghur oppression]. codastory.com, 30 July 2020.</ref> Max also blames billionaire [[George Soros]] for regime change in [[Venezuela]], [[Latin America]], [[Nicaragua]], and [[Hong Kong]] while being interviewed on the [[Jimmy Dore]] show.<ref>https://twitter.com/themattdimitri/status/1262265713655349248</ref>

==Trivia==
It's a well-known fact{{nofact}} that shills live in {{wpl|Shillington, Pennsylvania||.}}

==RationalWiki!==
{{main|RationalWiki}}
{{see also|RationalWiki:Pissed at us}}
[[File:Shillary.png|thumb|right|300px|We found those checks we were waiting on.]]
{{hatnote|Users of RationalWiki are still waiting on their checks from Big [Insert industry here], George Soros, and Correct the Record. Come on, we have [[RationalWiki:Fundraiser|servers to run]] and [[RationalWiki:Saloon bar|pool parties]] to host.}}
{{cquote|RationalWiki is run by literal shills. Absolutely nothing on that site should be taken seriously.|||we've been exposed<ref>https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/62ivmv/humor_it_seems_like_kia_is_still_in_rationalwikis/dfn072n/</ref>}}
RationalWiki's status as a "shill" site has been revealed by [[neo-Nazis]]<ref>http://en.metapedia.org/m/index.php?title=RationalWiki&oldid=389223</ref> and other [[Antisemitism|anti-Semite]]s,<ref>https://sites.google.com/site/omerbashich/stats_etc</ref> [[Flat Earth]]ers,<ref>http://www.theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?topic=65625.1605;wap2</ref> [[MRA]]s,<ref>https://www.rooshvforum.com/thread-47020.html</ref> [[Gamergate]]rs,<ref>https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/4ec1yl/censorshipaccording_to_rational_wiki_the_many/d1yzw8x</ref><ref>https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/459pba/dramapedia_rationalwiki_editors_leaving_because/czw98ky</ref> [[GMO]] haters,<ref>http://www.truthwiki.org/skeptical-raptor/</ref><ref>http://ecowatch.com/2014/02/28/monsantos-science-doesnt-add-up/</ref> [[alternative medicine|alt-med]] pushers,<ref>http://www.whale.to/p/quacks.html</ref> and general [[conspiracy theorists]].<ref>https://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=40243.0</ref> [[Guilt by association|You're in good company, folks]]!

==See also==
*[[Conflict of interest]]
*[[Appeal to Monsanto]]
*[[Astroturf]]
*[[Bulverism]]
*[[Experts for hire]]
*[[Gamergate]] &ndash; supporters regularly accuse opponents of being shills for Gawker, which is amusing in and of itself

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

{{logfal}}

[[Category:Ad hominem]]
[[Category:Fallacious arguments]]

Categories: Ad hominem, Fallacious arguments