We must attack the debunkers strategy of attacking with no argument.

Can't have anyone questioning le narrative, can we?

They use snarky comments in the place of arguments. The tone of which is always that of superiority.

Lmao that's like 90% or reddit arguments in general. It's not something exclusive to shills.

For the most part I see them attacking anyone that shows the slightest bit of skepticism or critical thinking skills. See skeptics are like kryptonite to shills. The last thing a shill wants is someone questioning their narrative and posting credible sources that debunk their false claims. This is terrifying to your garden variety shill because it makes their jobs much harder if not impossible.

Through an attempt to stifle dissenting opinion by accusing people who disagree of being shills. It's classic projectionism.

But isn't that just the basic trolls?

No, I find trolls are just interested in being divisive and pissing people off for the lols in general. I don't see them pushing a narrative or trying to prevent people from being skeptical.

To me a shill is someone with an actual agenda to mislead people. A troll is someone trying to be edgy to piss people off. Shills can troll, but not all trolls are shills.

I said anyone with an actual agenda to mislead people, I was pretty specific with my definition.

Definition of agenda
1 : a list or outline of things to be considered or done > agendas of faculty meetings
2 : an underlying often ideological plan or program > a political agenda

In this case it would be #2.

Do you honestly not understand the definition I used? If you just disagree with it feel free to say so at some point in the not too distant future.

It depends on the agenda. This is why I specifically defined the agenda in the definition as being one meant to mislead.

Either way since you don't seem to want to actually make a point I'll go ahead and bow out now. Best of luck with your shill hunt. /wink

I.e. one man's freedom fighters is anothers terrorist.

I don't think there's anything subjective about trying to willfully mislead people.

Mislead to some lead to others

Maybe you should keep that in mind the next time you start a shill hunt thread.

What if those people you claim are shills are really just telling the truth and fighting against real shills? You know...one man's freedom fighter is another's terrorist.

Are you saying it's a good thing to question narratives with no argument?

those who attack with no argument.

Where are these people? Can you link some examples?

Can't have anyone questioning le narrative, can we?

So then you can't provide example of these mysterious shills who attack without providing any argument. I see.

No wonder you're already tagged in my RES, jesus dude.

Do you have an argument that isn't completely false? I just provided a link with me engaging with the OP and providing an actual argument. Now, where are these shills that attack without any arguments?

Nice edit

The original comment I replied to was "So you won't provide evidence that mystery shills are attacking with no argument" and then they inserted a ninja-edit and based their entire reply to comment off of that.

Nice try, have a good one you fucking liar.

It was obvious you didn't take the time to see my reply where i presented an actual argument so I edited in the link for you. Glad to see you're man enough to admit you're wrong....

Yes, I was wrong in that trying to reason with someone who has clearly shown to me in the past they are beyond reasoning, even when I've pointed out specifically for them how they participated in an attack with no argument.

The only thing you've done is show your ability to knee jerk without having all the facts (typical). Now that I spoon fed you the information you can clearly see that I was more than happy to present an argument and back up my statement.

So again I'll ask, where are these shills that attack and never provide an argument?

Can't have anyone questioning le narrative, can we?

Disingenuous representation of OP's stance, an attack with no argument.

I just linked to the argument I presented, you can ignore that link if you want, but it clearly shows I was more than fine with presenting an argument and engaging with the OP so clearly you're wrong. Not surprising, you're wrong quite a bit.

So you whatabout from one bad example of skepticism to another more decent attempt as if it completely defers from the former and then act like me directly answering your question with the former as an example is not adequate. I'm just not buying these mental gymnastics.

I'm the one sticking to the topic at hand. So again, since I clearly showed I have no problem defending anything I say with actual arguments, where are these mysterious posters who run around attacking people and refusing to provide arguments?

I'm the one sticking to the topic at hand.

The fact that you seem to comfortably be able to pretend this is the case is enough to cease further engagement. You have not listened, ran on your own presumptive tangents, tried to subvert the conversation by adding in ninja comments that made my response seem out-of-place, and then accuse the person you are talking to of doing exactly what you are doing. I look forward to how you spin this as another classic example of how people are unwilling to converse with "skeptics."

Cheers, mate.

I appreciate you making it crystal clear to everyone here that when pressed you failed miserably to provide actual examples to back up your claim. Next time you run into a thread and have another embarrassing knee jerk reaction without taking the time to read the thread maybe you'll remember this incident and think twice.

Next time you run into a thread and have another embarrassing knee jerk reaction without taking the time to read the thread maybe you'll remember this incident and think twice.

What can you even say to someone speaking through the foot in their mouth other than "right back at ya." This is simply childish.

I like how you refuse to acknowledge the first part of my comment.

I appreciate you making it crystal clear to everyone here that when pressed you failed miserably to provide actual examples to back up your claim.

This is you deflecting from the fact that you jumped to an incorrect conclusion, and even when it was pointed out that you were dead wrong you just ignored it and continued to attack me instead of my argument.

Why would I acknowledge a boldfaced lie?

Why would I acknowledge a boldfaced lie

What lie would that be exactly?

When someone asks a question you've already cleared answered multiple time.

So you're just going to attack me and call me a liar and then refuse to provide an argument to backup your baseless attack? Looks like we finally found a real example of a poster who attacks people without providing an argument, huh?

So you're just going to attack me

Citation needed.

Citation needed.

You just called me a liar, don't try to walk it back now.

Didn't realize calling out your shitty logic

No, you specifically said I was a liar and when I asked you to point out what I lied about you refused. Like I said, you're the example of the poster attacking people without an argument.

especially when it showed you were attacking with no argument

I linked to the very long and in-depth discussion I had in this very thread with RMFN and you completely ignored it. I'm not the coward here that attacks people and calls them liars and then runs away when asked to explain themselves.

Damn, you just knew blatently lying about how that link was posted would get me to respond. Like how you snuck that comment in after I had already responded accordingly to what was provided? And then further on when I actually did address the link (mind, which you are now lying again about me not having done), and how it was irrelevant to the argumentless attack you made on OP in this very thread? Yeah, totally.

*Don't tell me you're inflating my votecount now just to accuse me of vote manipulation? I didn't come into this conversation expecting upvotes.

Damn, you just knew blatently lying about how that link was posted

Where? Point out the lie. Quote me.

I'm sorry but I've seen shills (people i identified as such) doing the exact opposite of your identification criterias and non-shills abusing these criterias simply by stupidity.

Never forget that shills are fighting the same war as us: the information war. And like any war tactics must and do evolve. Hell have you ever seen a shill calling out someone a shill?

Want a secret? Shilling is obsolete. Why shill against hard heads who don't want to hear your narrtive? Throw them a bone and watch them fighting eachother over crumbs of truth.

My wording was exagerated. I believe shilling is about to become obsolete, at least in environments where everyone knows what a shill is and how to identify one. Newer tactics rely on derailing by baiting people in juicier information that leads nowhere.

I guess that you could include derailing in the big umbrella that is the art of shilling, in which case my initial premise becomes false.

You don't have to fool every one all of the time, just fool the right ones and the rest fall in line, it's a proven psychological tactic for manufacturing consent. 3 high status individuals is all it takes to create a consensus that everyone else will follow.

I’m of the belief that it is very hard to prove someone is actual paid shill, but I see sockpuppet accounts calling people shills often.

The point isn't about proving who is or isn't a shill, it's about trusting whatever information someone brings. Obviously you wouldn't trust what a shill says to you, hence why you want to discover one quickly.

This concept leads to shills rising tensions in a converation (or thread for that matter) in such a way that actual people call eachother shills so that no one can trust any information shared within the thread.

I tend to ignore accusations of it bc it’s flung around so often

You are not being downvoted because you aggravated the shills, you are being downvoted because you are suggesting that debunking is a faux pas in and out of itself. If you don't apply the same skepticism to conspiracy theories as you do to the bullshit regurgigated by the MSM, you're measuring with two different meters.

Of course they are. The burden of proof lies with the person making the claim, that's one of the most fundamental laws of logic around. If someone is making an outrageous claim without providing outrageous evidence, which happens all too often on this sub, people are perfectly justified in pointing that out.

[removed]

That explains all the shill accusations around here...

and am overall attitude of "debunking"

There's been a big effort to debunk conspiracies against Russia and the Trump administration.

Name them.

I just want to say, that I've tried to have rational discussions with you in the past, and they got derailed pretty fast

No. I am not implying you are a shill nor do I think you are a shill.

You have again put words in my mouth.

What I was implying that your standards are not consistent.

I’m not trying to attack you. I’m just saying that I’ve tried to have multiple good faith conversations with you, and I always felt they were rebuffed with you putting words in my mouth , with the exception of my one post submission where I talked about the Jews taking over a school district and running it into the ground.

No problem. Hopefully we can have fruitful in faith conversations in the future

Insults, low effort posts and comments, derailing threads and comments, constant defense of a subject of a conspiracy.

I have some more criteria, but I'm forced to be brief right now, because of IRL stuff going on.

could your next post be about how to combat shills effectively ?

no i am very new to all this dont give emotional responses? know the source material thoroughly so anyone trying to distort the information, they're argument can be publicly dismantled

You are implying that every shill knows he is a shill; whereas, many are just conformists to the mainstream narrative who are virtue signalling and who have limited depth because they can go 24/7 without being confronted by a compelling counter argument, so their confidence is off the charts--even though they are usually wrong. Also, they instinctively know that they would lose their friends and possibly their jobs if they questioned the mainstream narrative, so they conform. Such conformists may be hiding their opinion only to minimize loss of Karma rather than for more nefarious purposes.

The best first step is to use that handful of facts that take away their undeserved confidence--such as WTC 7.

whereas, many are just conformists to the mainstream narrative who are virtue signalling and who have limited depth because they can go 24/7 without being confronted by a compelling counter argument

At some point you start to wonder why some people are even hanging around a conspiracy sub.

I think many of them hang around because they have seen their heroes appearing to win arguments with particular logical fallacies and then they come here hoping to do the same.

Absolutely, it's absolutely insane the amount of logical fallacies being passed as valid arguments. I got hit with this one yesterday, literally every second line is a new fallacy and this account gets upvoted with the same tactics in major threads almost daily.

One behavior I have noticed is that a shill will say something disreputable (e.g. something racist) in response to a post or comment and imply that the op (or even most of the sub) agrees, then the op has to respond or else appear to have agreed.

One goal of a real shill is to spread paranoia, such as by making users suspect everyone is a shill.

The goals of shills seem to fall into these categories: 1) make people dislike and distrust each other, 2) disrupt conversation that might spread or uncover the truth, and 3) smear poo on those who do not conform, 4) promote the mainstream narrative.

Some shills are so good that they actually contradict some parts of the mainstream narrative to gain enough credibility to protect the most important part, which is the Illusion of Legitimacy.

The goals of shills seem to fall into these categories:

Here is a list of other categories: https://cryptome.org/2012/07/gent-forum-spies.htm

The most effective shill technique I have seen is how some men's advocates are very good at explaining how the system screws men so badly, but then they misdirect men about the cause and solution.

For example:

1. They act like it is a new thing because, otherwise, they would have to explain the conspiracy that no mainstream or alternative pundits were mentioning it much before 2016.
2. They say the cause is that this is what society wants because society places no value on the welfare of men, but this obviously not true because everyone is shocked when they learn the truth about how how badly the system abuses men.
3. They act like the solution is more social service for men--like women have. This is wrong. men do not need social services. The solution to government is not more government.
4. They keep implying that the solution is for men to dislike, distrust, and ignore women.

an overall attitude of "debunking"

Why is debunking a bad thing? As people admit constantly (usually when talking about /r/politics), echo chambers are bad things. People bringing in facts or additional info to conspiracy theories are, in my opinion, always a good thing - maybe especially if those facts or information "debunk" some aspect of the theory. I'm not here to talk about people's wild fantasies, I'm here to talk about conspiracy theories that are based in reality. Facts help that.

Basically ditto my argument above for calling all shills "contrarian". Being contrary/playing devil's advocate/bringing unpopular but true facts into a discussion shouldn't be seen as a bad thing or something only shills do. That's the recipe for an echo chamber and that would be the death of this sub.

A shill will demand multiple sources but use spurious ones in their effort to debunk.

What do you mean/how do you define "spurious" sources? Your next point says that shills defend corporate monopolies, which makes me assume you mean that any 'mainstream' source would be suspect to you. I'm not sure it's helpful to discussion to label anything that's printed in any sort of mainstream source as bad information that only a shill would link to.

The third red scare

No problem. Hopefully we can have fruitful in faith conversations in the future

I like how you refuse to acknowledge the first part of my comment.

I appreciate you making it crystal clear to everyone here that when pressed you failed miserably to provide actual examples to back up your claim.

This is you deflecting from the fact that you jumped to an incorrect conclusion, and even when it was pointed out that you were dead wrong you just ignored it and continued to attack me instead of my argument.