why do people become shills etc?

submitted by panel30 from self.whatever

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[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

I think StillLessons is largely correct. There are two types of people here. One is the type that is doing this for financial gain, but this type is rarer than the other type, and wants to create this second type for their own personal gain.

StillLessons called the second type 'activists', but I would use the term 'true believers', as it isn't necessarily political. Christians are a type of true believer - they want to save you from your wrong views and convert you to their correct ones. I'd also say that secular ideologies work much the same way, at least in social dynamics, you can have a true believer in liberalism, conservatism, gender ideology, capitalism, or pretty much any idea or group of ideas. They aren't really 'shills' because they truly believe what they say, and aren't in it for financial gain, but their words might be hard to distinguish from the first group

[–]panel30[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

This reminds me of how people talk about "-isms" (commun-ism femin-ism).

It's fun to do this and try to convert people, it feels good and like you're doing something important. At least it has for me. (uh, sorry guys.)

How do you just be a regular person without all this? It's almost like that's the exception, by far. It's like everyone is constantly trying to convert you to something. And I'm doing it too.

I guess there's a difference in honestly though. Someone can be participating in something without pushing it on others, to varying degrees of insistence and varying degrees of ignoring the targeted people and reality.

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yeah, like you say I think there are some subtle differences here. All of us come to Saidit to say our piece, think we are right, and try to get others to see our reasoning. It does feel good when you change someones mind through discussion and reason, and conversely to gain insights from others. I think there is a difference between having a rational debate and trying to convince someone of a thing, and demanding that you are right and everyone submit to your rightness, I try to to aim for the former, though none of us are perfect, and I'm sure you could find instances of me being dogmatic to some extent if you were to review all my posts