Stop saying the playbook for doubt and deception comes from “big tobacco.” What to say instead.
When people talk about industries sowing doubt to avoid being scrutinized or regulated, people often say that those industries are using the tactics of big tobacco. It happens a lot with businesses the pollute and deplete a lot.
I think they’re mostly relying on the book Merchants of Doubt, which wrote about how the tobacco industry created uncertainty and other tactics, not to defend themselves so much as to deflect accountability and interest.
I agree with the sentiment, but tobacco companies didn’t start the practices. It’s been a while since I read the book Industrial-Strength Denial: Eight Stories of Corporations Defending the Indefensible, from the Slave Trade to Climate Change, by Barbara Freese, so I might misremember, but it traced them to the slave trade.
It would be more accurate and thorough to trace the practices to slavery, not just tobacco.
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