Too much truthiness is a dangerous thing, albeit not a particularly punctually dangerous thing.

fluttermoth wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:

ETA: Ugh, went to google about it, hit on a recent celebrity news vid on YT, and then made the seriously stupid mistake of reading the comments section. Yup, it's definitely those vile women who are conspiring with Big Pharma to bring a good man down because of all the Truthiness he speaks.

I have a female acquaintance (friend of a friend) on FB who's posting a load of this shit. She's a conspiracy theorist/anti-vaxxer/general woo believer

You know... I think calling people like this conspiracy theorists is elevating their wittering to an assumed level of competency they very rarely deserve. There's very little theorising going on. Hardly any hypothesising either.

I've always seen it as in "it's just a theory I came up with" rather than "theory of gravity" and the like.

”here's a brain fart i had" doesn't seem popular for some reason.

Alternative media? Sounds to me like alternative medicine, or facts. We know how well that generally works out.

What is alternative media anyway, surely not drek such as Infowars?

Alternative media is basically where someone runs a social media account and calls it "news."

It's kinda funny how they all decry the mainstream media, but most of them started out there and mainly left because they didn't like the modicum of accountability that came with it.

This article is... pretty damning. A woman has accused Russell Brand of sexually assaulting her by exposing his penis to her at her place of work, and then joking about it on air immediately afterwards. The audio clip of him talking about it is included, so it seems rather unlikely the alleged events didn't take place:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-66882644

Speaking of theories, I have one. Russel Brand is a full blown psychopath. Maybe that's just a hypothesis. I figure grifting and psycopathy have some degree of correlation. Especially when they're telling people not to take a vaccine that could save their life, or prevent them from infecting a family member or friend. That's twisted.

He certainly doesn't come across as being a high empathy individual.

Fun facts about psycopathy: It's fairly common and typified by certain personality traits that are recognisable in quite a few notable celebrities:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog ... psychopath

Research suggests that 4% of the population is "sociopathic," and 5-15% is “almost psychopathic.”

• Pathological Lying and Manipulation
• Lack of Morality and Rule Breaking
• Lack of Empathy and Cold-Heartedness
• Narcissism and False Superiority Complex
• Gaslighting and Psychological Bullying
• Lack of Contrition and Self-Serving Victimhood

ETA: I don't think that's actually the best list of the symptomatic traits, but I couldn't find a better reference with a 2 minute google search. I think more normally the key traits are just lack of empathy, narcissism and very high risk-tolerance.

I have a hard time understanding Russel Brand's accent. That's weird that the BBC hasn't reached out to Olivia.

I remember reading Robert Hare's number of 1 in 40 people are psychopaths, but that's within range of 4%. It's a spectrum, of course, and as you say, there are certainly more than 4% of people who have some of the traits, some of the time.
I know a certain orange-hued guy who has the self-serving victimhood trait.
This clip will never get old.

Trump is 100% a psycopath.

He has no empathy, he is probably the most narcissistic person in the public eye today and his entire career has been built on taking risks and breaking rules (like working with the mob, paying illegal hush money, promoting scams, spending money to go after the central park five etc.). He also has zero remorse and no shame to boot.

A low-functioning psychopath.

Spearthrower wrote:A low-functioning psychopath.

"So low he could parachute out of a snake's arse"

Thommo wrote:Trump is 100% a psycopath.

He has no empathy, he is probably the most narcissistic person in the public eye today and his entire career has been built on taking risks and breaking rules (like working with the mob, paying illegal hush money, promoting scams, spending money to go after the central park five etc.). He also has zero remorse and no shame to boot.

Absolutely, one of the most obvious public examples of a full psychopath. Again, I'm not a big Sam Harris fan, but I like the way he put it. "Trump has narcissism on a level rarely encountered in every day life."

I think pathologising the behaviour of powerful and abusive people when they get found out mostly misses the point - as well as offering an over simplistic explaination for that behaviour. Imagining convincing reasons for why they might act that way in the world is less important imo than addressing how they actually act, and the consequences of those acts.

I would tend to agree with you, but psycopathy is a personality trait rather than a disease or mental illness. Whether or not Brand or Trump or anyone else is a psycopath (and I'd bet they both are) does indeed change nothing.

So apparently it's really all the manipulations of the Deep State, just in case you wondered whether he or his audience had any competent grasp of reality.

He's certainly cultivated a cult-like following who seem primed to doubt anything said by credible sources, but believe whatever words he spouts.

His fans in the Russell Brand subreddit aren't happy about the sudden influx of people there to talk about these allegations. One even made a post which went something like, "This sub is for fans. Why are you here?"

The echo chamber has become an anechoic chamber.