How To **** Up Your Life: A Simple Guide

[Pseudonym]

What's really baffling about this case is not that Linton, who is clearly delusional, attempted to publish a book about her completely made up experiences, but that it somehow got through a publisher, presumably several editors and the Daily Telegraph, an ostensibly quality broadsheet newspaper. Somehow, these people were either unable to spot the bullshit themselves or assumed that the general public including the general public in Zambia itself would buy it.

That's the real insult here, that there are apparently serious people out there who think we're all so utterly stupid we wouldn't notice this shite.

Why is she clearly delusional? She has a number of possible motives that don't require delusions, just a shitty conscience and poor planning.

She would be delusional if she thought this would go unnoticed. I mean, somebody who knows something about Zambia was going to pick up a copy of her book some day. She clearly didn't try very hard to pretend, if the OP is to be believed. Apparently the landscapes and conflicts she described are completely wrong to the point that any Zambian would notice.

 

[Quellist]

I'm really sick of this phenomenon where one person who is maybe dumb but no worse than many others out there gets singled out to be ritually torn apart by the baying mob.

It speaks of just how revolting people are that so many will just jump on any bandwagon for an excuse to vent 'righteous' fury when a supposedly 'acceptable target' is dangled before them

 

[Fox12]

This reminds me of my time in Vietnam. Was 1963 and I was only 17, about an hour's flight out of Saigon and I came across a town of orphans that where about to be sold off to China by the Viet Kong until I dispatched them.

Now some will point out I "wouldn't be born for another three decades" or "have never set foot in Asia", but those are just minor details that are easy to mix up, like being a US Secretary forgetting that your trip to Bosnia was uneventful instead of under sniper fire.

I too was there at the time and may have seen you once or twice. However I was with the native noble savages the Vietnamese, or Viet Kong as they prefer, working as a undercover journalist. All it took was a fancy new wig to disguise my blond hair and I was accepted as one of their tribe.

Did you know that the Viet Kong don't have a word for burning orphans? But they have 17.5 different words for cheese?

I remember fondly my times in the Vietnamese deserts in the hart of Africa, but the memory that sticks in my side the most was when I negotiated peace between the Viet Kong and the invading Canadians. It is quite safe to say the world would probably still be fighting World War 3 in Viet Kong Land if I hadn't managed to bring then Canadian president George Bush and Viet Kong Arch Duke Saddam Barack Hussein together in a rousing game of Cricket.

Yes its true the British game of Cricket is what truly sorted the worlds problems forever.

Now wheres my book deal? A movie would be nice too.

You claim to have been there when Zontar burned those orphans, and yet you forgot to mention the transforners that showed up shortly afterwards. This makes me question whether you were actually there at all.

I haven't been this insulted by historical innacuracy since that time I defeated the entire English army at Stamford Bridge.

 

[Areloch]

This reminds me of my time in Vietnam. Was 1963 and I was only 17, about an hour's flight out of Saigon and I came across a town of orphans that where about to be sold off to China by the Viet Kong until I dispatched them.

Now some will point out I "wouldn't be born for another three decades" or "have never set foot in Asia", but those are just minor details that are easy to mix up, like being a US Secretary forgetting that your trip to Bosnia was uneventful instead of under sniper fire.

I too was there at the time and may have seen you once or twice. However I was with the native noble savages the Vietnamese, or Viet Kong as they prefer, working as a undercover journalist. All it took was a fancy new wig to disguise my blond hair and I was accepted as one of their tribe.

Did you know that the Viet Kong don't have a word for burning orphans? But they have 17.5 different words for cheese?

I remember fondly my times in the Vietnamese deserts in the hart of Africa, but the memory that sticks in my side the most was when I negotiated peace between the Viet Kong and the invading Canadians. It is quite safe to say the world would probably still be fighting World War 3 in Viet Kong Land if I hadn't managed to bring then Canadian president George Bush and Viet Kong Arch Duke Saddam Barack Hussein together in a rousing game of Cricket.

Yes its true the British game of Cricket is what truly sorted the worlds problems forever.

Now wheres my book deal? A movie would be nice too.

You claim to have been there when Zontar burned those orphans, and yet you forgot to mention the transforners that showed up shortly afterwards. This makes me question whether you were actually there at all.

I haven't been this insulted by historical innacuracy since that time I defeated the entire English army at Stamford Bridge.

Wait, wait waaaait. Stamford? I thought it was Stannford. Great now I have to update my definitely historical, first-person account about how I defeated the entire English army at Stan-er, Stamford Bridge.

I'm really sick of this phenomenon where one person who is maybe dumb but no worse than many others out there gets singled out to be ritually torn apart by the baying mob.

It speaks of just how revolting people are that so many will just jump on any bandwagon for an excuse to vent 'righteous' fury when a supposedly 'acceptable target' is dangled before them

Eh, as long as it doesn't involve death threats or the like, I really don't see anything wrong with lampooning someone who did something stupid, especially if it's this level of stupid. I make fun of my friends when they screw up stuff and they do it to me as well. Stuff like the barbie post are genuinely funny.

 

[Timothy Yardvale]

What's really baffling about this case is not that Linton, who is clearly delusional, attempted to publish a book about her completely made up experiences, but that it somehow got through a publisher, presumably several editors and the Daily Telegraph, an ostensibly quality broadsheet newspaper. Somehow, these people were either unable to spot the bullshit themselves or assumed that the general public including the general public in Zambia itself would buy it.

That's the real insult here, that there are apparently serious people out there who think we're all so utterly stupid we wouldn't notice this shite.

Why is she clearly delusional? She has a number of possible motives that don't require delusions, just a shitty conscience and poor planning.

She would be delusional if she thought this would go unnoticed. I mean, somebody who knows something about Zambia was going to pick up a copy of her book some day. She clearly didn't try very hard to pretend, if the OP is to be believed. Apparently the landscapes and conflicts she described are completely wrong to the point that any Zambian would notice.

Delusions are not the same thing as being wrong, or stupid, or having bad assumptions, or being arrogant, or even being Borderline or a bunch of other things. Delusions are irrational beliefs, held despite evidence to the contrary. Delusions are not the result of being ignorant. It's not delusional that most criminals believe they won't be caught. Every wrong belief isn't a delusion, even ridiculously wrong ones.

Or to put it the Wikipedia way

A delusion is a belief that is held with strong conviction despite superior evidence to the contrary. As a pathology, it is distinct from a belief based on false or incomplete information, confabulation, dogma, illusion, or other effects of perception.

 

[Catnip1024]

I think the real crime here is the BBC paying someone to sit and write articles about what happened on Twitter...

And fictional or not, I don't see how anyone can say making yourself the focus of your own memoirs is "White Saviour Complex", it is the definition of a memoir.

 

[Quellist]

I'm really sick of this phenomenon where one person who is maybe dumb but no worse than many others out there gets singled out to be ritually torn apart by the baying mob.

It speaks of just how revolting people are that so many will just jump on any bandwagon for an excuse to vent 'righteous' fury when a supposedly 'acceptable target' is dangled before them

Eh, as long as it doesn't involve death threats or the like, I really don't see anything wrong with lampooning someone who did something stupid, especially if it's this level of stupid. I make fun of my friends when they screw up stuff and they do it to me as well. Stuff like the barbie post are genuinely funny.

Problem is the death/rape threats usually do come along sooner or later

 

[Areloch]

I'm really sick of this phenomenon where one person who is maybe dumb but no worse than many others out there gets singled out to be ritually torn apart by the baying mob.

It speaks of just how revolting people are that so many will just jump on any bandwagon for an excuse to vent 'righteous' fury when a supposedly 'acceptable target' is dangled before them

Eh, as long as it doesn't involve death threats or the like, I really don't see anything wrong with lampooning someone who did something stupid, especially if it's this level of stupid. I make fun of my friends when they screw up stuff and they do it to me as well. Stuff like the barbie post are genuinely funny.

Problem is the death/rape threats usually do come along sooner or later

Sure, but they're not the same as people just lampooning and making jokes about someone acting stupid. It's silly to treat them as one and the same, and people not making the threats shouldn't have to make consideration for how some unrelated douchebags behave.

 

[Lightspeaker]

..like being a US Secretary forgetting that your trip to Bosnia was uneventful instead of under sniper fire.

...wait, what's the problem there? Doesn't everyone spend their lives under constant sniper fire? I thought it was normal.

...on the other, people needn't focus so closely on her, she's hardly uncommon.

She's not that uncommon for (apparently) making up things about her gap year and seemingly having a 'white saviour' attitude, perhaps. But on the other hand not that many people actually write a book about it as a memoir and try to sell it for ?7.99 on Amazon (or ?3.99 for the Kindle version).

 

[TheSlothOverlord]

Ahhh, this all brings me back to Operation Market Garden when I was retaking France along with the Americans. I remember when we were assaulting a village and we had a machine gun pinning us down. I told the others to distract them while I flanked the MG nest. There were at least 10 Germans in the house but I had the element of surprise and managed to take them out.
However, that's when the Tiger came.
My whole unit was going to be obliterated, they were all panicking and screaming but I kept my wits. I ran up to the tank, dodging the fire of the five machine guns on the tank, jumped on it, opened the lock and threw a grenade down there, killing the crew.
All in a day's work, although General Patton felt that he had to hand me a medal personally. I saw that he was worried, so I asked him what was wrong. He led me to the staff room where there were a bunch of maps. He said that our forces had grinded to a halt and he didn't know how to proceed with the invasion. I looked at the maps for a few moments and then I lay out a rough plan on how to push back the German and I gave him a few tips for the future. He seemed to be stunned for a few seconds and then he took off his hat and spoke: "Sir, you are much more capable than me and it's you who should be leading the army". I just shook my head exasperated and said to him: "Look, I'm gonna tell you the same thing I told Montgomery - I ain't cut out to be one of the big shots, I'm just a simple soldier and my place is among the rank and file folks out on the battlefield."

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Trying to bullshit people like this in the information age is one of the dumbest moves you can make. Someone mentioned Hillary Clinton and her lies about what happened in Bosnia during her visit. That too is an example of the same stupid behavior. People who do that shit are narcissists. They think they're so much better and smarter than all of us, they can feed us any story they like because we're all too dumb not to fall for it.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Why is she clearly delusional? She has a number of possible motives that don't require delusions, just a shitty conscience and poor planning.

Admittedly, this is true. Maybe she's just trying to be manipulative. Maybe completely she's aware of all the enormous cliches and bizarre narcissistic bullshit she's coming out with but believes, in a very tactical sense, that the general public will lap it up. Indeed, the truly scary thing is that it seems like before this took off on African twitter, she was pretty spot on the mark. The reviews and commentary on her book was generally positive, as mentioned, she had an excerpt published in a "good" newspaper. The fact that noone did the basic fact checking required or even just picked up on the stereotypically bad "how not to write about Africa" shtick is pretty terrifying.

However, a person who actually believed the things she wrote, and simply the events (which were fictional), but the self-concept, estimation of your own importance and general conceit about the whole meaning of the development work in which this woman was, whatever her current position, apparently seriously involved, not to mention of course the whole rationalization of outright lying about the political situation as a country as somehow paying tribute or a gesture of love would be delusional. In this sense, she is either delusional or is pretending to be delusional, and I like to give people the benefit of the doubt.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

This reminds me of my time in Vietnam. Was 1963 and I was only 17, about an hour's flight out of Saigon and I came across a town of orphans that where about to be sold off to China by the Viet Kong until I dispatched them.

Now some will point out I "wouldn't be born for another three decades" or "have never set foot in Asia", but those are just minor details that are easy to mix up, like being a US Secretary forgetting that your trip to Bosnia was uneventful instead of under sniper fire.

Zontar, what the FUCK does this have to do with Vietnam man? Face it, there isn't any connection. Your Roll.

Well this lady went to an African country, and I figure Vietnam is right next to Cambodia and that's in Africa, right? So there's your connection.

What the fuck are you-?

Zontar, the Chinaman is not the issue here! Jeffrey Lebowski, the other Jeffrey Lebowski, the Millionair! And here's my point, Dude, He is in the wealth, obviously has the resources so theres no reason THERE IS NO FUCKING REASON his wife should go out and owe money all over town, and then they come and pee on your fucking rug!

AM I WRONG?!

Okay then... That rug really tied the room together, did it not?

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Trying to bullshit people like this in the information age is one of the dumbest moves you can make. Someone mentioned Hillary Clinton and her lies about what happened in Bosnia during her visit. That too is an example of the same stupid behavior. People who do that shit are narcissists. They think they're so much better and smarter than all of us, they can feed us any story they like because we're all too dumb not to fall for it.

Except... A lot of us DID fall for it. At least for a while.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Oh, apparently she's in a relationship with the national finance chair for Trump?s presidential campaign.

 

[Pseudonym]

Delusions are not the same thing as being wrong, or stupid, or having bad assumptions, or being arrogant, or even being Borderline or a bunch of other things. Delusions are irrational beliefs, held despite evidence to the contrary. Delusions are not the result of being ignorant. It's not delusional that most criminals believe they won't be caught. Every wrong belief isn't a delusion, even ridiculously wrong ones.

Or to put it the Wikipedia way

A delusion is a belief that is held with strong conviction despite superior evidence to the contrary. As a pathology, it is distinct from a belief based on false or incomplete information, confabulation, dogma, illusion, or other effects of perception.

Hmm, it seems to me very irrational to expect not to be caught when you tell these types of easily falsifiable lies. Perhaps not as irrational as believing yourself to have been to countries you haven't actually been to, but still. But maybe you are right and delusional wasn't quite the right word. What I meant was, that she has convinced herself of things that she shouldn't and couldn't reasonably have believed. Such as that she would get away with lying so poorly on this scale.

 

[Queen Michael]

When somebody is hit by a lynch mob like this, and I agree she's a shitty person, my policy is to avoid joining in the mob, but instead just lean back and enjoy the show.

 

[Yopaz]

She's not that uncommon for (apparently) making up things about her gap year and seemingly having a 'white saviour' attitude, perhaps. But on the other hand not that many people actually write a book about it as a memoir and try to sell it for ?7.99 on Amazon (or ?3.99 for the Kindle version).

Look for books in the health section. You'll see plenty of non-fiction books about the things you should eat and drink with no roots in science or facts. The main difference is tht people read this and follow their advice and stop relying on advice from medical experts and often start neglecting their children essential medical treatment. These people actually literaly endager lives of thousands every year, yet we focus on this.

This book is clearly bad. So is Food is a Better Medicine Than Drugs (selling at $24 at Amazon or $12 for the Kindle edition).
https://www.amazon.com/Food-Better-Medicine-Than-Drugs/dp/0749927976/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1467890758&sr=8-1&keywords=Patrick+Holford+food+is+a+better+medicine

None of these should ever have been published. It's a waste of wood and it's complete bullshit. All of them should be ignored, only then will publishers stop publishing their books.

 

[Wrex Brogan]

...Even the title is wrong. The Congo has no shadow as it is a land-locked country and not one flying in the air (thus making it unable to cast a shadow), and Zambia is in the South of Africa, not the Heart of Africa, as Africa is a continent and thus lacks a circulatory system necessitating any organs of a cardiovascular nature.

That'd be like me saying the Moon Spider Rebellion started in 2077 due to a lack of resources. No, it started in 2073 because of increasing tension with the Moon Gorilla Colony based out of the old Nazi Base built in 1959 by General Deathshead. Honestly, fuckin' amateur hour when it comes to facts these days...

 

[Lightspeaker]

She's not that uncommon for (apparently) making up things about her gap year and seemingly having a 'white saviour' attitude, perhaps. But on the other hand not that many people actually write a book about it as a memoir and try to sell it for ?7.99 on Amazon (or ?3.99 for the Kindle version).

Look for books in the health section. You'll see plenty of non-fiction books about the things you should eat and drink with no roots in science or facts. The main difference is tht people read this and follow their advice and stop relying on advice from medical experts and often start neglecting their children essential medical treatment. These people actually literaly endager lives of thousands every year, yet we focus on this.

This book is clearly bad. So is Food is a Better Medicine Than Drugs (selling at $24 at Amazon or $12 for the Kindle edition).
https://www.amazon.com/Food-Better-Medicine-Than-Drugs/dp/0749927976/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1467890758&sr=8-1&keywords=Patrick+Holford+food+is+a+better+medicine

None of these should ever have been published. It's a waste of wood and it's complete bullshit. All of them should be ignored, only then will publishers stop publishing their books.

I have a PhD in biology from a world-class university. I am well aware of rubbish like the anti-vaxx movement and anti-medicine in general you really don't have to point it out to me. And it is constantly and repeatedly called out as dangerous nonsense at high volume by me personally and people like me whenever it is brought up anywhere by anyone. There is a reason Andrew Wakefield has been struck off.

So I don't know who the 'we focus on this' is referring to here; speak for yourself if you wish, but please don't presume to speak for my own reactions. I am capable of having opinions on more than one thing at the same time and this is pretty reminiscent of the starving african children fallacy. It is possible to both disapprove of what this woman is doing and also disapprove of and roundly denounce the anti-pharmaceutical movement.

Yes, they absolutely should be ignored. But on the whole people are easily misled particularly when big-name celebrities are supporting their ideas; and conspiracy theories are alluring with their sense of 'inclusiveness'. Hence the reactions to "Big Pharma".