I’m not surprised to see social media influencers coming forward to say they were offered money to push doomer messages about AI. These are well organized, well funded campaigns.

Government admits disabled people may face ‘subtle pressure’ to choose an assisted death, if bill passes – Disability News Service disabilitynewsservice.com/go…

EU spokeswoman Paula Pinho falsely claims that war criminal Ratko Mladic was buried without Serbian state honors.

EU spokeswoman Paula Pinho falsely claims that war criminal Ratko Mladic was buried without Serbian state honors.

🇷🇸 Thousands came to Ratko Mladić’s funeral in Belgrade People arrived from different parts of the country. The funeral service was led by Serbian Orthodox Patriarch Porfirije. Mladić was buried beside his daughter, who died in 1994. The coffin came from The Hague, where the 84-year-old general died in a prison hospital last Thursday. Soldiers took it off the plane and draped it in the flags of Serbia and Republika Srpska. On the road from the airport, people held signs: “Heroes do not die,” “Thank you,” “Welcome home, general.” Mladić died on August 27, aged 84, in The Hague, serving a life sentence for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. The tribunal convicted him over Srebrenica, where about 8,000 Muslims were killed in 1995, and over the siege of Sarajevo.

This paper answers why psychopaths keep ending up as CEOs and politicians. Researchers mapping out the mechanics of "successful psychopathy" found that corporate capitalism and modern political selection systems are not neutral. They are hyper-efficient filtering machines. And they are specifically optimized to select for the exact traits normal people find repulsive. Normal leaders are constrained by empathy, guilt, and long-term risk aversion. They hesitate when a decision hurts people. They feel the weight of collateral damage. Psychopaths don’t have an emotional brake pedal. When a company or a political party needs someone to ruthlessly slash budgets, fire thousands of people, bluff through a crisis, or project absolute, unshakeable confidence, normal candidates stutter. Psychopaths step right up. Their superficial charm, pathological fearlessness, and total lack of remorse look identical to "strong leadership" during an interview or a campaign. They weaponize corporate chaos. While everyone else is panicking, they ruthlessly manipulate the narrative, step over their peers, and take credit for the wins. They weaponize charisma to dazzle the board or the voters, and hide their emptiness behind a mask of high performance. The system rewards the ruthlessness, promotes them to the top, and punishes anyone who tries to slow them down with ethics. The researchers call it a feedback loop of structural decay. Corporations and governments built an environment where being entirely devoid of a conscience isn't a disqualifier. It’s a competitive advantage.

I was sexually abused as a child. I thought I knew pain, but I didn't know true pain, trauma and betrayal until I went to @NHSuk with my symptoms. I was 21 at the time, and didn't know I had been abused. But I was crushed by my emotions and didn't know why. I had been using alcohol to cope, and needed to talk to someone to help me make sense of it. Instead of being offered support to cope with alcohol, I was referred for #CBT. This did not help and antagonised me further. I felt profoundly misunderstood. My GP prescribed me #prozac. I later admitted the abuse to myself, and was referred for counselling. But when I got there, I was facing a bigger problem - I couldn't describe my emotions because I couldn't feel them. I couldn't feel my sexuality so I couldn't explore themes relating to the abuse. To my horror, this didn't resolve. I took Prozac for around 3 years, and when I stopped taking it, my emotions or sexuality didn't return. I initially did not understand that these were known side effects of the drug, because no one explained this. As well as carrying the secret of abuse, I was also in the closet because I was gay. I didn't have the chance to have a relationship with a woman until after prozac, but over more than a decade of psychological damage, I realised I was never going to be able to make this work because I have #PSSD, caused by past antidepressant use. Not only did #SSRIs take away my ability to process my trauma, but they also made sure I would never be able to experience emotion, sexuality, establish my identity, or have genuine relationships in my lifetime. If I had not gone to the GP that day, and instead continued using alcohol, I could have found an alcohol support group. I could have got the help I needed down the line, or found the power in myself to move on. But that option was removed from me, because assumptions were made and I was not given enough time or an adequate level of support to be able to uncover the abuse underlying my distress before I was given drugs. What does that mean for me? Nothing, because no one can help me. An apology won't fix my life. Can we learn from my experience? Not really, because the NHS are not listening to my feedback, and @DHSCgovuk dismissed my ask for support for people living with PSSD. This could have been easily avoided had someone taken the time to listen to me and understand my behaviour instead of judging it. bbc.com/news/articles/c0kl40…