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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   2761 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 23, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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Who are some people that you strongly suspect to be fabulists that the general populace has not identified?

I made a comment in the context of Jason Arday about fabulists and I used Jordan Belfort, Marcus Luttrell, Chris Kyle, Greg Mortenson, Frank Abagnale, Jr. as examples. I called out or was suspicious of all of them other than Abagnale and I chalk that up to me hearing his story as a child and then not thinking about it. Took 0 convincing.

There are a lot of politicians whose public story has significant mismatches with available facts. From Warren claiming Native ancestry, to Obama being marketed as Kenyan and associating with domestic terrorists, to Ilhan Omar descent from a genocidal war criminal and her fraternal marriage... Seems to be a common theme there. Does it raise to the level of Arday or Abagnale? Probably not, at least not in the public record. But is it in the same direction couple of steps removed? I think so. Most politicians are fabulists by trade, and many of them do not resist the temptation to apply this trade to their own story.

It’s a bit tinfoil hat, but I suspect many of them are completely sheep-dipped actors.

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