Joshe

lol. No, walking and listening to an audiobook.

Damn, that sucks it's happening there too. Same thing happened to the amazing dive site I went to. Not sure if it's too many tourists touching the coral or just the water is more polluted.

That looks like a fuckin alien lobster, lol. You ever scuba dive the Great Barrier Reef? I've heard it's the best scuba experience. Scuba diving felt very spiritual to me. Heightened sense due to risk of death, a totally new world with all new creatures, diminished mobility and all you can hear is your breath. One of my favorite experiences.

Never really took selfies much but I found one from a year or so ago:

@UnbornTao My boy looks like yours except for the tongue, lol. And when he was younger:

The same way you’d quit anything. By getting lost in the weeds of something else.

You only need a solution for fear if it's a problem. And it's easier to endure fear when it comes than to live in fear of it coming.

Obviously. Seems to me that if you actually do have love/compassion for Leo and care about the community, you'd be concerned about the highlighted behavior rather than pretend it doesn't exist or whitewash it.

These patterns are not simply "egotistical". They're structural and they have real consequences. Also, you can't view these statements in isolation. You have to put them all together. It's not about any one statement. If you want to know what makes someone tick, ask yourself the question: What could this statement be doing for the self that is making it? When you apply that question to year's worth of statements and the same pattern keeps showing up, that's a strong signal. For example: "I am the only creature on this planet who is AWAKE". How could that stabilize the self? If you're the only one awake, everyone else is asleep. It elevates oneself above ALL others. This is the theme. "Which is why I'm here and you're there." How does this stabilize the self? Positions above and the other below. This is the architecture in it's most naked form. "You have no idea the intellect you are dealing with". How could that stabilize the self? Asserts intellectual dominance. Positions them above and the other below. "I am very casual in my communications. But this creates a false sense that you will outsmart me. If I was a professor at Harvard you would relate to me with a lot more seriousness. But you are dealing with a greater intelligence than that here. Be careful underestimating it." Leo said this after seeing where a user humanized him by saying he's human and fallible just like the rest of us. The Idealized Self swung into action and let them know deference should be their default attitude around him because they are most certainly not his equal and it's not even close. To prove that, he let them know that even the most prestigious intellects in the country can't touch his, and if they can't, who do you think you are? Of course the Pride System can't just parade around like this without convincing itself AND you that the point is not about being superior, rather it's for YOUR benefit. He's only looking out for you, not asserting his superiority. Concern is the trojan horse. And when that doesn't work, what you perceive to be arrogance or superiority is your own projection or lack of understanding, which is effective because we can't know with certainty who and how Leo is. Nonetheless, the same superiority pattern keeps coming.

Have you ever wondered why you have to keep saying it so much and why so many people keep arriving at the same read year after year? If I were you and if superiority truly meant nothing to me, I'd be really curious and want to get to the bottom of why people kept getting the wrong impression of me so I could set the record straight for myself moreso than others. I'd be interested in that explanation.

The traits themselves aren't the issue. You can have all those traits without being organized around superiority. But I suppose for some, uprooting superiority might take all those traits with it because they formed out of superiority in the first place. And like you said, you can't just change your personality. So it just is what it is.

Yeah, I also saw how you could use them to construct or reinforce any metaphysical belief you want. Recognized it my first time as well and was aware it would be an error to consistently plug Leo's metaphysics into the experience, because it was obvious I would just be constructing the whole thing until the construction was perfect and I believed it to be absolute truth. But I think psychedelics are usually only brainwashing tools for people who are motivated to interpret or derive meaning from the experiences. If you don't go looking for meaning, they're just very interesting experiences. But if you constantly try to find love, infinity, god, or whatever, you'll eventually find it, and they will be your own unconscious constructions.

up there = safe up there = right up there = valuable up there = untouchable To understand Leo's ego(and even our own), check out Karen Horney's "aggressive/expansive" personality in "Neurosis and Human Growth". It's basically how the self comes to organize around superiority. The Expansive resolves inner insecurity by becoming exceptional, superior, and invulnerable. They exhibit: • grandiosity • need to be exceptional • contempt for ordinary humanity • intolerance for weakness • drive toward greatness • belief in one’s unique gifts These coalesce to form what she calls the "Idealized Self", which becomes the organizing principle of the ego. The person constructs a grand image of who they are and the "Search for Glory" begins. From there, a protective mechanism called the "Pride System" forms, which is a collection of strategies used to reinforce and maintain the Idealized Self. The main strategy of the Pride System is contempt for inferiority and mediocrity. Contempt for inferiority/mediocrity starts off as an internal defensive mechanism to protect the Idealized Self, but quickly gets externalized onto people who are seen to be embodying the traits the Idealized Self rejects (weakness, confusion, mediocrity, inferiority, unintelligence). Without corrective measures, the Expansive will eventually find a way to place virtually all humans beneath them, because they will continuously run into humans that threaten their Idealized Self. Horney says they justify their contempt by framing it as "high standards". Which is very interesting because I just came across what seems to be a textbook example of that on Leo's blog. He recently shared a tragic story about a very lost and troubled young woman and his instinct was to use her as an example of human depravity and to equate her and most of humanity's behavior to that of an animal within the first 3 sentences. Then spent the rest of the post explaining that he only sees it this way because he has "high standards". The Pride System needs narratives that feel principled, not self-serving, so it comes up with things like: I reject mediocrity and demand excellence I'm principled, not arrogant I'm not contemptuous, I just see clearly and call things what they are The Expansive isn't conscious of any of this and they don't view themselves as egoic. They truly see themselves as principled, rigorous, strong, and as having the courage to look reality in the face and accept it. And there's definitely truth in that, but the problem is they see only what they want to see regarding themselves, which is that they are above and everyone else is below. Another aspect of the expansive type is that relationships with them are not collaborative/mutual, but hierarchical. To be vulnerable and a mere human engaging with another human on the same level implies "we are fundamentally the same kind of being", which threatens the Idealized Self. Just my theory.

It depends on the conspiracy and what it offers. Most ordinary people get sucked in by intellectual intrigue. Things like curiosity, playing detective/cracking a puzzle, shiny object. Also, pre-existing motivations like distrust in institutions. Things start to turn weird when they admit they believe the theory and then get pushback. That's the point when identity enters the chat and often becomes "I can see what others can't", "people are asleep/sheep" and when motivated reasoning becomes dominant. And this arouses the rational person's identity defenses, who then feel compelled to flaunt their epistemic superiority, which humiliates the pre-rational and causes them to double down. It's often both who are using epistemic superiority to stabilize identity. "I can see what others can't" Rational people unwittingly play a large role in the epistemic breakdown.

"Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less" is a good one. Success is simple but not easy to reach. You can easily map out paths that lead to success. The hard part is being able to sustain trajectory while navigating an ever changing, unpredictable reality that demands action and persistent context switching across multiple logistical domains, and being able to absorb all the shock from that while avoiding drift. Goal → action → interruption → new demand → context switch → loss of momentum → restart → drift The best strategy is to design systems and environments that stabilize trajectory and minimize derailment, while excluding everything that isn’t essential. This is the thing to get handled. One foot in front of the other with the main thing remaining the main thing. That's it.