Joshe

For a time, learn to not need or even want anything from women and learn to not be in opposition to them. When you relate to women in this way - when your nervous system is at ease - you can flow with them much easier and they can tell. It's a breath of fresh air when they come across this. They sense safety, which I would argue is far more powerful than any verbal/behavioral tactics. Pickup is not pickup without devising, calculating, and scheming how to get what YOU want. This automatically creates a posture of competition, opposition, and protection. This posture is toxic to your nervous system, which manifests outwardly. Pickup creates this dysregulation and then constantly tries to suppress it. "Optimal flow state" is actually "optimal suppression (successful repression)" - neurotic in nature - trying to manufacture calm over a foundation of chaos, which is what "inner game" is about - managing arousal. It's a nervous system suppression strategy that continually adds nervous system irritants. It makes sense that if you want to crack pickup, the first thing you should do is befriend your nervous system - honor it. And as a result, you will learn to honor others. If you befriend your nervous system - get to know it - it would tell you that modern pickup creates a sense of "protection" rather than "connection" and that you're handicapping yourself by actively feeding dysregulation. There's power in true ease and magnetism in safety. That's how you spread legs. lol. The only downside is they attach harder. You want deep connection with a woman? Drop pickup altogether, uproot neediness, and regulate yourself.

You know yourself - that’s the biggest data point for spotting Ni. IRL, me neither, but I have spotted it in others in books and on the internet. I can’t articulate how I spot them without spending 20 mins, but I saw it in a few people here - you and Emerald for example. Key hallmark is the ease with which they generate original insight with non-linear reasoning. More to it than that but I think that’s the broad pattern. It’s not just intelligence. There’s intelligence with something else. Something that can see without linear reason.

Introverted intuition. Tryna tell ya! The top spiritual people all have it. I think it’s more nurture than nature, but not sure. You could have the potential and never develop it depending on circumstances. Trauma seems to be a catalyst.

I did psychedelics every weekend for 2 years. They didn’t raise my consciousness. My consciousness has always been expanding (which I assume is natural for those interested in the riddle of reality), and it still expands, even without psychedelics for 5 years. What makes it expand is seeing that which was previously not seen, and understanding the mechanics of the vail - how it was hidden and how it came to not be hidden. That’s what expands consciousness, IME. And the “what” behind the vail is always my own mind. Psychedelics showed me some things about my mind but after a while, it’s a one-trick pony. One trap I can see clearly is some people will think they’re expanding their consciousness with psychedelics when in reality, all they’re doing is using the data from previous trips to construct even grander trips in the future, creating a feedback loop where trips become more pronounced and profound over time, which feels like conscious ascension, but in reality, your fleshing shit out sideways. 100% this is super common, and I wouldn’t rule out it being universal. You experience reality differently for a while because you’re discombobulated or traumatized or intensely perplexed. This does not = expanded consciousness. It’s easy to accumulate and stack these feelings and use them to trick yourself that they represent expanded consciousness.

Hey look - actual wisdom! Nice post. It will mostly fall on deaf ears. Lol. These unhealthy relationships to reality you speak of are stubborn coping mechanisms that can’t be reasoned out of without sufficient courage and openness. The older we grow, the harder it becomes for us to accept that we’ve been clinging to delusion, which formed and persisted because we desperately needed it to cope with our reality. To accept this requires extraordinary courage and maybe even more demanding, depth of insight. Even if not well received with this community, it’s a much needed message in general. Thanks for taking the time.

He won't answer without appealing to his own special awareness or rank hierarchy. Here's what my process looks like (non-authority-based): The best tool I've found for evaluating evidence that can't be verified is making reads on the source. Assess for all these and you get a very good base from which to start a more rigorous assessment if you want. But often, this assessment alone - combined with 30 minutes of evidence gathering is enough to arrive very close to the truth, as long as you don't blunder in your assessment. Incentives are VERY important. There's a motive behind EVERY claim, true or false. I always ask "what does the one making this claim stand to gain?". Credibility assessment first, verification second. The process is usually non-linear and often doesn't begin and end with an answer in a single session, especially when evaluating things like political pundits and influencers. It takes time to accumulate and process the data, which is both a conscious and unconscious process. What I'm describing is more of an intuitive form of cognition where the gain is speed and context sensitivity with a tradeoff of some explicit traceability. You could think of it like a triage layer where if a source fails your motive/integrity read, it might not deserve a deep audit. Obviously, this "people-and-incentive" heuristic is just one tool and not a replacement for a more robust epistemic framework, but I found it gets me closer to accurate than most, and much faster than evaluating things like the full chain of custody for every piece of evidence. You need to develop high-quality heuristics and constantly refine them through the process of observation and critical thinking. Lastly, any time realize you believed something false was true, you have to get to the bottom of that ASAP and figure out how the seed of falsehood was planted, then patch that exploit for good. If you make the same mistakes 3 times, you aren't refining properly. This is just how I operate. I'm not sure how compatible it is for others. If you have access to ChatGPT, you could use it to develop your own epistemic framework, which might start off looking something like this:

Thanks, I’ll look into them.

😂

Leo may have proven it to himself, but he has shown no proofs, and when asked for them, he simply says the proofs are in the various books he's recommended. The problem with this is a collection of books is insufficient to arrive at his conclusion, because you would need his interpretive frame to arrive at it, which books can't provide. You can read fairy tales until you're blue in the face. Just stick with it - sooner or later you'll know the dragons are real.

Serious epistemology doesn't seek to flatten all claims. It asks that we adjust our confidence based on the strength and coherence of the evidence. The key distinction in Napoleon and aliens on earth is to be found in the evidentiary weight and corroboration of the two claims. Napoleon: massive convergent corroboration - thousands of consistent records from independent sources. UFOs: no corroboration or weak at best, unverifiable anecdotes, blurry media, no physical artifacts confirmed by independent analysis. You can rationally believe Napoleon existed without direct evidence because the network of corroboration is overwhelming. You can rationally reject "aliens visiting earth" because it's not and you have not empirically verified it. This is not a double standard. It's a proper respect for evidentiary weight.

Haha, yes, I know. No, but maybe that's my next target since you instigated me! lol

Nothing is at stake. I sometimes just like to swat down bullshit for fun, especially when there's a puzzle that I have to work through to do it. Pathological? Probably. I'm always emotional - some days I just mask it better. I mean no harm or disrespect, even if it seems like it.

Yes, I understood that point when you made it years ago. However, there's a huge difference in trusting a verified historical consensus vs believing anecdotal conspiracy and emotionally compelling narratives. Many would do well to understand the nuance. "Don't believe me - believe the books I tell you to read" 😂 I don't have a bone to pick with you about your "aliens are here" belief because I know you've came to the conclusion on your own and no amount of words anyone says can change it. I have lots of respect for your epistemic rigor and know it's solid, but we all make mistakes, including you. Obviously, it's a matter of connecting dots, which I haven't done. But the few dots I've seen you drop would not pass muster for dots in the matrix of my aliens-are-here belief.

Nothing tricky about using critical thinking and evidence-based reasoning as tools to check what you let in as facts.

I'm completely open-minded about it. I have yet seen any solid evidence. The things being called "facts" are not facts. That's not a me problem. I'm not going to blindly believe an alien UFO was found in 1930s Italy because Leo says he read it in a book. I need more than that.

Haha, not at all. Leo's logic is flawed regarding his alien theories. His entire alien belief rests upon anecdotal evidence and bad logic. Claiming a UFO was found in 1930s Italy isn't a "basic fact". It's speculation based on hearsay. Don't let Leo's authoritative tone sway you on anything an everything. Go see if you can actually prove it's a fact that an alien UFO was found in 1930s Italy. Let me know if you can do that.

I watched the video. Oh boy! lol. Surprise surprise - Levengood, the scientist who posited the radiation theory worked for a company whose very existence depended on crop circles being real, and the whole point of his job was to prove that they were. All of their funding and publicity revolved around the idea that crop circles were not hoaxes. "Hey, let's get a scientist in here to prove our case - cha-ching". Oldest trick in the book. lol His work collapsed under scrutiny. Why would you believe this one particular scientist over the hundreds that call him a quack? There's more than one way to flatten crops. Different methods would impact the plants differently. The video does a good job of making it seem like they are being good-faith, but it's a channel who makes millions from such topics (15 million subscribers). They tried to get me to watch more alien hoaxes at the end of the video. Basically like the Inquirer tabloid in digital form. My 25-year-old self would have believed the video because I didn't know better. It is convincing until you understand the incentive structure propping the whole thing up along with all the psychological components that become invested in the narrative being true. If a scientist who didn't stand to earn a fortune could have reproduced his findings (they tried and failed), I'd give the idea more plausibility. But being able to see the incentives, delusions, and deceptions intertwined with it all, it's just a more sophisticated, profitable lie.

Open-minded Japanese scientists went to Britain with 5 millions euros to investigate the crop circles in earnest. lol

The whole point of epistemology is to separate what feels true from what is true. It puts feelings and desires aside. Also, I don't think scientists fully operate in the way you describe. Sure, they might be close-minded when it comes to certain things like the materialist paradigm, but that's different from things like crop circles and actual physical phenomena. The truth of the matter is humans have been known to create crop circles. Here's a devastating article: https://devantaylorpublications.medium.com/crop-circles-9f5f9462aac0 , which I assume you will ignore because it's detrimental to your belief. So, here's an excerpt: The full article featuring Bower’s and Chorley’s admission can be read here. People have made millions spreading crop circle delusions/propaganda. This is a clue. The more believable you can make them, the more money you stand to earn. Cha-ching! C'mon bro. Don't fall for the same decades old con job.

But at that point, you would simply say the double-checkers are in on the discrediting scheme, because that's how protecting belief works. What makes you assume those who discredited it have a "clear bias" and lack integrity? Most scientists would love to discover some actual paranormal activity. Their entire careers run on discovery. Nothing would make them more famous than proving something paranormal. Drones are not necessary, just a modern quality assurance tool. True, but can you admit it seems silly that aliens would reproduce human prank art? There is a litany of problems with human testimony. Credibility is just one problem. If you understood the whole litany, you could not apply significant weight to testimonial evidence alone, even when there's corroborating testimony. Humans convinced they witnessed paranormal activity isn't enough, even from credentialed sources. Human perception is not a good instrument for measuring truth. This is why courts don't allow hearsay and impose statues of limitation, among other things. Actual physical or logical proof should be the bar. Which scientist would devote several months and considerable resources to debunking what is easily debunked from their armchair? I'm guessing not many. Maybe they aren't so much afraid of looking woo-woo as they are afraid of the reputational cost of spending considerable resources debunking something that could be debunked in an afternoon. No I'm not, but I am assuming drawing them on the medium of a crop field is a human invention. Because humans drawing circles in fields has been observed and their modern-day techniques have been documented. Crop circles in no way defy modern logic - you just think they do because you had no good explanation for how they are constructed. And upon finding out, if you were epistemically serious, you would have allowed the weight of that knowledge to take it's natural place in the chain of reason. Exactly. Which is why we don't need to fabricate mystery.

Yeah, it probably comes down to how you process, what you're reading and why you're reading it. I only prefer reading if I need to do things like reference or follow specific instructions. If I'm just exploring ideas (which is the only reason I consume books), audio-processing is much cheaper than visual decoding. Every cognitive process has an energy cost.

What are the odds that a civilization advanced enough to cross galaxies would coincidentally choose the same medium (fields) and visual language (geometric circles) humans already use for art and pranks? Lol. Think about it bro! The only move I see from here is: "The aliens created them first and humans copied them." 🤦‍♂️

That's because to replicate the more intricate ones like in your picture, you'd need to take it very seriously and invest considerable resources to implement it. You'd have to take it as seriously as the artists themselves. That would be my guess as to why the more intricate ones haven't been reproduced, if that is indeed true. Also, ChatGPT says cardboard is an outdated method. These days, they use GPS, lasers, pre-cut ropes for measuring distance and laying the crop down, night-vision, drones, etc. Here's how it's done:

To build the alien case, you'd have to contend with these and more: