aurum

That is basically what humanity has been doing for the last several thousand years. We’ve are constantly evolving our collective ego strategies. So it seems almost certain it will continue to evolve in that direction. We just have to keep nudging it forward.

So then what is your point? It sounds like you are alluding to something but not saying it.

I’m not sure what point you are trying to make here. God is still God even when it imagines itself as a butterfly. Yes. The fact there is nothing outside of God to tell it that it is not a butterfly is why it is able to imagine itself a butterfly in the first place.

It sounds like you’re trying to make a “no-self” argument. Yes we could look at it like that. There is no one to experience God. And yet you are God and clearly can experience yourself as such.

Yes. But from a practical POV, you will not experience yourself as God. For you, there will be no difference. Which is the whole point.

It doesn’t make much of a difference IF your goal is purely quantity of girls. In fact, as you become more conscious from meditating, you may see how shallow of a goal that is to begin with. The biggest lever for quantity is simply the amount of socializing you do. Especially socializing in “party” environments where hook ups are more expected, like night clubs. That said, you should still meditate simply because it’s a good habit for other reasons.

Hard to say. What you are describing sounds beyond anything I’ve personally ever experienced. I can easily go some time without sex if I want. It might just be genetics. Maybe hormones. I don’t really know. You probably just need to find a girlfriend who has a close to equally high sex drive.

@Optimized Life It could help you chill out a bit. Go to a spa. Get in a sauna, cold plunge if they have it, and get some Swedish massage. You may feel much better. Craniosacral therapy may also help.

@jimwell Yes, ChatGpT is correct. That is a basic explanation of how money comes into existence. Obviously more complicated explanations are also possible. Ecological economists and degrowth scholars are often concerned about this progress because they argue it creates “a growth imperative”. In other words, the need for the economy to grow is baked in to the monetary system itself. It creates a situation where debt always outstrips the money supply. If there is corruption in this system, I’d argue this is at least one of the places to look. We know what the benefits of economic growth are, but what are its costs? Here is a good talk by Jim Rutt on the subject: Note: I am not necessarily endorsing his solution of Dividend Money. I am skeptical that will work. But his analysis of the problem with the current system is pretty good. It is both.

I am getting frustrated because I feel like my points are being perpetually misunderstood. No, that is not the issue. There may have been times when things got out of hand. But overall, what you just said was a defense many anti-vaxxers used when the heat was (rightfully) coming down on them. The main issue is the following: is COVID dangerous? Is the vaccine effective? And to what degree should the vaccine be enforced? Which is of course why no one did that. I am not suggesting that as policy. I am attempting to show you why there needed to be consequences for not taking the vaccine. This is completely wrong. The whole problem of COVID is that it was a legitimate dangerous situation with a lot of uncertainty. Public officials do not have time to wait until the vaccine is 100% effective in all circumstances. They needed to stop hospitals from overflowing and people from dying. In real life, good enough is good enough. The practical result of the policy you are advocating would have been more deaths, more hospitalizations, and possibly a situation where COVID remains out of control. In fact, it is precisely because people like Brand promote vaccine and anti-establishment conspiracies that public consequences of not taking the vaccine became necessary. If everyone just got the vaccine, it wouldn’t have been necessary to threaten people with being fired. I highly doubt that. Then you are being foolish. Which is the whole point of this conversation. You are not free to endanger other people with your stupidity. If you drive a car without glasses when you need them, you will rightfully lose your license. This is the correct response. And it doesn’t matter if you “don’t believe” in the effectiveness of glasses while driving. That is your problem. Which is why education matters. You missed the point entirely. I am not at all making a commentary on what is happening in Ukraine. I am simply pointing out how little freedom you’ve ever actually had.

No I think your assessment is pretty spot on. Thanks for the thorough reply. For context, I found this company from the Aubrey Marcus podcast. Aubrey is the co-founder of Onnit along with Joe Rogan. Aubrey is a wealthy guy and obviously big on supplements. It doesn’t surprise me at all that something like this would appeal to him. He also (apparently) has been struggling with low testosterone for some time. I’ll check it out.

Spiritual bypassing. That there is a higher order intelligence to all things does not mean that anti-vaxx hippies cannot pragmatically be called "misguided". They are misguided in the sense that they have let their bias against the establishment blind them to what happened with Covid. Whether or not it works out in 300 years is irrelevant to this point. And what if my view is that people should be forced to get the vaccine? If you say "no you can't use force, that's not allowed", why can't I? Who are you to tell me I can't use force? Why are you forcing me to give up force? What if I don't see it as force, what if I just see it as being a good citizen? Your laissez faire philosophy will eventually eat itself. No of course not. He just spread a bunch of nonsense conspiracy about the vaccine, fear mongered about it, and in the process likely stopped thousands of his followers from actually taking it. For the record, NO ONE ever forced any one to take the vaccine. Not even the government. What did happen was consequences were put into place. If you didn't want to take the vaccine, fine. But you're not gonna have your government job. You're not gonna travel. You're not gonna get to go to restaurants. People will likely even shame you for it. This is the way society has ALWAYS worked! If you don't want to pay your taxes, fine. But you're going to prison for it. Don't want to get a pair glasses so you can see while driving? Fine. But you're not gonna get a legal license. Don't want to go to war when Russia invades your country? Fine. But then see what happens when Russia is now in charge. "Medical freedom" is not something you've absolutely ever really have had. It only exists to a degree. The reality is that centralized authorities make certain rules for the WELL-BEING of the society as a whole. And even though there can be corruption, the majority of the time, these decisions are actually very reasonable and necessary. This is exactly what happened with the vaccines. Vaccines were determined by public health officials to be one of the best courses of action OUR GLOBAL COMMUNITY had to prevent Covid from possibly getting much worse. And they were correct. The risk for the vaccine has proven to be incredibly low, while its efficacy for helping people to be high. The irony of the stage Green response to COVID is that stage Green loves to talk about the importance of community. Yet when it came time for vaccines, many of them were not willing to endure a slight risk to improve the safety of those around them and themselves. Simply because they were blinded by ideology. Just like Brand was, and continues to be.

You're not understanding my perspective. I don't think Brand is a grifter. I believe Brand sincerely believes the things he is saying. I am not suggesting some conspiracy narrative where Brand actually doesn't believe the things he is saying, but is just faking it for the cameras to make money. It's not that simple. Brand is sincere. Sincerely caught up in ignorance and stage Green ideology. This is the whole problem. Ignorance and the limitations of getting stuck in a narrow perspective. Why are you assuming I don't think I would like Brand? This is not a critique of his "like-ability". He is very charismatic, funny and even wise at times. I have a lot of respect for the growth he has made over the years. I'm simply saying that on some issues, like vaccines, he gets stuck in his Green ideology. And then he spreads that same way of thinking to his followers. The situation is more tragic and commands compassion than anything else. Ignorance and unconsciousness are the deepest of traps. I have fallen into them many times and will likely continue to do so. I not sure exactly what point you're trying to make here. Are you saying because lots of hippies and Buddhists aren't taking the vaccine that Brand is justified in doing the same? In that case, I would also argue those hippies are misguided. They've created a bias against "unnatural" and allopathic medicine. And they are also getting stuck in their narrow perspective, just like Brand. Obviously. I'll take my chances.

Mostly because of traditional gender roles where men were the providers / protectors.

What do you make of companies like Biohax (https://biohax.com/) who are selling testosterone replacement therapy? Seems like a waste and possibly just dangerous if you’re anything under middle aged. But perhaps something there for men who are much older, i.e pushing senior citizen age? I imagine there must be much more to testosterone levels than just semen production. It seems to at least also affect your mental health.

There are a lot of men struggling with dating, but I wouldn’t make a career out of pickup. It’s an industry filled with a lot of toxicity and general low consciousness behavior. You’ll likely grow out of it. Set the bar higher for yourself.

People are always pro choice and freedom when they have to do something they don’t want to do. It is internally consistent. But internal consistency doesn’t mean you aren’t making errors. At the end of the day, did Brand get the vaccine or not? My assumption is he did not. And that’s because he is subscribed to and proliferating a bunch of anti-vaxx memes. Fundamentally he does not believe in the covid vaccine efficacy. Again, consistency doesn’t mean you aren’t making errors. It just means you are consistently making errors. That he has been suspicious of power for so long shows where his bias lies. As much as he talks about “the system”, he actually deeply lacks Tier 2 systems thinking. People in power can be corrupt. But in systems thinking, you cannot just be suspicious of people in power. You must view situations as a whole with complex feedback loops.

Brand is entertaining and has some decent takes. But he is badly stuck in stage Green populism. Which has dragged him down the route of anti-government / anti-vaxx / anti-elite nonsense. He is essentially a conspiracy theorist at this point.

This will never work. She is olympic level stupid.

Key vMEMEs: Consensus, community, cooperation vs competition, collaboration, unlearning conditioning.

No. I feel more at peace and connected to others than ever. It certainly doesn’t have to be. You are taking an Absolute insight and putting a relative interpretation on it. Not that I’m blaming you. It’s a very common thing to do. It’ll take some time and more work. Take a break and go do some normal human stuff if that feels good to you. Spiritual work can be extremely taxing.

@D2sage Woah amazing find! I perform live music but also do my own EQing, which can be a struggle at times. This may help a lot. I’m going to try it and see. Thank you!

Because that’s part of her survival strategy. If it seems stupid to you, that’s probably just because doing so wouldn’t serve your survival. The better question we should all be asking ourselves is: what is my version of spending two hours in front of the mirror?

That aligns with my experience though. Granted I haven’t done psychedelics a lot, but the times I have, they’ve been almost entirely visual free. Surprised me as well. My guess is intention and the lessons you are seeking to learn have quite a bit to do with it. Also, dosage. If you do a high enough dosage it seems almost inevitable you’ll get visuals. 10-12mg for DMT is on the lighter side.

@Vincent S Super cool! Great job. So interesting how psychedelics affect people differently.