aurum

Better but keep working on it. It still feels incongruent to me. That’s the problem with just copying lines, they almost never come off as authentic. Here you go from nice guy asking about her travels to “stay away, I’m a bad boy” real quick. @Ghost gave you pretty good advice as well. A challenge that is fun is usually always good.

Now it feels way too aggressive to me. Keep it light and fun. You're supposed to like each other. Maybe take out the "dumb BS talk" line entirely. Also, I'd be more specific. "Thrill seeker and adventure enthusiast" just doesn't feel like it actually says anything about you. That could mean almost anything. Same thing with your qualifier, it's kind of vague. For instance, in my profile I have a line that says "Falls victim to accents & long hair". Which is true. It's a qualifier but not in a way that's so aggressive. Girls who have an accent and long hair will feel chosen, those who don't, won't. Spaces too. Nobody wants to read a block of text.

@Lyubov I’m not loving your bio. It’s cool that you like to travel and that can communicate high value things. But honestly almost every guy says the same thing. I’d take it out. Also I’d definitely take out the “if that matters to you”. Just put “6’1” with no explanation. You don’t need to justify yourself. Also also, I don’t like the and “on tinder for the memes” line. If you’re just on tinder for the memes, why should she take you seriously? She’s trying to fuck, not gain a meme buddy. You could keep the “find a nice office boy” line. But it needs to feel congruent with the rest of your profile and your messaging. Otherwise, if you seem like this super nice guy and then drop that line, she’s going to be like ??? It just doesn’t fit. So yeah I’d basically just rewrite all of that. Put at least one real solid qualifier in there too. Something that says “this is what I’m looking for” without necessarily being so serious about it. Then when girls who match that description read that, they’ll be happy.

Sure, women can be attracted to those kind of guys. And they might really appreciate that in a relationship. But if we're talking about quantity of one night stands, I'll put my money on your stereotypical club promoter / bartender / frat boy any day. I think it's important to acknowledge the difference, because then it means as a guy you have to make a choice. What really matters to me? Is having sex with the most number of girls really what's most important? If being a fulfilled, higher consciousness person means I don't get laid as much with random girls, am I okay with that? Do I want quantity, or do I want quality? The universe is always testing our wisdom . And of course it's not a black or white. Maybe a little club promoter / fuck boy phase meets your needs for awhile. It might also teach your valuable lessons. So it really depends on the person and where they are at.

@Lyubov Post the convos and I’ll give you my best read. I’m sure others will want to as well. The general gist is in the beginning is to keep it light, fun, confident, and subtlety sexual. That’s what flirting is. Make sure your profile is solid too. You’re getting matches, which is obviously a good sign, but a good profile can solve a lot of what looks like messaging problems.

Yeah you got the right idea. I find it’s even simpler than that. When it’s discovered that two people can meet each others needs, a meetup just becomes the next obvious step in that process. Yeah I have a love/hate relationship with social media as well. In some ways it’s great. In other ways it makes me want to throw my phone in a river and never look at it again. But regardless it’s here and it’s the dominant social force in our culture. So until I get a better plan I’m choosing to use it. For the purpose of meeting people through cold approach, the best app is easily Instagram. Everyone has one and everyone assumes you have one as well. And it lets people check you out quickly and get an idea of what you’re about. Tiktok or snapchat as well are up there depending on the age of people you’re talking to. As far as phone numbers, you can still use them. But I actually prefer IG these days. Less investment but also can give people a much larger window into who you are.

You're welcome. No intentions definitely do not have to be explicit. Especially when it comes to dating, usually there's more subtlety. But it's not a hard and fast rule. You could say "hey I'm practicing my social skills", and as long as you own it and demonstrate that you know how weird of a thing that is to say, you might be able to pull it off. If you meet someone and you want them to be a business partner, as some point you're probably going to have to say "hey, we should go partner on X business project". So take it case by case. Also, you need to be getting the contact info and setting up some sort of future event with every person you meet who you like. If you have a good conversation, don't just end it. We're vibing, why are you going to kill it now? Set something up, and do it right then and there. Get their Instagram, get their snapchat, phone number or whatever so you can coordinate. So maybe you happen to meet someone who is also into non-duality and you hit it off. "Cool, hey I know this meditation event that's coming up. Do you wanna go? Oh you do? Cool, let me get your instagram and I'll send you the link". Boom. That's why you want to know what you're looking for. If you didn't know there was a meditation event coming up and that you wanted to go with people, then you couldn't pull off that example.

@RendHeaven It's good that you're doing this. Society is basically set up in a way that disincentivizes strangers from meeting. So you're breaking some of that conditioning. I think your problem is that you just need to focus it more. It's good that you're stopping me on the street to say hi, but why are you doing that? Are you just being friendly? Are we going to party together? Are we going to date? Are we going to start a business? Do we have similar interests we enjoy talking about? What is the purpose of this communication? Obviously you may not know in the beginning. You may have to talk to that person first to find out. But know why you're doing what you're doing and what you're looking for. Human relationships depend on us meeting each others needs. If there's no needs being met, you don't have a relationship. You just have a couple sitting around wondering why they're talking to each other. So be more intentional in what you're doing. Obviously just saying "hi" can be a big deal if you're extremely nervous, but you want to get beyond that.

Holy shit that is amazing. She knows everything about narcissism, but couldn’t apparently see it in Trump. It isn’t just about the conservative echo chamber. These people are desperate. Storming the capitol probably gave their lives meaning again. They know something is wrong, but they don’t know why. It also says she was in bad financial condition, which made her susceptible to conspiracies. Ironic when you consider that dems and progressives would have likely provided a much more stable financial condition for everyone.

@blackchair I'm against fracking, but I highly doubt Biden will be doing anything about it. Fracking has helped the US become a dominant force in the energy source wars. It's a big part of our economy. And there's a lot of wealthy people behind it that would like that to stay the way it is. This is what makes issues like fracking so complex. I think we can all intuit that it's not good for the environment and it needs to stop. But then you have all these systemic, economic and geopolitical forces that make that change challenging.

Yes, Nevada is a “leader”. It’s not at all about them doing shady things to out compete other states. This is the shit-show that happens when you have bad Game Theory.

@Skenderberg The issue is way more complicated than you are making it. Your bias and cynicism is obvious. There are nuanced arguments to be made against the measures being taken to prevent Covid, but this ain't it.

@Twega It's a really nuanced question. Monogamy can certain be wonderful and beautiful and fulfilling for some people. Monogamy could also be coping and denial for some people. And the same thing could be said for polyamory. I've never personally done polyamory, but from what I've heard it's extremely difficult to pull off. Not only does it take a tremendous amount of time, it's also extremely emotionally taxing. Imagine all the emotional work of being in a relationship with someone, but now you've got even more people involved. And everyone's trauma is coming up and it's just a complex mess. I have heard some people say polyamory is easier in the right community / environment. But I have no experience in this area so it's hard for me to say.

@Twega Ironically, if they succeed in bring mushrooms to the general public at scale, we'll become so conscious that it'll destroy their business model .

It certainly can become a distraction. But then again, anything can become a distraction so that's not saying much. However, I don't believe it's inherently a distraction. I believe both inner work to change our state of consciousness and outer work to heal the world can synergize nicely. Really, you need both. Activism without consciousness quickly devolves into an Us vs Them stage green type of shadow. Tons of victim consciousness or painting oneself as the hero, as well as not appreciating the deep systemic nature of our problems and the complexity of solving them. It's not grounded in someone who has taken the time to connect with Spirit and has melted many of their biases. Turning inward without activism looks like a bunch of people sitting on a yoga mat doing spiritual bypassing and thinking they can "create their own reality" while corrupt institutions and systems destroy the planet. I don't believe we have to fall into either trap. The world of activism and spirituality can merge. In the hippy generation, a lot of it was. For people struggling to merge these worlds, I'd refer you to the work of Andrew Harvey. Feels very Green to me, but still worth looking at. Green is what we mostly need.

That's the question I've been asking for a long time. If the "old world" is crumbling, what does the "new world" look like, and how do we get there? What I've found is that it's not one answer. It's a synthesis of changes to a wide variety of institutions and systems. Changes in economics, politics, media, agriculture, technology, ecology, health-care, relationship dynamics, law, education and just about anything else you can think of. Seek and you will find. The answers, at least the best answers we can come up with at this moment, are out there.

I’m not following. What would be an example of what you’re speaking about?

I believe your intuition is correct. If we are playing a fundamentally rivalrous game such as capitalism, and a company declares that they are acting in a non-rivalrous way, then our suspicion is that this is simply another rivalrous strategy. In such a game, companies that act rivalrous win and get selected for in a type of "economic natural selection". Companies that do not lose the game and therefore go out of existence. I believe people mistakenly think capitalism is non-rivalrous because of the opportunities for collaboration. You and I can start a business together and both make money, or we could do some sort of cross promotion where we both make sales. But micro-level cooperation does not negate macro-level rivalry. Especially not when even at the micro-level, I can potentially defect on our cooperation and be better off (e.g business partner cheating another business partner). Companies could have a conscience. But we have to examine what the rules of the game are and structure for non-rivalry in order for that to really be convincing. I think we can look at this question both from an individual level and collective level. On an individual level, a lot of concrete action arises naturally from that state of consciousness. I am naturally inspired to help someone, or read something, or plant a tree, or who knows. The goal on the individual level should be to be highly tuned into one's intuition. Which requires constant listening and awareness. That may not be as concrete as you were looking for, but to me it's the foundation. On a collective level, an empathetic sense of care will look like changing our systems, most notably the economic system. Which will move us into a place to heal the ecological and social crises we face.

@Boethius It's a really good nuanced question. From a stage Orange perspective, it's hard to see the value of social justice. Is social justice going to get me more power, status or money? Will I gain survival advantage? Will I get more sex? The answer is probably no. In fact, social justice can be a threat to a stage Orange perspective. If my goal is to become a billionaire hedge fund manager, but then you've got a bunch of SJWs talking about "wealth inequality" and "tax the rich", you're actually a threat. So on the one hand, it's unlikely that people will care about social justice if they are in a shitty Game Theory scenario whereby defecting on the well-being of the whole leads to personal gain. Perverse incentive structures need to be solved. At the same time, I believe that caring about social justice comes from an increase in our empathy for the world around us. The more I see myself in you, the more I feel we are connected, the more I feel your well-being is coupled to my well-being. This also extends beyond humans. I can feel that same connection or empathy for a tree or a bug. It's a total expansion of one's sense of Self.

No problem at all, thank you for the referral.

We don't know her motive, but it general that's not something a mother should be asking their child to do. She put you in a shitty situation just by asking and forcing you to choose between helping her and your integrity.

@Vibroverse I do like Bashar, he's good vibes. I find a lot of crossover with his material and law of attraction material like Abraham-Hicks.

An improv comedy class can help. Honestly I think it was pickup that helped me the most in this area though. In pickup you're constantly being pushed to be creative and come up with things on the fly. You really have to surrender a lot of your "criteria of success", i.e what you think is "good enough" to be said. You can also just practice with a video camera. Turn on the camera and just start talking about anything and see how long you can go, keeping it relatively coherent and engaging. Recording yourself also has the added benefit of you becoming aware of all your microexpressions and places where your subcommunications might be off. Highly recommended. That makes it way harder than it needs to be. You could open a girl and just start talking about the wall in front of you. Your words don't matter as much as you might think. Especially if it's at night and everyone is in more "party mode" where things don't have to make sense. It's mostly about vibes.

@EddieEddie1995 We can critique feminism, but let's start with understanding and integrating it's POV first. Because there are many valid arguments made from feminists. There has been historical repression of women. They were treated as property without their own autonomy. Which is not the same thing as saying men are evil. But we have to acknowledge that core wounding took place. I do think feminism is going to continue to evolve. Teal Swan has made some good videos critiquing feminism from "above" that I feel are likely to play out. But so much of the current push-back against feminism is misguided.

I don’t think it will be that simple. I don’t know much about this issue, but from what the article said, the Chinese government is complicit in what is happening. That means “stopping them” is now a complex sociopolitical problem. For instance, @commie pointed out the unlikelihood of economic sanctions since PRC is now an economic powerhouse. The US is starting to get a taste of what we’ve been doing for years And are we even sure what the root cause of what something like this might be? As painful as it might be to watch, we may have to admit that we don’t really know how to solve this in a traditional manner.