Xonas Pitfall

Is this a Vampire secret society thread? 🧛‍♀️

I can definitely relate, especially the soothing part (although it depends on how severe the illness is ) Hope you feel better

The Pure and incorruptible Pig 😍

Exactly. I think what I've personally encountered when discussing with some Muslims is that they believe their book is “pure and incorruptible” by humans because it's the “word of God.” So I'd ask them, "Even if I grant you that the Muslim God exists and that the book was written perfectly, how can you guarantee that human interpretation, with all its imperfections and biases, hasn't muddied its authority over the years?" They don't seem particularly willing to examine that question or think too deeply about it. They are isolated within their own bubble and don't really look outside of it, because you know that if you question things too deeply, the whole thing might fall apart, so you simply don't want to look. There's too much survival, ego, and identity preservation at stake. I remember there was a TikTok trend where people would find particularly heinous quotes from the Bible and ask Christians who were live-streaming themselves reading it to read them aloud. “Okay, but why are we reading this? What's the point of this?” They'd instantly become defensive and try to avoid engaging with it.

Likewise!

I know people have pointed out before that you sometimes claim no one understands you or is as enlightened as you. I agree that you've done more work than most, but when people challenge your claims or point out potential logical errors, you sometimes dismiss them with “you don't understand, you guys are still not understanding, you don't get it, go do the work” instead of actually addressing their arguments. I understand that it can get frustrating, but it comes across as unwilling to engage or explain the perspective. I think a lot of people genuinely want to engage with you, but these responses make the conversation unproductive and more toxic/argumentative than necessary. I can't find the thread at the moment, but I think one of the mods quoted 50+ several instances of you making similarly grandiose statements. To give a personal example, I remember challenging your claim about “multiple gods awakening” and pointing out that, yes, infinity can be anything without limitation, but if everything is still made out of infinity/God, then it's one, there is no "Other" boundary something can be made of, meaning the gods would still be “relative gods.” Instead of engaging with that argument, you just responded with something like, “YOU GUYS STILL AREN'T GETTING IT. You don't understand the depth of it,” which really isn't productive. I think this also circles back to the first point and what @something_else said. I feel like you sometimes dismiss mainstream scientists, businesses, or billionaires/influencers by immediately framing their efforts as bureaucratic or “egoic.” Bryan Johnson is one example: “This is all pointless and ridiculous. Why are you trying to extend life against what is "natural"? You get 80 years, that's it. Why are we trying to advance?” Yet you're also interested in advancing human consciousness through psychedelics and new technologies. But when he started investigating autoimmune diseases, it suddenly seemed more interesting/acceptable. The same applies to AI, where you initially mocked the idea of developing consciousness, but when pressed, acknowledged the possibility of some form of ego emulation, which was what people were asking about in the first place. I think there's often more nuance and potential value in mainstream research than your initial reactions suggest. I know this is one of the more expected criticisms, but I do think it's true. While you've deconstructed other areas, I feel like your views on masculinity and femininity are lacking some depth. I previously made a post parodying your arguments on this topic: https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/110076-femininity-truth-parody-of-leos-blogpost/#comment-1662066 The arguments you made on the referenced post: https://www.actualized.org/insights/masculinity-and-truth are not that well thought out and show bias. I believe there was also an Actualized.org post where you said, “Women don't think; they just feel with their vaginas,” or the conversation where you said, “OnlyFans is the worst thing; it's worse than heroin, but there's nothing wrong with good old porn.” Please note: I'm not arguing that masculine and feminine polarity or differences don't exist. I'm criticizing the quality of the arguments, statements, and the biases underlying them. However, just to clarify, I respect Leo a lot, so I don't want this to come off as overly critical of him, especially because, had I never discovered Actualized.org / psychedelics / this forum, I'd probably be far more biased. I intend this post more as constructive feedback and an interesting discussion than a personal attack. I'm genuinely grateful for the content Leo has provided. I've experienced much deconstruction of bias and intellectual freedom through it, and I don't want my post to come across as dismissing any of that. I'd say Leo has far more "non-biases" than biases, especially considering he's made this his life's work!

One of the funnier stories I’ve heard on the topic is about a Christian missionary in the 1970s named Daniel Everett. He went to live with an Indigenous tribe in the Amazon called the Pirahã, with the goal of learning their language and translating the Bible so he could convert them and "save" them to Christianity. He went there to convert them and ended up losing his own faith. The Pirahã culture places an enormous emphasis on things you can directly experience or verify. So when Everett started telling them about Jesus, they asked him simple questions. “Have you ever seen Jesus?” “Do you know anyone who has?” Um, did he look more like us, or did he look more like you? I said, well, you know, some people said he looked more like me, and other people said he looked more like you. Yeah, but you've seen him, so what does he look like? I said, well, actually, I've never seen him, but your father saw him. No, my dad never saw him either. Well, who saw him? I said, nobody. He lived a long time ago. Well, if he lived a long time ago and nobody saw him, why are you telling us about him? And it occurred to me that all the evidence that I had accumulated in Bible school, and all my prayers and all my activity as a Christian, didn't hold up to the evidentiary requirements of this group. Why should they believe in someone nobody they knew had ever seen? Over time, living with the Pirahã and thinking about their worldview played a major role in Everett questioning and eventually abandoning his Christian faith. If you want to see From the video: Even greater detail, and realizing that new information is, again, as I've said, hard to come by. If you sit in a room with people who look just like you, who are your gender, who are your age, your economic background, the chances of getting really new information are minimal, because everybody already agrees. It's like a famous philosopher friend of mine said once, "I don't read anything because if they disagree with me, they're wrong, and if they agree with me, I already knew that." Often, that's the way we think until somebody forces us to think differently. So how can we possibly bring newness to our life?

I don't really see why this has to be so black and white. I think much of the conversation is about redefining some of the more outdated notions and assumptions we've taken for granted as objective truths. To give a concrete example, people often hold rigid beliefs such as "Women are less logical and more emotional." This is precisely the kind of assumption that can be deconstructed because it simply doesn't hold up as a general rule. We have plenty of examples of men becoming ideologically driven by online culture, politics, and regressive belief systems, displaying considerable emotionality. The reality is much more nuanced and depends on the individual. There are intelligent and unintelligent people, people who are more self-aware and people who are less self-aware, more emotionally driven and less emotionally driven, impulsive or calculating, regardless of sex. These distinctions matter because if people take regressive beliefs like "women are less logical and more emotionally uncontrolled" at face value, they risk developing biases that lead them to underestimate women and treat them worse. At the same time, we can acknowledge that there are average differences in how masculine and feminine emotional expression tends to manifest. We don't have to deny those to challenge rigid stereotypes. Pointing out contradictions in certain gender stereotypes doesn't automatically mean arguing that men and women are entirely interchangeable or that there are no meaningful differences in polarity between them.

If their claim is that some groups of people have difficulty acknowledging the survival challenges people faced in the past, then sure, I can accept that. I'm sure some people do. But how does any of that relate to the discussion we were having, or explain why I supposedly have a "utopian view"? And who else on this forum are they referring to? I have no issue acknowledging that life was difficult in the past. If anything, one of my arguments was precisely that modern ideas of femininity wouldn't necessarily hold up in those historical conditions. Much of what we consider femininity today is a relatively modern conception. By today's standards, many people throughout history would probably be considered quite masculine, regardless of their sex. So I'm genuinely not sure what point they're trying to make here, or how it connects to anything I said.

In what manner, exactly? I'd need an actual claim, a clear argument, and the evidence used. No one here was talking about leftism or a supposed dark truth that people don't want to accept. Nor was anyone denying the reality that people have been raped and abused. I'm not sure what point they're trying to make. The "dark" reality of survival is that, depending on when and where you were born, you could have been killed, tortured, raped, sexually exploited, or trafficked, blackmailed, man, woman, child, elder, many things. But I'm not sure what specific claim is being made here, or why any of this is relevant to the discussion. What exactly are they trying to argue, and how does it relate to what's actually being discussed?

Yes, I agree with you here. Just to clarify, I didn't mean to come off as if the entire forum is horrible. Not at all. I'm simply pushing back against some of the things being said. I agree that, in all aspects of life, we should try to take the good, leave the bad, and learn from the latter where we can. So, no disagreement there. The forum has some genuinely great topics that I've learned from, and I don't mean to badmouth it. There are plenty of things I appreciate about it, and I've learned a lot from being here. Whether someone chooses to leave the forum or come back is, of course, entirely up to them

This is exactly what I mean. Why are you bringing this up? Has any of this even been relevant to the conversation? This is exactly what I was pointing out: people will share some "truthful things" and then suddenly start talking about much more absurd conclusions that I don't even know how to respond to. Where has any of this been discussed? Who even mentioned the left and the reality they are trying to "deny"? I could also say that children were enslaved in dark times, and that’s a "dark truth/reality" of human nature and the faith children are destined to experience and be. Hence, that's why I believe children should essentially be enslaved, but that's quite an absurd claim.

Be vary if you have any chat history with them; they reference it to formulate their response.

I don't think we should naturally expect much forgiveness or acknowledgment in debates and forums, tbh. People can be very opinionated, biased, and ideologically blinded. They can be quite emotionally charged and "personal" topics, after all, so it's very understandable. The best thing you can do is hold yourself to your own standards. Call out bad behaviour, inconsistencies, and flawed logic in a reasonable, understandable way, and when you catch yourself falling into those same patterns, acknowledge it and correct yourself, ideally publicly so it can have a good ripple effect/karma.

How so? On this forum, I've seen some quite questionable things said about women and femininity. I've seen it from Leo himself, tbh. I agree that people should be way more grounded in their positions. That's exactly why I am pointing out the extreme stereotyping.

Yes! I think this is a general pattern in ideologies and in how any strong bias can develop. You notice a truth, but then that truth gets twisted by your ego to benefit you. Because, again, ego is a very tricky little devilish thing that will twist things as much as it can, or as much as it needs to, to soothe itself. And then, when people point it out, you think they're attacking the "truth" rather than the actual distortion you've imposed on that truth. It happens everywhere. A cult might start as a self-development group or a peaceful community for socialising and volunteering work, but then the leader starts using it to twist things and promote his own propaganda, or members end up being exploited for some ulterior motive (I'm not referring to Actualized.org, to be clear). A racist ideology might notice "objective" differences in appearance or culture, but then twist those observations to establish its own race, culture, country, or identity as superior. A religious person might start with a genuine interest in spirituality, morality, or understanding existence, but then twist those beliefs to justify their own superiority, condemn everyone outside their faith, and excuse harmful behaviour because they believe they're acting on behalf of some higher truth. A political movement might start with legitimate concerns about inequality, corruption, or injustice, but then become so invested in its own narrative that it excuses the same behaviour it originally condemned, as long as its own side is "responsible". And even in relationships, someone might recognise a genuine issue in their partner's behaviour, but then use that one truth to justify controlling them, or making themselves out to be the victim in every situation. The pattern is that something can begin with a legitimate observation, 'a truth', but then the ego starts building a narrative around it that serves its own interests. And because the narrative is built around something that is at least partially true, it becomes much harder to recognise the distortion. In fact, truth is one of the most overpowered tools the ego can use, because it doesn't just fool others; it fools itself, too. It can take something that's genuinely true and use it to convince itself that it's completely in the right, to the point where it stops questioning itself altogether. You end up in a trance where you genuinely believe you're acting in the name of truth, while actually justifying actions that serve your own ego.

No, that's my exact point. When we say "obvious stuff," people are taking "obvious" and the notion of "normalcy" or "matter-of-factness" as truth. Leo has plenty of videos on this, and in general, we are aware that the notion of what is "normal" or "obvious" is an extremely fickle thing. Same way a white person who's racist might say, "Okay, but it's obvious the white race is superior. Look around you!" Or a religious person might say, "Okay, but it's obvious there has to be a creator. It's just obvious. It's obvious Jesus is the way." You're using nuance for a bias, but this stuff is "obvious" to these people. And to clarify about the hunting part. I'm completely okay with accepting that that's the truth, or not the truth; I don't have a bias there. Nor do I think Emerald or anyone in the conversation wanted to say, "Women and men are equal and equally strong and equally developed, and they do the same roles equally and equally efficiently with equal desire and preference, and all is the same." That's a silly takeaway. If I remember correctly, what was discussed in the thread was the notions of femininity in modern times vs. previous times, and how a lot of the traits you'd see as masculine, you'd see in women as well, because that's what survival entails. The notion of what femininity is was questioned, as well as how it relates to masculinity, how the split developed, and so on. But then a lot of it turned into more rigid, simplistic, binary ways of seeing gender that are stereotypical and don't really question anything, and most of it was also very gender-war-esque, without proper argumentation. People made assumptions and argued very strongly in absolute terms: "This is 100% how we evolved. This is 100% what gender is." I'd say that's one of my biggest critiques of some of these discussions. It's completely fine to say, "It seems, based on research and evidence, that men, on average, are taller than women or have greater bone density, muscle mass, etc." But what you don't do is say, "Hence why men are generally more capable, femininity means being weak and dependent, and if you claim to be strong, you're not actually a woman. You are a masculine woman. You need to be fragile and frail; that's what true femininity is." Do you see how big that leap is? Same thing to bring back the racist argument. It's okay to say, "Objectively, you can see that white people have less melanin and black people have more, hence why black skin appears darker." But what's not okay is saying, "Hence why they appear dirtier and less attractive, and why they need to be slaves." These are huge leaps.

The issue is simplistic thinking and a lack of nuance. People can often hold strong, absolutist opinions on these things, and when someone introduces nuance or questions their assumptions, they think it’s just because those people want things their way or are too "sensitive". I’m not referring to Emerald here. For example, if a black person or someone from a minority group questioned the intelligence of white people, a racist might say, “They just don’t want to accept the truth of reality: that we are inherently, biologically, genetically superior. That’s why they’re so whiny and sensitive. Reality and biological essentialism are difficult for those who aren’t white.” When you hear similarly simplistic thinking in a forum that supposedly encourages spiritual inquiry and the questioning of truth, it can be disappointing and unfortunate.

What kind of diet do you find most nourishing and feel-good to you?

Really sorry to hear that I always appreciated you here a lot. As some people above have said, you should feel no pressure to make this a binding decision, but I definitely understand the frustration. Thank you for all your posts, YouTube videos / content / wisdom you've shared with us! Hugs to Emerald

"Why is Christianity correct?" "Go read 1,200 to 1,500 pages of the Bible. Get serious."

In what way am I not being serious? I'm asking questions, sharing my POV, and explaining the logic/thinking behind my arguments. Obviously, I'm not going to respond to every single comment with "Hey, I can counter your argument; here are 3+ books and hours-long videos", because that would defeat the whole point of discussing the first place. The whole point is to debate, provide counterarguments, bring up relevant data, question each other's assumptions, and actually engage with the topic at hand. We bring our knowledge and resources together to hopefully arrive at a better understanding of these things.

In what way do you mean? And how would you explain it from an evolutionary perspective? I suppose we'd first need to develop an argument for how and why these things evolved the way they did- trade-offs, etc so we can then examine and evaluate further.

This applies to literally every human being. We're all born as weak, vulnerable babies and children, completely at the mercy of those more powerful than us, whether that's our parents, authority figures, elites, or whoever happens to hold power over us. If someone stronger and more powerful wanted to enslave you as a child, you'd have virtually no choice or ability to resist, regardless of whether you were male or female. This isn't inherently a gender thing. It's a fundamental human vulnerability that comes from unequal power dynamics. I don't understand why we keep framing it as though it's something unique to one gender.

It's also very tricky because, as I pointed out earlier, and I think you did as well, a lot of the traits we currently define as hyper-feminine are actually quite "anti-survival, " anti-self-preservation, etc. So a lot of those men end up being attracted to women who are "spoiled," overly emotional, dependent, or supposedly "less intelligent," because that's essentially what their own definition of hyper-femininity encourages and idealizes. But then they get annoyed at these same women for exhibiting the very traits they were attracted to in the first place, and end up shaming women for them. And then any girl who doesn't fit that ideal is labeled "masculine" or "not a real woman." So women are essentially trapped in a lose-lose situation where they're shamed for embodying the very traits these men idealize, but also shamed for not embodying them. It's a perfect circular trap. They idealize a certain version of femininity, actively seek it out, and then resent women for embodying it.