Xonas Pitfall

Heavy on this! Here: https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/162bjhg/best_youtube_extensions/

It can work as a business model, but what a lot of these influencers are doing is nothing "genuinely new". We've seen it before with dropshipping, print-on-demand, crypto, selling courses, etc. All of these are viable business models, but these videos make everything seem much simpler than it is. He himself is not making his money from this specific business model. He already has plenty of products, has built his own brand, and has established a trustworthy audience that is willing to buy whatever he puts out. He's making these videos because they generate a lot of clicks on YouTube. They seem easy, appealing, and new, which is, once again, a classic marketing strategy. That's how a lot of these so-called "grifters" actually make their money. They'll promote different business models because those topics generate views and clicks, but you have to pay attention to what they're actually doing and where their money is coming from. You can see the same thing in most industries; take, for example, weight loss. People already know the fundamental principles of losing weight: calories in, calories out. But from a psychological and marketing perspective, people don't always respond to these simple concepts. They constantly feel like there's something missing, some sort of secret or missing piece that will finally make everything click. They believe that once they discover it, they'll finally achieve their goals and lose the weight. That's what the marketers prey on. They'll introduce a new diet, a new version of keto, or whatever the latest trend happens to be. The goal is to make people believe that this new approach is the missing piece they've been looking for. And yes, for some people, a new angle or approach might work, while for others, it won't. But the underlying principles don't change. The same applies to business. If you want to build any kind of successful business, the fundamentals remain the same: building a brand, understanding your market, establishing authority and trust, and creating a good sales funnel that converts. Whether you incorporate AI to accelerate your progress is entirely up to you, but these core principles aren't going anywhere.

I guess the notion of "higher purpose" is tricky here, because we're filtering everything through a human perspective. For all we know, we serve "a small" purpose just as insects do when filtering through corpses and decomposing organic life. Yet, in human eyes, we'd probably try to put a neat ribbon around it and call ourselves "cleaners" or "healers." For all we know, our energy and intellect are somehow being harvested, and in a hundred years, we'll look back and interpret our role in an entirely different way. There is nothing inherently "higher" if you look at things from any perspective other than the human one. If anything, to many animals and other forms of life, we're just parasites causing damage. I suppose that, relative to our own minds, we do offer a deeper understanding of existence than less conscious animals might. But relative to some alien species, assuming one exists, our level of consciousness might be laughable. The idea of a higher purpose or meaning is, after all, quite a human filter. It is meaning to its relative self, to humans, to you.

I'd love for someone to realise alien consciousness with bananas

I guess this is true of a lot of pop music as well, where artists flaunt materialistic values, conformist status symbols, status-seeking behaviour, or their desirability. It's all very red-orange in terms of the lyrical themes.

Exactly! I was just challenging this claim in particular, but yes, I completely agree.

Yes, agreed! But I suppose my point isn't just about having enough power to influence society on a large scale. It also applies to very ordinary human desires, like wanting to be attractive, desired, admired, have some wealth, often just to impress others: "I'll show it to my friends, my ex, my family!", gain validation, feel superior, etc. All of these desires can be done deeply egoically and selfishly, yet pursuing them successfully can still require tremendous discipline. For example, many people want to be fit, attractive, and alluring, not necessarily out of love or care for their health, but because they want attention, to captivate and manipulate others. Yet they often lack the discipline to achieve even that. The same applies to pickup artists. Someone might want to seduce and manipulate others for selfish reasons, yet lack the courage or discipline to even approach anyone. Plenty of people desire selfish things but lack the discipline to acquire them. Consequently, those who do have the discipline are using the discipline to be "evil". I guess the broader point is that discipline isn't necessarily evidence of goodness, just as a lack of discipline isn't necessarily evidence of good intentions. Someone can have deeply selfish, manipulative, destructive desires but simply lack the discipline to act on them effectively.

Some evil definitely requires discipline, I think? For example, if someone is building a cult, they will most likely still need to put in a lot of work and discipline to maintain it and turn it into a stable structure that can sustain itself over time. A lot of the time, discipline and hard work simply mean consistency and the effort required to create and maintain some form of stable structure. It's just that the ego is often associated with a lot of evil, and because of that, it can be very motivated to create and maintain stable structures that serve its own selfish interests. But that doesn't mean all evil actions are easy to carry out or that they don't require hard work, discipline, and consistency. Something can be incredibly selfish and ego-driven while still requiring enormous amounts of effort and discipline to build and maintain.

Discipline is neutral. Discipline just means consistency. You can be consistently good and truthful or you can be consistently evil and untruthful.

Men can get “artificial” sex through strip clubs, prostitution, sex workers, etc. The “artificial” solution already exists. If you’re that desperate for “artificial” sex, then paying a sex worker shouldn’t be that huge of a leap. Rape is a much more complex issue than simply being about views on sex. Entitlement, power, the belief that you can do something and get away with it; some men don’t regard women as people whose choices or autonomy matter; they don't care: "I can get what I want when I want it, etc." “Well, I’d like it if a girl raped me, so what is this bitch whining about?” There isn’t much consideration for the other person’s perspective because rape is inherently a self-focused act. Some people think others are stupid or suckers, while they’re the smart ones who know how to cheat the system. And for some of those people, they really need to be jailed and face punishment before they can ever become aware. It’s a very “stubborn” kind of consciousness.

A connection between bias and consciousness! 🌞 Bias can be understood as a kind of “glitch” or asymmetry in consciousness, in which one particular aspect of our experience receives more attention, consciousness, prominence, or significance than another. Bias is a disproportionate allocation of consciousness within reality.

Dude, wtf is wrong with @AION 😂 I think @AION might be a CIA experiment in ragebait and incel propaganda.

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.