Emerald

@Elliott I'm planning on attending this Saturday.

@DocWatts I have stumbled across Knitting Cult Lady's channel a couple times. But I'll have to give her a closer watch. But I really appreciate Parkrose Permaculture's focus on raising morale and giving actionable steps for pushing back. I deliberately tuned out from politics about a year ago because I felt that most lefty creators were doing one of four things... Just sharing the new through a Lefty lens Doomerism Leftist in-fighting where one pundit has a beef with another pundit Empty philosophical ponderings But each of these things don't mobilize people to do anything productive to push back on rising authoritarianism. So, I just took the perspective of tune out 99%... but keep my ear to the ground so that I can protect my family if the shit hits the fan. Her channel is just really refreshing that it's like "Don't give up hope. Do these action steps."

We can have that argument from 2016 on another thread, if you'd like. But the hour is later than you think. And this video is about non-violent practical tactics for resisting against the authoritarianism of the current administration. It's not a place for endless semantic arguments about things that should be obvious in the year 2025.

Isn't that pretty obvious?

I was perusing @Leo Gura's blog. And I ran across the post with the video about Borges' idea of the infinite library. The idea is that there's an infinitely large library that contains every single combination of letters that could ever be. So, most of the books in the library are totally unintelligible with completely random letters. But every book that currently exists, exists in the library as well... as well as many many versions of those books with just one character difference. And even the story of your exact life (from birth until death) exists in the library. It's an interesting idea that I'd thought on in a lesser detailed version of "10,000 monkeys tapping away on typewriters will eventually produce all the works of Shakespeare." But it explored that idea in much deeper detail. I'll post the video below because it's definitely worth a share. But the idea of the Infinite Library is a close symbolic representation of a common theme that comes up in my medicine journeys... and which comes up in other forms in multiple points in my life. And facing it in my medicine journeys has revealed it to be my greatest fear... with a fear a million times greater than that of death. And in one of my medicine journeys, it showed me that this fear of the "infinite library" and specifically the infinite numbers of books in that library that contained so much suffering was the reason why the infinite consciousness contracted itself and convinced itself to be this particular avatar in the first place. In the medicine journeys it always shows up as a constant changing of inconsistent scenes where it's like one scene doesn't relate to the next at all. So, it's like an inundation of billions of realities that are all happening all at once forever... and constantly shifting and changing where one moment is totally dissimilar for the rest. It's just like having all the books in the infinite library playing out all at once without anything linking them. It's been infinite knowledge of all realities that have ever been all flashing before me chaotically in a way where no meaning can exist. And during these times, I had to remind myself on a moment by moment basis that "This experience will pass" just to get through those experiences. And all of my life has felt like this journey towards expansion into infinite knowledge... which my life's purpose is to contract and to embrace mystery and limitation. But my curiosity leads me into more and more and more and more expansion. And only fear of the infinite library leads me into contraction... which is the wiser direction. And the chaos and meaninglessness of the everythingness of the infinite is SOOO much more difficult than the experience of ego death. But what's interesting is that the Infinite Library has popped up for me in unexpected places outside of medicine journeys. (Bearing in mind that I didn't experience the everythingness in my medicine journeys until I was 30) Like, once when I was 11 years old, I had a blank video tape. And I had a television with a built in VCR where I could record on blank tapes. So, I thought it would be a very interesting idea to just push record for like 1 second at a time at random as I watched tv. So, I ended up producing a video tape that was nothing but a bunch of flashing images that have no connection to one another... a much less intimidating version of the medicine journey visions. Then, when I was 21 and I was in my BA portfolio class (during my senior year of college as an art major), I came up with this idea to do these three animations made from 29 large paintings. And the animations were short 3 second videos... and just of people where I filmed their reaction to me candidly filming them. So, one of the animations was 9 paintings and the other two animations had 10 paintings each. And the idea was to try to push the visuals as far away as possible from one another but to still have the animation read smoothly. And I was trying to make all the paintings totally different to where there was not clear aesthetic linking them together. And I even got into a bit of a resistance to one of my professor's critiques that my backgrounds didn't show "everythingness" like I attempted to capture. And once I got through with those paintings, I got disgusted with art and it lost most of its meaning to me. I was also pregnant at the time and didn't know yet... so I chalked by disgust up to having to push my creative energy outward and diffuse it instead of internalizing it for my pregnancy. But I still haven't been able to find much meaning in art... or in images in general. I even went to a Reiki healer a few years back... which I've always been a fence-sitter about these kinds of practices but enjoy engaging in them none-the-less. And without telling her anything about this, she told me that there seems to be a rip in my aura where the boundary-line between my temporal perspective and the source's perspective has been breeched... and that it was creating a dynamic like an open aperture where too much of the infinite was flowing into my temporal perspective and making it difficult to differentiate myself from the source. Also, the inundation of social media videos and images... AI slop and shortform content has made all of the videos that I've created feel somehow meaningless to me. Before, I saw my YouTube channel as meaningful. But now, I feel like my channel and my words have lost all meaning... as has all information and teachings in books, videos, and creative projects in general. And I have spent many years of my life trying to lean into my rarity and uniqueness as a person to try set myself aside from other people. Like, as a teenager, I had to believe that I was the rarest person on the planet... and I tried to hyper-specify my personality. But in recent years, I've been trying to integrate ordinariness (which I always avoided for fear of becoming just another spec in the white noise and my life losing meaning). But it was through ordinariness that I got to feel deeply interconnected with humanity, nature, and the universe at large. So, it changed my perspective entirely on averageness and ordinariness... and helped me recognize that everything extraordinary has only and will only ever come through my embrace of the ordinary and of imperfect humanity. I think one of my main issues is that I have some kind of deep-seated belief like, "Only rare things are meaningful." And in a sense, this is how humans create meaning... despite that not being reflective of what's true in the absolute sense. Humans will find more meaning in books that make sense. But from the higher perspective, a book of sense-making and a book of gibberish are of equal validity. And without them, the entire premise of the library would be undermined. So, the Infinite Library video found me at a good time... as I feel like I'm really contending with some kind of identity loss because I no longer feel much differentiated from the next person. And that's a good thing, I think. But in the interim of letting go of identity as a differentiating agent... there is a real sense of losing meaning and losing the old coping strategies that are served through the creation of that meaning. But I like the idea in the video that every single book has meaning... even if it's not apparent. It's a new lens that can help me transcend the old lens as I have a real vibe about what that perspective is. I've always tried to be one of the rare books in the library that actually make sense.... as that would make me better, scarcer, and more valuable compared to other books. And differentiation and proving my rarity and meaningfulness to myself was the coping game of my life... and there was SOO much meaning in that before. But now it is not that meaningful. That piece of gum has had all the flavor chewed out of it. But I feel that this era of my life is about recognizing that I am indeed one of the common books with only random letters in it and that that makes me feel a sense of belonging within the library as it's unlikely that a book of gibberish is taken off the shelf and ogled at by library-goers, unlike the rare books that make sense. Here's the video... And here's one of my animations that I mentioned...

See! You get the point.

Yes. People really struggle with calling a spade a spade when it comes to the rise of American Fascism.

Neither men nor women are disposable. Men are just as valid and valuable as women are. Stop being a misandrist.

Stop listening to this nonsense. There are no disposable people.... even if some societies have treated it as such or needed to adapt that way.

It's a really common pitfall that those who are on the path can fall into. I used to fall into this one myself about a decade ago. And it's just another ego trap. But it also arises primary as a coping strategy for dealing with feelings of disconnection. One seeks to be the "superior one" relative to the normies because they feel a sense of not fitting. The reality is that God is just as over-joyed to incarnate as a pleb as it is to incarnate as a "serious Truth-seeker"... as it is to incarnate as a sea barnacle. And anyone who is trying so hard to differentiate their human character from other human characters is just operating off of the tendency towards ego differentiation, which is in the opposite direction of Love and Truth. Anyone who is in this trap has a spiritual path that's highly influenced by the Shadow of what they're pushing away on the ordinary human level.

You sure do say and think it a lot though... don't you? But the Leo character is not superior to any of the other human characters. He's not even wiser than them half the time.

This is just more "Look how superior I am to the unconscious plebs" talk that's common in the group think on this forum. It's just a bad habit that you've picked up from Leo. If Leo didn't talk like this... you wouldn't be talking like this. There's no "serious development" about it.

Personally, I don't think that's a very good strategy. I've experienced many many times where guys have immediately conveyed to me that they're attracted to me and want to go on a date with me, and it always read to me as, "This guy does this with just about every woman." And I see it as a tell about his priorities and personality. Who knows? Maybe it would work with some women. But I wouldn't count on a woman being receptive to a date invitation upon the first meeting... unless it happens in a night club or something like that where it's specifically a place where it's common for people to express interest and hook up. I've always needed a bit of a platonic slow burn for my feelings for someone to blossom.

It doesn't matter if you intend it as group think or not. First off, people are influenced by thought leaders. That's just the reality of it. You can't be in the business you're in without inviting some level of group think. Anyone who steps into a leadership position and creates a movement can only do so because human beings have a natural tendency towards "group think." Without group think, there would be no Actualized.org... or any other group, movement, philosophy, or institution. And the entirety of civilization is only able to exist because of group think. So, there is a positive and a negative side to group think. All the best and worst things come from it. But when we refer to it in the positive, we refer to it as a movement or institution or community or organization... etc. That's why I said that a communal Ayahuasca ceremony would do you some good... as you have a strong polarization against this component of being human. But moreso than that... any leader that presents themselves as certainly and "beyond that" as you do will invite lots of group think... as you are claiming superior leader status when you do that. You are conveying, "Look at me and listen to me. I am different than you and better than you." So, you may discourage group think with your direct words. But you encourage group think with the way you share your perspectives, as your positioning is always like, "Alright you plebs. Try to get on my level. But I bet you can't as you guys just aren't on my level." If you want to really discourage negative group think to the highest degree that a thought leader is capable, you have to walk the walk of being a bit more humble and human. And a big part of that is not blaming people who watch you for falling into group think. The reality is that human beings are incredibly vulnerable. And it's incumbent upon leaders to check themselves if a sizable portion of their audience is falling into negative group think. The reality is that you're not "beyond" anyone. You're human like everyone else. And accepting that would likely help you tremendously towards your stated goals.

Yes. I can relate to that. I just feel so responsible for teaching people to use basic empathy and to use common sense. I think it's mostly because I feel a lot of fear around people holding harmful nonsensical and unempathetic perspectives, as I know that society is plastic and can pick them up and normalize them. And then it, if that happens, madness gets seen as normal... andit becomes EVERYBODY'S problem. (Gestures vaguely at everything) Hence Exhibit A. So, I'm trying to avert global crisis EVERY SINGLE TIME I'm trying to get someone to see sense. And it doesn't work. And it's exhausting. But it's hard to let go of the "Let me teach them out of it!" But the reality is that it is what it is. It's not my responsibility to prevent it... even though it is problem (and all of our problems) to deal with it.

Use a bit of empathy. What if you were texting with someone and you started liking their personality and feeling a connection. And you found out they were an AI bot the whole time? Would you like that?

Yeah, I gotta just let it go. I feel too easily responsible for trying to speak sense to someone who is clearly locked into their own perspective. It's part of my own neuroses around feeling responsible for people.

It's good to come to that realization. And like Natasha mentioned, most people go through that. Prior to having my YouTube channel, I had similar thoughts before. It was like, "If only people that I know can see how highly developed and wise my perspective is." And there was a judgment of other people for not being on the same wavelength. But once I had my YouTube channel, I was able to interact with a lot of other people who had similar interests. And I was able to trade that sense of superiority for real community. And it made me realize that a lot of my tendency to differentiate myself came from loneliness and unmet social needs... but also as a coping strategy to make myself feel better than others. But talking with a bunch of other people who are on this wavelength, just makes me realize that it's just another way to be human among thousands of other ways to be human.

I think you'd benefit most of all from a communal Ayahuasca retreat.... especially since you have a resistance to it. A little dose of what you call "group think" would be very healing for you. But also consider... this forum is group think... and your retreats would also be group think. It's just group think that's lead by you as the thought leader.

@Hojo These are silly perspectives that I would feel exhausted even going through the trouble to debunk them because you're clearly emotionally attached to these ideas, as you have a resistance towards women wearing make-up... and even have a resistance to the fact that women are able to attract men based on their looks in the first place. You just can't tolerate the fact that women have that power, as it makes you feel like you're a victim to the fact that you find women attractive. So, you are doing all sorts of mental gymnastics to try to pretend that simply wearing make-up is equally deceptive to having AI do all of your preliminary "get to know you" conversations before the date. But I think you should be able to think critically enough to know better on your own. And it's not my responsibility to save you from your own foolishness. So, I will end the conversation here.

That's a silly request. Wearing make-up is a normal human folkway. And it's part of many women's style and persona. That would be like expecting her to be like, "By the way, I'm wearing a dress. I'm not usually that pretty." But using an AI bot to talk to dating prospects is deception borne out of laziness... and potentially even deception borne out of a desire to deceive. There are some things that shouldn't be optimized for efficiency... and dating is one of them.

No it isn't a direct comparison. In this analogy... Wearing make-up looks-wise is analogous to putting yours best foot forward on the date personality-wise. Either way, you're still fundamentally presenting yourself. But looks-based catfishing is using images that aren't you. And personality-based catfishing is have AI bots interact with your dating prospects.

No.

100%

It's not an assumption. It's an observation. It's clear that the OPs perspective comes from a place of polarization, judgment, and resistance to the way that the average person is. It's his way of hierarchically differentiating himself from the plebeian hordes of average non-truthseeking people who simply live their lives. It's saying, "Now that I am (superior) like this... I scoff at those who are (inferior) like that." It's building an identity based on hierarchical differentiation and uncommonality. Is that not clear to you?