Leo's Blog Discussion Mega-Thread

[Husseinisdoingfine]

Me to Chat GPT:

Take this quote, and translate it into a more modern English so I can understand it: 

 

“For ourselves, we shall not trouble you with specious pretenses — either of how we have a right to our empire because we overthrew the Persians, or are now attacking you because of wrong that you have done us — and make a long speech which would not be believed; and in return we hope that you, instead of thinking to influence us by saying that you did not join the Lakedaemonians, although their colonists, or that you have done us no wrong, will aim at what is feasible, holding in view the real sentiments of us both; since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”
 

ChatGPT response:

Here’s a modernized version of the quote:

 

“We’re not going to waste your time with fake excuses about how we deserve our empire because we defeated the Persians, or say that we’re attacking you because you wronged us. We won’t make a long speech you wouldn’t believe anyway. In return, we hope you won’t try to sway us by claiming you didn’t side with the Spartans, even though you’re connected to them, or that you’ve done us no harm. Instead, let’s be realistic and face the actual situation. You and we both know that fairness only exists between equals; in reality, the powerful do what they want, and the weak have to accept it.”

 

This retains the core message about power dynamics and the futility of debating moral rights when there’s a clear imbalance of power.

 

[Mada_]

@Leo Gura

Ignore my PM if you see this. 

I want to understand how you demonise chasing money and sex as it will corrupt the mind, but these are human needs and you have already benefited from them. 

 

And also what are the alternatives? 

[Leo Gura]

4 hours ago, Mada_ said:

@Leo Gura

Ignore my PM if you see this. 

I want to understand how you demonise chasing money and sex as it will corrupt the mind, but these are human needs and you have already benefited from them. 

And also what are the alternatives? 

It's not that I demonize them. It's that they lead to corruption.

I have been corrupted by them in the past to some extent. And now I am very aware of that corrupting effect. But I was wise enough to avoid most of the corruption. Most people will fall right into it.

There are many different ways to get money and sex. They are not all equally corrupt. Of course I'm not saying you shouldn't make money or have sex. I'm saying, understand how these things lead to corruption and be careful that you don't lose yourself to them.

Saying that pickup is corrupt doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't date or flirt with women or learn to socialize. My point was that the pickup community as whole is corrupt. In the same way that Wall Street or the mafia as a whole is corrupt. These are corrupt industries.

Not all ways of doing business are corrupt. Not all ways of dating are corrupt.

If you are just starting off, you may not care about corruption because you just want results. But at my advanced stage I care about corruption as an epistemic and spiritual matter. So I point it out as a favor to mankind, for those who care about such things.

At some point, if you care about deeply understanding all these fieldd and social systems, you have to confront the issue of corruption within them. Otherwise you cannot understand them. Corruption is such a huge lens for understanding what's really going on with mankind.

Edited October 31, 2024 by Leo Gura

[Leo Gura]

9 hours ago, Ayham said:

I just read the blog post about the Athenians thing and how it relates to Palestine and Israel, and.... it is BASED.

Okay maybe I shouldn't use gen Z terms, but yeah it is high quality, I love when Leo gets into more factual topics (history for example, or any sort of "hard" field), and less abstract stuff, not because I don't like the abstract stuff, but because they are sort of repetitive at this point.

Glad you liked it.

[Jayson G]

@Leo Gura Regarding Theft .. 

I have actually been thinking about theft, since you made some forum comments a few weeks ago. 

I'm starting to think that it's not just the AI companies stealing data. If one even generates an AI image with MidJourney or Dall-e and uses that for some purpose of any kind, that is a form of theft. My thinking is that it took stolen data to create that image. It's like that image was made with that data in a sense. 

Along those lines, it is possible that ordinary human creativity, which is most of the creativity within most of the products and services we see is a form of theft. James Cameron said Titanic was Romeo and Juliet on a boat. Aside from the obvious Titanic copy, he copied ideas from Romeo and Juliet. Now of course this form of theft is not bad in my opinion. I actually think this is a good form of theft. But it is theft. But then the question is, how does one even define theft. If theft is stealing what shouldn't be stolen, then that's a narrow form of theft. If theft is defined as taking an element outside of yourself that is not yours, that can be theft. 

But also interestingly, at one point you mentioned that nothing is yours. Everything is god's. We take credit for a product we built, even if it is completely original, when really it is god doing it. Maybe everything in our life is theft considering we like to say to a lot of things that "This is mine." "This is my mother." "This is my desk." I don't know about that last part lol I might be getting too ahead of myself. 

By the way, are all recurring subscriptions theft? If I decide to offer an app with a 10 dollar per month recurring subscription, but that app provides tremendous value to society, and I need to set that recurring subscription for continuous cash flow for the sustainability of the app's long-term development, I don't think that would be theft, would it? 

[The Renaissance Man]

Is the main symptom of corruption the self-justification of despicable behavior?

And are corrupt industries (like Leo mentioned, pickup, or wall street) identifiable as culture that makes it even easier or even encourage self-justification of despicable behavior?

Is this a decent definition? I'm trying to corner this concept of corruption and how it looks like in practice.

 

Edited October 31, 2024 by The Renaissance Man

[The Renaissance Man]

@Jayson G Yes I agree that some examples would really help here, and with corruption as well. It's quite abstract and subject to one's interpretation of the words "theft" and "corruption", which I'm sure have a lot more depth in Leo's mind after reading all those books.

[Nemra]

The documentaries on certain YouTube channels, like "Best Documentary", that we have been watching are stolen, yet we continue to watch them because they are giving us those videos for free and in one place.

Edited October 31, 2024 by Nemra

[Jayson G]

4 minutes ago, The Renaissance Man said:

@Jayson G Yes I agree that some examples would really help here, and with corruption as well. It's quite abstract and subject to one's interpretation of the words "theft" and "corruption", which I'm sure have a lot more depth in Leo's mind after reading all those books.

@The Renaissance Man I'm actually referring to his latest blog post lol he gave a ton of examples there. But I felt that those examples are the pretty obvious ones. He referred to more subtle forms of theft, but I think Leo could have expanded on the more subtle forms of theft. 

I have also been very interested in examples for corruption lately as well. Past some days I have really been observing corruption and contemplation in my own life and realized just how important this topic is. 

Edited October 31, 2024 by Jayson G

[The Renaissance Man]

@Jayson G True, he did give examples. "AI" is an example, but it would help to clarify how AI is theft, or "marketing", how is exactly theft? How am I supposed to make my offer known, in a sea of sharks? I can do my best to make it honest and valuable, but am I forced to steal to survive or is there an alternative I'm not seeing?

Is actualized.org theft in some ways?

So I meant more examples of the dynamic of theft: what is stolen, why it's stolen, what even is theft in this subtler sense... 

Also, what's the solution? And each example is quite different in nature and level of corruption. If I hide research on UFOs, am I committing theft? What if I am a hacker and give that all out for free, am I committing theft because I stole and divulged the information without those people's consent?

I mean I'm asking about Robin Hood here lol. Is it possible that Robin Hood like behavior is a net positive in corrupt societies, but compared to super mature societies it's still a net negative? Like Spiral Dynamics, where lower levels of development are necessary for the survival in societies at those stages?

Maybe Leo isn't even saying to not be a thief at all (because it would mean not surviving), and we're misinterpreting it.

Edited October 31, 2024 by The Renaissance Man

[lostingenosmaze]

https://www.actualized.org/insights/actualized-quotes-081

Don't forget creativity! Even being creative can be theft:

[Leo Gura]

That quote was from a new video I have planned on the topic of theft.

Theft is a profound topic of itself.

Theft, corruption, super-truth, terrorism, Zionism, etc -- all these topics will have videos.

Edited October 31, 2024 by Leo Gura

[Greatnestwithin]

31 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

That quote was from a new video I have planned on the topic of theft.

Theft is a profound topic of itself.

Theft, corruption, super-truth, terrorism, Zionism, etc -- all these topics will have videos.

@Leo Gura when are you planning your Next video and what topic?💚

On 21/10/2024 at 8:21 PM, LordFall said:

Society does need to improve and be more fair but it does not mean that you are helpless. What are your top skills in life? Learning programming is great and I'd recommend it but what do you envision afterwards? Is your business idea something that could be started on with $300 to a coder on Fiverr? I would highly recommend joining an entrepreneurship/business community or mastermind so the entrepreneurial mindset slowly bleeds into yours.

Entrepreneurs make stuff happen out of thin air. The general public complains that the world isn't fair while not doing anything on a daily basis to improve their own lives as well as the lives of their communities. 

 

[gettoefl]

Corruption is all the wrong that you manage to get away with

that I judge  worse

than all the wrong I am doing

yet am smart enough not to get caught at

[bambi]

Interesting to put ro-occuring subscritpions alongisde rape, colonaliasm etc lol

Re-occuring subscriptions are interesting to categorically call as theft, I don't see it. It can be a form of theft depending on how its regulated perhaps, but also it can make life much simpler but automating your procurement of a service you tend to repeat. Most reoccuring subscriptions these days have quite alot of explicit terms, and they're quite easy to cancel.

Not that it cannot be improved, and give people more honest awareness and choice to leave subscriptions. But hard to see them all as categorical theft, it misses the mark imo

[The Renaissance Man]

@bambi I feel like it's a critique of the whole recurring subscription model when there's the alternative possibility of a one-time payment. Software (Adobe, Microsoft, SaaS companies, Spotify, YouTube Premium) and courses are typical, where you pay monthly or yearly. In the long run a recurring subscription is probably just more profitable in those cases. It's a subtle way of making people pay more.

I don't think it was referring to amazon recurring purchases for example.

[Leo Gura]

Recurring subscriptions are designed to be difficult to cancel and they prey on people forgetting to cancel.

That one biz model powers half the web. Why? Because theft is so effective at capturing value.

I didn't mean that all subscriptions are wrong. But plenty are.

Edited October 31, 2024 by Leo Gura

[TheBeautyOfGod]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

That quote was from a new video I have planned on the topic of theft.

Theft is a profound topic of itself.

Theft, corruption, super-truth, terrorism, Zionism, etc -- all these topics will have videos.

Excuse me if the question is off-topic: Have you planned to make a video on the topic of 'beauty'? What is beauty, why are we magnetically drawn to it, and what is the highest form of beauty?

I'm very interested in these questions. I'm also wondering why you haven't made a video on this topic yet. What has kept you from doing so?

Edited October 31, 2024 by TheBeautyOfGod

[gettoefl]

29 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Recurring subscriptions are designed to be difficult to cancel and they prey on people forgetting to cancel.

That one biz model powers half the web. Why? Because theft is so effective at capturing value.

I didn't mean that all subscriptions are wrong. But plenty are.

Subscription models are

I deserve a job for ever vs. Pay me for what I do

The rich thief leverages the former to steal from the poor normie

Everything in life is best done for a one time payment, one year term

Any longer is preying on the innocent

[Bobby_2021]

So what if you pirate and steal subscription services. Does that stop being theft?