Leo's Blog Discussion Mega-Thread

[Nemra]

54 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

Heresy! Burn him!

At least I can join you guys.

[Nemra]

On 1/31/2025 at 9:53 AM, Yimpa said:

Another question: Is killing objectively bad?

Wouldn't you kill someone who wants to murder you?

[Basman]

On 31/01/2025 at 6:53 AM, Yimpa said:

"Objectively" here seems pretty loaded, since what is considered objective can itself be relative, human survival bias being the strongest bias we have (avoid pain, gain pleasure). From a human perspective, rectal bleeding without further context is "objectively" bad because its painful but it could be "good" in the aforementioned context of it being a side-effect of life saving medicine. Therefor, rectal bleeding isn't objectively bad but it can seem so depending on your perspective. In the same sense, its not objectively bad if a rogue sniper meteorite hits your head and kills you.

Practically, in the business of being human, rectal bleeding is "objectively bad" in most cases but it can change meaning depending on the context because it is not inherently bad outside of a human perspective and therefor the meaning can be changed to what suits the human bias. Like giving a car a new coat of paint. The car is still "objectively" metal underneath the paint but the paint makes it appear differently. Rectal bleeding can be funny instead of bad for instance.

[Basman]

4 hours ago, Nemra said:

Another question: Is killing objectively bad?

Wouldn't you kill someone who wants to murder you?

Killing combatants during a just war isn't seen as objectively bad nor is killing during self-defence. The lines can be blurred but generally I think its easy to justify those kinds of murder.

A more interesting question is if its justified to torture someone you highly suspect to be a terrorist who has allegedly planted a ticking time bomb? Is it objectively bad to torture?

[Nemra]

18 hours ago, Basman said:

A more interesting question is if its justified to torture someone you highly suspect to be a terrorist who has allegedly planted a ticking time bomb? Is it objectively bad to torture?

It seems that you can justify your actions towards others if yours is the same level or less evil than others'.

But the problem is whether you can measure evil. Is that even possible? It seems it can be done.

@Leo Gura, sorry, if my question was a bit triggering.

Edited February 2 by Nemra

[Terell Kirby]

Even more fundamental to the question is the play on linguistics. The question itself assumes that the subject is able to comprehend the language used to convey the question.

Does everyone have the same understanding of “rectal bleeding”? Same goes for words like ‘good’ , ‘bad’, ‘objective.

Does a kangaroo know what rectal bleeding is? Not only from a linguistic standpoint, but also its ideas about rectal bleeding. We can’t assume all conscious beings have the same understanding of human language pointers to rectal bleeding, or the same visceral reaction to it as humans:

 

[Daniel Balan]

Regarding the latest blog post. If someone scams you of all your money and assets, is that a good thing for you? Certainly not, but is great for the one who scammed you, for you it's your life greatest tragedy and for the scammer is his life greatest fortune. So my comment is this: Everything is true only from a certain POV. From another POV something could be extremely false. So good or bad is objectively true but only from a certain POV. I get that everything is relative, but some aspects of relativity can hurt the self more than other aspects.

[Nemra]

I'm interpreting the above in the following ways:

1. How selfish of you thinking that not a single wrong thing has ever happened.
2. How selfish of you thinking that wrong things are happening.

Edited February 4 by Nemra

[UnbornTao]

What if "bad" and "good" exist exclusively because of, and for, yourself?

Edited February 4 by UnbornTao

[numbersinarow]

I assume the concept is too advanced to actually be put into words.

If Leo is saying "Well, you're selfish and that's not a bad thing, but that's certainly the reason why you think bad things can happen." he's not right IMO.

What is selfish? Right, actions that take you into account far more than others. How do we get from this to "bad" in order to show it's impossible to call someone selfish after saying nothing bad ever happened? You'd first assume we can trace back definitions of every word in what I typed from "right" to "How" until we get to "bad" but it's far simpler actually, "bad" never came from anything but selfishness.

"But I can just not judge the selfishness, whereas "bad" is always a judgement." The reality is that I'm talking about the first judgement, the judgement that says the thing is selfish in the first place. This is merely a projection.

If "bad" only exists insofar as you have an ego, the same thing applies to "selfish."

[OBEler]

10 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

What if "bad" and "good" exist exclusively because of, and for, yourself?

I feel that's the best answer so far for the other citate if blood bleeding is bad.

Oh man thanks Leo I got a deep insight through contemplating. I mean it's so obvious intellectually but now I feel I can embody that.

Edited February 4 by OBEler

[ryoko]

9 hours ago, numbersinarow said:

I assume the concept is too advanced to actually be put into words.

Not really. Re read it.

You have not let a single bad thing happen in the universe because you're that selfish, you love it so much.

So, there's no bad thing happening in the world? I'd say this question does not belong in this context. The context of the quote is different.

[Yimpa]

That insight is so bad and wrong 

[Yimpa]

On a related note, here are the many things Leo has been wrong about:

https://www.actualized.org/insights/things-ive-been-wrong-about

[Yimpa]

1 hour ago, ryoko said:

You have not let a single bad thing happen in the universe because you're that selfish, 

Could also be reinterpreted as you've done more than a single bad thing, now look how selfish you are.

But also notice how that is a lower perspective.

Edited February 5 by Yimpa

[UnbornTao]

2 hours ago, OBEler said:

Oh man thanks Leo I got a deep insight through contemplating. I mean it's so obvious intellectually but now I feel I can embody that.

Nice.

[ryoko]

6 hours ago, Yimpa said:

Could also be reinterpreted as you've done more than a single bad thing, now look how selfish you are.

These are simply language games, not interpretation, notice each word have a certain meaning , a certain "way you're supposed to feel" attached to it. This can corrupt the interpretation, but here, it's used deliberately to point to a folly. For example, good and bad, there's no inherent meaning to these on this context, but humans are gullible enough to assume meaning. Same with the word selfish, easy to assume the quote is about a person or yourself, while forgetting the collective self: God, which is everything, and all creation and destruction holds no inherent meaning.

Edited February 5 by ryoko

[UnbornTao]

Hey, dinosaurs.

Hopefully it's good.

Edited February 5 by UnbornTao

[Leo Gura]

@UnbornTao That looks surprisingly good. Like old school, smaller scale Jurassic Park rather than Michael Bay shlock.

Jurassic Park is good when it's smaller, not bigger.

Edited February 6 by Leo Gura

[numbersinarow]

On 2/5/2025 at 7:26 AM, ryoko said:

These are simply language games, not interpretation, notice each word have a certain meaning , a certain "way you're supposed to feel" attached to it. This can corrupt the interpretation, but here, it's used deliberately to point to a folly. For example, good and bad, there's no inherent meaning to these on this context, but humans are gullible enough to assume meaning. Same with the word selfish, easy to assume the quote is about a person or yourself, while forgetting the collective self: God, which is everything, and all creation and destruction holds no inherent meaning.

 

You don't actually know. Even if Leo confirms or clarifies the meaning himself, you still weren't sure at the time of interpreting.

You were saying the true meaning is the inverse of what I initially assumed AKA "You haven't let anything bad happen because you're that selfish." but then said it's gullible to try to interpret the quote.

Of course they assume the word selfish is about them, that's the reasonable inference. If there is any meaning to the insight itself, as opposed to being purely a mental exercise to show you the folly of interpreting things, then go back to my original comment.