Great Channel: Some More News

[Forestluv]

7 hours ago, datamonster said:

@Forestluv You say it yourself , "Mature Green to Yellow judges less and is able to have discussions about the extent of systemic racism in various contexts.". 

This requires a certain open-mindedness and willingness to listen to the other side without judging them and labelling them as "American exeptionalists" and "climate change deniers". After that you may still conclude that the other side is completely insane, but at least then you know where they are coming from.

That’s not context of how i am using the term “judge”. I’m using the in the context of demonizing or personally judging someone. This decreases up the spiral.

For example, if someone said “Climate change is a Chinese Hoax and isn’t real”. Mature Green to Yellow may judge them as a climate change denier, yet would be better able to see that they are denying climate change due to their social conditioning and survival needs. They would be less prone to judge the person as “stupid” or “evil”.

Similarly, if someone wanted to argue that the earth is flat we could judge that this conversation would be a waste of time. Yet we could recognize that the person was likely conditioned to believe this and perhaps their entire identity and social community is flat-earther. We could see that they genuinely believe this and perhaps they also genuinely believe they are helping the world to realize the earth is flat. Yet judging them as a flat-earthier and the conversation as a waste of time is distinct from judging them as a bad, stupid person that intends to destroy civilization. 

Regarding systemic racism, I would consider Mature Green to Yellow to recognize various degrees of systemic racism. Immature Green may over-judge everything as being racially motivated because they strongly empathize with those impacted by racism. Mature Green to Yellow would have better judgement of different degrees. We could also call it “discernment”. For example, we could do an evaluation of a biotech company and see major levels of institutional racism. We could then do an evaluation of a University and see that they have a minor level of institutional racism. Judging degrees is distinct from being a systemic racism denier. As well, judging degrees of systemic racism is distinct from judging the people as bad, evil racists that are trying destroy people’s lives and our country. 

6 hours ago, datamonster said:

But even though I made it clear that I was playing devil's advocate from the beginning, I still got brand marked as a stage blue conservative. 

We could make a distinction between a person attached and identified with stage blue conservative vs the stage blue conservative ideas. Yet from my POV, the phrase “I’m just playing devil’s advocate” gets tricky because it can allow the ego to express views in shadows and then when light is shone the ego can say things like “I was just playing devils advocate” or “I was just joking”. From my observations, when someone plays devil’s advocate so well that it’s indistinguishable whether they hold those views, there is probably some holding. 

For example, we could speak about a mind that denies systemic racism. We could try to imagine how that mind is structured and why it believes what it does. Yet it’s pretty clear that we have a meta view and are not ideological about it. If someone was an ideologue and started arguing and defending the position that systemic racism doesn’t exist - that is a distinct mindset. Saying “l’m just playing devil’s advocate” doesn’t erase any attachment or identification that may exist. That is a separate, deeper process. I’m not saying this is your mindset, it’s just something I’ve observed fairly often. 

 

[purerogue]

It would be silly to say that there is no such thing as systematic racism.

We are judging , making stereotypes, about all groups of people, does not mean that they are all wrong and untrue statements.

So it is only logical that people will act in their best interests judging from what they know, does not mean that they are racist in terms of having hate toward group. 

 

[Opo]

1 minute ago, purerogue said:

It would be silly to say that there is no such thing as systematic racism.

We are judging , making stereotypes, about all groups of people, does not mean that they are all wrong and untrue statements.

So it is only logical that people will act in their best interests judging from what they know, does not mean that they are racist in terms of having hate toward group. 

 

Racism definition 

"prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized." 

[purerogue]

1 minute ago, Opo said:

Racism definition 

"prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized." 

There are many definitions for this term and I said in term of having hate toward group, if you disagree with what I said can you please be more specific. 

[Forestluv]

8 minutes ago, purerogue said:

We are judging , making stereotypes, about all groups of people, does not mean that they are all wrong and untrue statements.

So it is only logical that people will act in their best interests judging from what they know, does not mean that they are racist in terms of having hate toward group. 

It depends on context and how we make distinctions.

If someone acts in their best interest judging from what they know, does that give them immunity from being racist? Suppose someone is raised in an environment that conditions them to believe that white people are intellectually superior than black people. That's what the person knows and they act accordingly in their own self interest. Does this mean they are not racist? To me, this seems like a shield people with racist beliefs use to protect themselves. I'm observing people say "This is just my belief. I'm not racist". Yet what if that belief being held is racist?

This also gets into conscious and subconscious forms of racism. For example, someone could consciously judge certain speaking mannerisms as stupid - such as broken street English. A mind could also subconsciously hold this bias and be totally unaware of it. 

[Opo]

@Forestluv Thank you I didn't know how to say it. 

[Forestluv]

23 minutes ago, datamonster said:

...or they have gone meta for real and not just as a lofty idea ?

I think this is possible, yet very rare. A mind that has a detached, meta view rarely tries to play devil's advocate in a convincing manner. This could enter actual devilry. For example, a person with meta cognition of how various minds view systemic racism is not attached or identified to any particular view. It would be devilry for that mind to pretend that it was a systemic denier, try to convince others that systemic racism doesn't exist and to undercut efforts to alleviate systemic racism. If a meta mind is called on this and tries to pretend "I was just playing devil's advocate", it would be a form of devilry, because it is aware that it is spreading misinformation. It would be a form of manipulation. Yet, I think this situation is rare. From my observations, most minds with metacognition don't try to pretend to be a devil's advocate to the point it actually appears that they are the devil's. A mind with metacognition can consider and express ideas without trying to advocate those ideas and push an agenda.

For example, we could explore how and why a mind would deny systemic racism. How was this mind conditioned? How does this mind deal with cognitive dissonance? What are the nuggets of truth in this ideology? How does it serve their survival needs?

Yet this is a very different orientation than a mind under the self delusion that it is a "devil's advocate" and unaware of it's attachment and identification to those views. Quite often, a mind claiming it is "playing devil's advocate" actually holds those views, yet doesn't want to take ownership of those views. For example, a mind that doesn't want to be viewed as a systemic racism denier may try to distance itself from the views it holds by saying "I'm just playing devil's advocate". This distancing can be of value in cognitive development. 

23 minutes ago, datamonster said:

If there's a lot of resistance to play devil's advocate, it shows that one is clearly biased and attached to a particular position.

I would draw a distinction between "playing devil's advocate" and metacognition. I would consider playing devil's advocate to be a mid-range of conscious. People that play devil's advocate are often in a transitional stage of working through their own beliefs that they hold. 

Again, I am creating a relative construct of "devil's advocate". Others may create different constructs. 

[purerogue]

30 minutes ago, Forestluv said:

It depends on context and how we make distinctions.

If someone acts in their best interest judging from what they know, does that give them immunity from being racist? Suppose someone is raised in an environment that conditions them to believe that white people are intellectually superior than black people. That's what the person knows and they act accordingly in their own self interest. Does this mean they are not racist? To me, this seems like a shield people with racist beliefs use to protect themselves. I'm observing people say "This is just my belief. I'm not racist". Yet what if that belief being held is racist?

This also gets into conscious and subconscious forms of racism. For example, someone could consciously judge certain speaking mannerisms as stupid - such as broken street English. A mind could also subconsciously hold this bias and be totally unaware of it. 

So basically we all are racist 

47 minutes ago, purerogue said:

It would be silly to say that there is no such thing as systematic racism.

 

47 minutes ago, purerogue said:

We are judging , making stereotypes, about all groups of people, does not mean that they are all wrong and untrue statements.

 

47 minutes ago, purerogue said:

does not mean that they are racist in terms of having hate toward group. 

You are picking worst wording and  examples, and then trying to make me defend this belief system, I am not sure what to make out of this really, so I will just answer with saying that him being racist depends if what he was conditioned to believe holds any truth to it, or no.

If he would be conditioned to believe that Asians are shorter then Caucasians you would not take it as racism, would you? 

Edited August 30, 2020 by purerogue

[Forestluv]

18 minutes ago, purerogue said:

So basically we all are racist 

It depends on your construct of "racist". If you are using a binary construct of racism, then no - based on a binary construct we would be forced to categorize each individual as "racist" or "non-racist".

Yet if we create a more nuanced construct of spectrums and relativity, then of course each person has some degree and aspects of racism. Yet those degrees and aspects would vary from person to person. 

18 minutes ago, purerogue said:

If he would be conditioned to believe that Asians are shorter then Caucasians you would not take it as racism, would you? 

The mind can distract itself from introspecting itself. For example, the mind could say "there are differences between races. Black people have darker skin than white people, right. I'm not racist?". Of course there are differences. How can we create constructs of race without distinctions!! Yet the mind focus on some distinctions to cloak itself from other distinctions. For example, it may focus on how black people produce more melanin to cloak itself from introspecting it's belief that white people are smarter than black people. The mind can be very sneaky. 

[Forestluv]

1 hour ago, datamonster said:

You seem to be more preoccupied with psycho-analyzing people than with the arguments they put forward.

There is a distinction between structure and content. Both have value. Leo's video on structure and content does a great job at drawing distinctions. 

Most minds get immersed in content and have a difficult time seeing structure. This is effect is much stronger when we enter identity issues. For example, it would be much easier for a mind to see the structure of movies. We could examine different movie settings, plots and roles. We could talk about various roles Leonardo DeCaprio has played. We could talk about various ways actors prepare for a role, such as method acting. Most minds could do this fairly easily, because their identity, egoic survival and physical survival is not dependent upon Leonardo DeCaprio movies. Yet when we enter areas of politics, gender, religion and racism - it is a very different inner game because there is attachment, identification and survival dynamics.

A discussion of the dynamics of systemic racism becomes very different if the person has attachment and identification to an ideology of racism. Leo's video on open-mindedness covers this. To be truly open-minded, the mind needs to be open *prior* to the presentation of "facts" and "evidence". If the mind is holding pre-conceived ideology, the mind will perceive "facts" and "evidence" through a lens that distorts "facts" and "evidence" to match it's pre-conceived view. As well, it will try to control what counts as "evidence". For example, a racism denier may say that life experience doesn't count as "evidence". 

And of course a mind immersed, attached and identified to particular content will not want to introspect the structure of it's own mind. A mind attached/identified will say "All that stuff about mind structure is just psycho-analyzing people - let's get back to the content of which I am attached and identified to". Such a mind will not look at it's own attachment and identification. Why not? Because if it does, the gig is up!!

1 hour ago, datamonster said:

I've learned the hard way that even the most deluded and dogmatic people can sometimes have a valid point, too. 

Of course! All ideologies have partial truths. There is a distinction between ideology and being ideological. 

1 hour ago, datamonster said:

And it really shouldn't matter at what level of cognitive development they're at. I want to see their argument for what it's worth independent of the person who uttered it.

In one context, it doesn't matter. Does a child have value? Of course! Does algebra have value? Of course! Does a paramecium have value? Of course!

However, in another context there is evolution of more complex systems. Is there a distinction between a binary construct and a spectral construct? Of course. The spectral construct is more evolved and more complex. This doesn't mean a mind limited to a binary construct is "bad", yet it does mean the mind is limited to the binary construct and unable to see more nuanced spectral constructs. 

1 hour ago, datamonster said:

listening to what they have to say and trying to see the world from their perspective for a moment still contributes to my understanding of the world and people.

This requires a certain openness to play devil's advocate and the ability to step into another person's shoes. This IS going meta. This is "being able to hold multiple perspectives at once" as Leo likes to say.

This is context dependent. You are describing a mind that let's go of it's own perspective to understand another perspective. This is "perspective jumping" and very few minds can do it. Yet this isn't the dynamic I'm referring to. I'm referring to a mind that is attached/identified to a view and is "playing devil's advocate" to defend that same view. For example, a mind could be attached/identified to ideology that systemic racism doesn't exist and then pretend to play devil's advocate for the same view. It could give arguments against systemic racism under the delusion that it is "playing devil's advocate" when it is actually advocating for the views it is attached/identified to. This is a trick of the mind. A truly meta mindset would be aware of attachements/identifications. To reach this stage, a mind would need to be radically honest with itself through introspection. It would need to recognize "My mind is attached to ideology that systemic racism doens't exist. To expand my mind, I need to detach from that and consider other perspectives that systemic racism does exist". Further, it would look at it's structural biases: "To protect my attachment/ideology that systemic racism doesn't exist, my mind is saying that life experience does not count as 'evidence'. Maybe I'm missing something. Perhaps I should be open to considering that life experience could count as a form of 'evidence'. 

With practice and expertise, this form of perspective jumping becomes a natural working of the mind. The mind no longer needs to go through all these steps. It's like learning a new language. At first, there is a lot of translation and effort - yet with practice it becomes effortless and automatic. However, a mind tricking itself that it is "playing devil's advocate" while it is actually defending views it is attached/identified with is at a relatively early stage of this development. Yet importantly, it has begun the journey.

1 hour ago, datamonster said:

This requires a certain openness to play devil's advocate and the ability to step into another person's shoes. This IS going meta. This is "being able to hold multiple perspectives at once" as Leo likes to say.

This takes intense introspection and observation of one's own mind - and the ego is not going to like it. Ime, playing devil's advocate is rudimentary in terms of truly trying to understand another perspective at a deep level. For example, I wanted to learn about the perspective of poor, marginalized people. To do so, I spent years learning Spanish and lived in poor, marginalized villages in Honduras, Guatemala and Peru. I lived with them and had hundreds of hours of conversations learning about their perspectives and life experiences. I often asked "Am I understanding this correctly? Is it kinda like this?". And I wasn't satisfied until they told me "Yes, that's about right. You are understanding". They are the experts of their perspectives and they tell me if I'm understanding their perspective. Similar to how they told me if I was speaking the language correctly. This is a much deeper understanding of arm chair philosophy of playing devils advocate when the mind is actually defending it's own castle of ideology. 

[purerogue]

50 minutes ago, Forestluv said:

It depends on your construct of "racist". If you are using a binary construct of racism, then no - based on a binary construct we would be forced to categorize each individual as "racist" or "non-racist".

Yet if we create a more nuanced construct of spectrums and relativity, then of course each person has some degree and aspects of racism. Yet those degrees and aspects would vary from person to person. 

The mind can distract itself from introspecting itself. For example, the mind could say "there are differences between races. Black people have darker skin than white people, right. I'm not racist?". Of course there are differences. How can we create constructs of race without distinctions!! Yet the mind focus on some distinctions to cloak itself from other distinctions. For example, it may focus on how black people produce more melanin to cloak itself from introspecting it's belief that white people are smarter than black people. The mind can be very sneaky. 

I did not disagree  with fact that there is systematic racism, or racism in general , but then again there are reasons why I can't agree to label many things as racism, even if it might sound offensive to group.

For example girl gets raped by a guy and now she has trauma and hates, is afraid of guys, would you call her racist and she needs to lose her job because she can't deal with it, or should we force her to put up with it?

Person feels awkward around other race, culture people because he just does not know how to interact with them, so he might try to avoid them, is he racist?

Lets take Sadhguru for example, he clearly is racist, but is his way of racism definitely bad thing? 

 

 

Edited August 30, 2020 by purerogue

[Forestluv]

6 minutes ago, purerogue said:

For example girl gets raped by a guy and now she has trauma and hates, is afraid of guys, would you call her racist and she needs to lose her job because she can't deal with it, or should we force her to put up with it?

Of course it’s not racist, since no race is involved. However, it sounds like she may have a bias against men in general due to her trauma. This would be an extrapolation. In terms of race, this would be a form of racism. If someone was attacked by an Asian person and extrapolated that to label all Asians as violent - that is a form of racism. 

8 minutes ago, purerogue said:

Person feels awkward around other race, culture people because he just does not know how to interact with them, so he might try to avoid them, is he racist?

The term “racist” is nuanced and people hold very different views on what “racism” is. Many views have a connotation that is always means a bad thing. This can prevent someone from introspecting their own racial biases because they don’t want to see themself as racist, bad, shameful, guilty etc. 

In the case of someone feeling awkward around people of one race, of course that is a racial bias. They have a bias toward feeling comfortable around one race and uncomfortable around another race. 

[purerogue]

25 minutes ago, Forestluv said:

Of course it’s not racist, since no race is involved. However, it sounds like she may have a bias against men in general due to her trauma. This would be an extrapolation. In terms of race, this would be a form of racism. If someone was attacked by an Asian person and extrapolated that to label all Asians as violent - that is a form of racism. 

The term “racist” is nuanced and people hold very different views on what “racism” is. Many views have a connotation that is always means a bad thing. This can prevent someone from introspecting their own racial biases because they don’t want to see themself as racist, bad, shameful, guilty etc. 

In the case of someone feeling awkward around people of one race, of course that is a racial bias. They have a bias toward feeling comfortable around one race and uncomfortable around another race. 

Alright, now I understand your view, basically everyone is racist and has bias, I still don't get why you are trying to point out such obvious things to everyone in such horrible way, you have not changed, your approach makes it seem like you are trying to shame everyone. 

 

[Forestluv]

19 minutes ago, purerogue said:

Alright, now I understand your view, basically everyone is racist and has bias, I still don't get why you are trying to point out such obvious things to everyone in such horrible way, you have not changed, your approach makes it seem like you are trying to shame everyone. 

I’m just offering a POV, perhaps it has value, perhaps not.

Guilt / shame is a creation and a major block against observation, introspection, learning and growing. The mind / body will not want to feel guilt or shame and will move in another direction - thereby depriving the opportunity of observation, introspection, learning and growing.

The simplistic form is creating a “good” vs “bad” binary construct. For example a person is either racist (bad) or non-racist (good). In such a construct, the mind will resist and avoid introspecting how it’s own mind works. It will not be open to looking into nuances. Who wants to examine racial biases if it means I’m racist, bad and feel guilty about it? Nobody. Therefore, we would need to detach from this.

When I lived in Honduras, my Spanish teachers often pointed out that I pronounced words incorrectly. If I reacted “You are shaming me for speaking poorly! You think I’m stupid!” - my mind would not be open to introspection, exploration and discovery. Rather, my mindset was “How interesting. I wonder why I keep pronouncing the Rs and RRs incorrectly?” I got curious. Then I noticed that the tongue position to pronounce Rs in Spanish is very different than in English. How fascinating!! My tongue was literally conditioned to move a certain way through pronouncing Rs hundreds of thousands of times. Could I break this habit? Could I train my brain and tongue to effortlessly and automatically pronounce the Rs the proper way? What a wonderful challenge! Then I made a fun game out of it. I made songs with lots of words that started with Tr, Dr and Gr. And I retrained my mind and tongue! . . . Notice how this curious and open mindset allowed for exploration and discovery.

Similarly, a couple years ago I dated a black woman for the first time. Occasionally, she would point something out to me that I was unaware of. She would say something like “That sounds like the view of someone who grew up with white privilege”. If I got defensive and said “You are saying I’m racist!! You are shaming me!!” I would have been closed off. Rather, I got curious. What an amazing opportunity to view myself through her eyes!! Then I started asking questions about what that means and I learned so much. I was blown away. There were all sorts of conditioning I grew up with that I was totally unaware of. My mind had all sorts of subconcscious biases I wasn’t aware of. Yet she was able to see it. What an amazing opportunity for introspection and discovery!!

[Forestluv]

1 hour ago, datamonster said:

Some of your comments read like written replays of Leo's videos. I'm getting the impression that you simply adopted whatever his opinions are and now preach his "word" as kind of a disciple.

Observe how the mind creates stories, how the mind becomes immersed into those stories and how those stories limit the mind.

For example, is it possible that Leo has opened up realms of exploration for my mind? Of course. Is a mind necessary limited to parroting those ideas? Perhaps. . . Yet how do you know that I haven’t spent hundreds of hours contemplating those ideas, adding my own creations and integrating those ideas with other experience and knowledge?

Do you think spending 30,000 of hours studying, researching and teaching cellular biology has had no impact on the mind? Living within villages in Honduras, Guatemala, Peru and Colombia has had no impact on the mind? Thousands of hours of volunteering with alcoholics and patients in psychiatric wards have had no influence on the mind? 100+ psychedelic trips has had no influence on the mind?

Why might a mind want to take a myopic view?

1 hour ago, datamonster said:

Therefore, don't take it personally, but I think it's kinda pointless to try to convince you of anything that's not Leo-approved.

? ^^^^ Observe ^^^^ ?

1 hour ago, datamonster said:

Of course this is a deeper understanding. 

How can my mind hold this “deeper understanding” if it isn’t “Leo-approved”? ? 

1 hour ago, datamonster said:

Unfortunately, not everyone one of us has the privilege of spending years around diverse people and perspectives on every single issue.

If this option isn't available, playing devil's advocate and trying to step into someone else's shoes is the second best option.

The former point is a key. Being aware of one’s limitations and gaps opens doors to learn from another. 

The context of how I’m using the term “playing devil’s advocate” may be different than yours. I consider “playing devil’s advocate” to be within an argumentative / debating mindset in which one is actually trying to protect pre-conceived ideas. It does not have genuine, open, curious, exploratory energetics. I do not consider someone truly exploring another’s perspective and experience to be playing devil’s advocate.

And yes, not everyone has the opportunity to immerse themselves in a foreign culture. Yet it is the orientation and intention that is more important. For example, if someone truly wanted to understand what schizophrenia is like, what the mind do? That mind would start reading books about schizophrenia and talk with psychologists and people who have schizophrenia. We would ask them “what is it like to have schizophrenia?” If we wanted to learn about psychedelics, we could speak with people who have done psychedelics and ask them what it’s like. We could actually try psychedelics ourselves. This leads to a much deeper and expansive understanding than speculating in an argumentative mindset with assumptions that I already know. 

[Forestluv]

41 minutes ago, datamonster said:

@Forestluv and now you're getting defensive...

Observe how the mind creates tone. . . 

Imagine a mind that takes things personally and gets defensive. Oh wait, we already have that part down. We can easily see how “forestluv’s” comments are personally defending itself. No more work needs to be done here. We are fluent in that language.

Could our interpretation of defensiveness be missing something? Perhaps not. Maybe this “forestluv” character is getting defensive. Maybe he is pacing through his house cursing, throwing things and kicking his dog in frustration. Maybe he is trying to prove how wise he is with all his amazing experience. Maybe he is making up the experiences and they never happened. Yet maybe something else is going on. What are the pros and cons of being close-minded to this possibility?

Now imagine if the ideas and comments came from from a de-tached, de-personalized space. Imagine we are a detached observer. . .observing all the experiences that has shaped the mind of the character we call “forestluv”. Imagine there is no ownership that these are “my experiences”. Rather, we are simply observing how inputs has shaped the mind of “forestluv”. Similar to how an artist shapes clay to create a sculpture.

Or could It be an interesting combination of all three of the above ingredients? As if the mind is cooking a meal with lots of ingredients. 

We don’t know. We would need to have an open, curious mind to explore this territory. Yet such an exploration may take some time and effort. Notice how “playing devil’s advocate” is of no use here. This situation of exploring and understanding another perspective takes a different skill and mindset. 

Or we can say “Forestluv is being defensive” and call it a day. . . 

[Forestluv]

48 minutes ago, datamonster said:

Don't like it if someone holds a mirror up to you do you?

Whether you realize it or not, you are doing the same thing. If you don't believe me just look at how much time you spend writing exhaustively lengthy responses to random people on the internet just to defend your position.

Of course this is true within the story and the story confirms itself within the story. I’m not saying the story is false. There could be lots of truth within this story. I’m saying something more may be going on that we are missing. An exploration of that would need an open, curious mind. Yet why waste our time if we already know this “forestluv” character is arrogant and defensive?

We haven’t even asked forestluv why he spends so much time writing lengthy posts - yet we have assumed we know why. Why would we ask an arrogant, defensive person like forestluv about why he writes lengthy posts? We already know why! And he would just give us some arrogant, defensive answer anyway. . . Yet how can we expand and deepen our understanding if we have already decided we know and have no open-ness or curiosity to explore? We are caught in a conundrum of assumptions and story immersion.

We can stay immersed within the content of our forestluv movie or we can transcend the movie and see that it is merely one movie of many movies we can create. This is taking a “meta view”, yet it involves letting go of attachment / identification of a story we have created.

To me, you don’t seem interested or curious about this, which is fine. Yet it’s kinda the end of the movie then. Looks like we are stuck with this arrogant, defensive forestluv character ? ? 

[purerogue]

2 hours ago, Forestluv said:

Guilt / shame is a creation and a major block against observation, introspection, learning and growing. The mind / body will not want to feel guilt or shame and will move in another direction - thereby depriving the opportunity of observation, introspection, learning and growing.

It is about tone, there is way more chance to make someone to actually look at them self,notice their bias when they  do not feel like they are being pointed fingers at, you see our brain acts very strange when we are feeling like we are getting into confrontation.

Even if it is not real, lot of people brains take it as real threat and will focus on threat itself, not what you wrote and it does not mean per say that they are not k to introspect, they are just to focused on you as being threat. 

You seem to  comparing others with yourself way to often, I am aware that you are well informed about how differently human brains work , but I never see you actually take other persons possible position before yours, it is like you take it for granted that they are same as you. 

[Forestluv]

@purerogue Good points. Thanks for the insights! I’m still a work in progress.

14 minutes ago, datamonster said:

Am I interested in reading more lengthy replays of Leo's words, arrogance and subtly presumptuous psychoanalyses of perspectives not even I knew I held? - Sorry, but no sorry.

That sounds awful. I wouldn’t be interested in that either. 

[Forestluv]

8 minutes ago, datamonster said:

LOL... Just practice what you preach and self-reflect, or in your case what Leo preaches.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. ?