Leo’s Video on the Left Doesn’t Need a Part 2

[bmcnicho]

I’m not saying that it isn’t a valid topic, of course all worldviews have their excesses and limitations, but I think that 3 hours was more than enough time to get the point across.  
 

I’ll state upfront that I’m personally to the left of Leo, however we probably agree on about 90% of political issues.  I acknowledge that some of Leo’s criticisms of the Left were important and worth bringing attention to.  However, others seemed a bit misinformed and lacking context in my view.  I could go into specifics, but that’s not really my main point

I do question the timing of releasing this right before the midterms.  Republicans are likely to take control of one or both houses, and 75% of their candidates on the ballot deny the results of the 2020 election.  Republican politicians on the national level are much more radical than their average voters, and are conducting an unprecedented, dangerous, anti-democratic movement.  
 

By contrast, Democrats in government are mostly center-right and propose mostly mild reforms, while the “radical-left” are almost exclusively college students on twitter with zero political power

I guess what I’m wondering is, if Leo wanted to make a political video, why of all the things going on in the world right now was this what was worth focusing on?  I do acknowledge that most of Leo’s audience is already on the Left and could benefit from hearing this, but there’s also younger viewers who might not have fully formed opinions yet.  I think it could be potentially harmful for them to hear centrist-sounding criticisms from someone who is rightfully perceived as being high consciousness

I did enjoy Leo’s series on Conscious Politics, and think it’s a topic worth exploring more in the future.  However, I do question the relevance of Leo’s personal political views to the broader topics here of self-actualization and spiritual development

[Leo Gura]

These political videos are not about my personal views. They are about understanding worldviews other than your own.

[Thought Art]

@bmcnicho I’d like to know more about the specifics that cause you concern about his videos. 
 

Leo’s reach isn’t gonna change an election I doubt it, at least not this year. 
 

I consider myself on the left. There’s plenty of problems with the left. Don’t we want people on both the left and right to self reflect on their short comings? The left needs to be able to understand the right as well as a lot of the structural things about their own world views vs how the world really works. 

Edited October 18, 2022 by Thought Art

[bmcnicho]

@Thought Art My main issue with Leo’s video was his defense of business leaders and capitalist hierarchy.  The language he used was drawing a link between poor=low value and wealthy=high value.  Perpetuating the myth of meritocracy and not properly acknowledging that power structures and access to opportunity is primarily what determines someone’s position in society

@Leo Gura I am interested in understanding other perspectives.  I do question your tendency to portray yourself as being above politics while actively engaging in political messaging on real world issues though

Edited October 18, 2022 by bmcnicho

[Ulax]

55 minutes ago, bmcnicho said:

I’m not saying that it isn’t a valid topic, of course all worldviews have their excesses and limitations, but I think that 3 hours was more than enough time to get the point across.  
 

I’ll state upfront that I’m personally to the left of Leo, however we probably agree on about 90% of political issues.  I acknowledge that some of Leo’s criticisms of the Left were important and worth bringing attention to.  However, others seemed a bit misinformed and lacking context in my view.  I could go into specifics, but that’s not really my main point

I do question the timing of releasing this right before the midterms.  Republicans are likely to take control of one or both houses, and 75% of their candidates on the ballot deny the results of the 2020 election.  Republican politicians on the national level are much more radical than their average voters, and are conducting an unprecedented, dangerous, anti-democratic movement.  
 

By contrast, Democrats in government are mostly center-right and propose mostly mild reforms, while the “radical-left” are almost exclusively college students on twitter with zero political power

I guess what I’m wondering is, if Leo wanted to make a political video, why of all the things going on in the world right now was this what was worth focusing on?  I do acknowledge that most of Leo’s audience is already on the Left and could benefit from hearing this, but there’s also younger viewers who might not have fully formed opinions yet.  I think it could be potentially harmful for them to hear centrist-sounding criticisms from someone who is rightfully perceived as being high consciousness

I did enjoy Leo’s series on Conscious Politics, and think it’s a topic worth exploring more in the future.  However, I do question the relevance of Leo’s personal political views to the broader topics here of self-actualization and spiritual development

@bmcnicho At least in part, are you saying that the net effect of Leo's posting this video could likely be to make republican's have more success in the midterm?

Also, I believe I understand where you are coming from when you say these are Leo's personal political views. On my end, I think that a lot of Leo's claims were not so much his own political views but instead about the level of consciousness with which political issues are being thought and approached by many on the left. 

Finally, it appears you think there is a divide between Leo's recent video on the left and self-actualization and spiritual development. However, to my mind, a significant aspect of self-actualization is to do with moving up and integrating spiral stages (re spiral dynamics). Stage yellow is one of these stages. Stage yellow, to my understanding, has a lot to do with thinking about big picture issues in a systemic and competent fashion. To my mind, it appears that Leo's video on when the left goes to far will likely give people watching on the left the opportunity to move up from stage green to stage yellow, hence aiding their self-actualization. Further, if more people raise their consciousness surrounding politics, then it seems to me to follow that society will increase in consciousness, and a society that increases consciousness will give, on the societal level, dramatically more people the ability to self-actualise.

Edited October 18, 2022 by Ulax
Word selection

[Ulax]

6 minutes ago, bmcnicho said:

@Leo Gura I am interested in understanding other perspectives.  I do question your tendency to portray yourself as being above politics while actively engaging in political messaging on real world issues though

@bmcnicho I'm somewhat of the same opinion. However, I am aware that it could all be, what I see to be, very strategic use of opinions from Leo. Though, I don't find myself that confident regarding the latter point of view.

[Thought Art]

@bmcnicho Interesting. What didn’t you agree with?

Is it completely true what you are saying? 
 

There are harsh realities of people having different opportunities but does that change that some people provide more value than others?

There are also plenty of people of equal potential opportunity who make vastly different decisions and end up with more or less in society. 
 

I have to rematch this part of the video. I felt like he made some statements which clarify he realized that people have different access to opportunities. 
 

He also points out that… it could be hundreds of years before everyone has equal access to educated etc and that this is a harsh reality if the world we live in. That people on left think it should already be the case everyone has this access but they don’t take into account how new a lot of this infrastructure is even.

Edited October 18, 2022 by Thought Art

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, bmcnicho said:

I do question your tendency to portray yourself as being above politics while actively engaging in political messaging on real world issues though

I'm not above politics, but I do look at things Tier 2. That's all.

[AtheisticNonduality]

Leo should dedicate an entire episode to deconstructing Trump. Imagine how many views that would get compared to the Jordan Peterson one.

[bmcnicho]

@Leo Gura I understand the value of systems thinking.  Like I said, many of your criticisms were valid and worth considering.  These include the Left not really understanding conservatives, getting fixated on niche issues that are off-putting to a general audience, and being idealistic to the point of rendering themselves naive and ineffective

However, the other parts where you were basically calling poor people lazy and stupid is not Tier 2.  You can hear those kinds of talking points on Fox News.  
 

Ultimately, politics is all about survival biases.  I think it’s worth acknowledging when personal biases are coming through.  I’m less concerned with individual disagreements than with, in your case, literal enlightened centrism, as you’ve actually entered enlightened states

[Leo Gura]

2 hours ago, bmcnicho said:

However, the other parts where you were basically calling poor people lazy and stupid is not Tier 2

There's truth to it though.

Have you seen the mediocrity of the typical wage slave worker?

The biggist mistake of Marxists is that they treat all employees as equal when most of them have no ambition or creativity, which is responsible for generating massive value. This is a very serious critique of Marxism and one of the key ways in which Marxism fails to work in real life.

Edited October 18, 2022 by Leo Gura

[Hardkill]

4 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

There's truth to it though.

Have you seen the mediocrity of the typical wage slave worker?

The biggist mistake of Marxists is that they treat all employees as equal when most of them have no ambition or creativity, which is responsible for generating massive value. This is a very serious critique of Marxism and one of the key ways in which Marxism fails to work in real life.

I agree with that, but as you've mentioned before, that also doesn’t mean that CEOs and other rich folk should be allowed to cause the growing economic inequality that’s been going on since the late 70s/early 80s. Working and middle class people like those in the  military, police, fighters, etc. who work very hard and put their lives on the line everyday all deserve to make at least 6 figures.

[spiritual memes]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

There's truth to it though.

Have you seen the mediocrity of the typical wage slave worker?

The biggist mistake of Marxists is that they treat all employees as equal when most of them have no ambition or creativity, which is responsible for generating massive value. This is a very serious critique of Marxism and one of the key ways in which Marxism fails to work in real life.

Perhaps if they grew up in better conditions and had better access to education they wouldn't be as mediocre.

The response to this argument is simply to recognize that socioeconomic and cultural conditions have a huge impact on ambition and creativity.

[Ulax]

41 minutes ago, spiritual memes said:

Perhaps if they grew up in better conditions and had better access to education they wouldn't be as mediocre.

The response to this argument is simply to recognize that socioeconomic and cultural conditions have a huge impact on ambition and creativity.

@spiritual memes Ye i agree

[thepixelmonk]

54 minutes ago, spiritual memes said:

The response to this argument is simply to recognize that socioeconomic and cultural conditions have a huge impact on ambition and creativity.

100% this.

[Leo Gura]

2 hours ago, Hardkill said:

I agree with that, but as you've mentioned before, that also doesn’t mean that CEOs and other rich folk should be allowed to cause the growing economic inequality that’s been going on since the late 70s/early 80s. Working and middle class people like those in the  military, police, fighters, etc. who work very hard and put their lives on the line everyday all deserve to make at least 6 figures.

Income inequality is a very serious problem that needs to be addressed. But how to address it is the problem.

1 hour ago, spiritual memes said:

Perhaps if they grew up in better conditions and had better access to education they wouldn't be as mediocre.

The response to this argument is simply to recognize that socioeconomic and cultural conditions have a huge impact on ambition and creativity.

Not as much as you might think.

Ambition and creativity are genetic traits, similar to intelligence. Education alone won't fix that. Have you noticed how mediocre the typical student is?

Edited October 18, 2022 by Leo Gura

[spiritual memes]

6 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Ambition and creativity are genetic traits, similar to intelligence. Education alone won't fix that. Have you noticed how mediocre the typical student is?

I agree that genetics play a role but environment and upbringing have a huge factor. From my observations, mediocre students generally don't have the best upbringing. If 2 identical twins were split at birth and given to 2 extremely different families, their creativity and ambition would likely be very different.

Have you noticed how mediocre the typical upbringing is?

Edited October 18, 2022 by spiritual memes

[Optimized Life]

18 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Income inequality is a very serious problem that needs to be addressed. But how to address it is the problem.

Not as much as you might think.

Ambition and creativity are genetic traits, similar to intelligence. Education alone won't fix that. Have you noticed how mediocre the typical student is?

Yes I agree with that. 

obviously other factors like self confidence come into play which I would say aren't as genetic however if the highly ambitious person has low self confidence, he'll either commit suicide or eventually become confident & once he does he will start killing it, that is my intuition because as an ambitious yet not always that effective person I know how fucking frustrating it is when you fail & you don't live up to your standards, when I don't work hard it feels like I'm constantly being strangled & burned on a hot stove, for a normal person it is a relief that they get to relax. 

When I went on "holiday" last time I did, the "friends" (Mediocre idiots) I was with just wanted to "relax", literally fucking drink alcohol on a beach & do absolutely nothing. 

Whereas I was constantly thinking about levelling up in a holiday way as a form of "relaxtion" for myself : I wanted to approach girls & work on my game constantly, not drink because it numbs me, I want to make connections to build networks, take photos to practice photography, build a mental map of the city in my brain & practice all the different routes for going round the city, I wanted to workout still & set a challenge with myself to approach the hottest models there walking near the beach. I wanted to practice foreign languages & learn culture & customs with the natives, I was even thinking abot strategically networking there to find people who could let me stay in the future = free or discounted travel. 

I'm not saying all this as if It's profound or genus it's pretty basic, my point is that's an example of a genetic pallet for amibition whereas I just couldn't, couldn't understand why these guys were happy to sit around & drink & do nothing all day, it didn't make sense to me even for like 5 minutes, with a hot girl I get it & u get nice sex but I mean on their own lol, & they were so happy to waste money on multiple  resterautns & shit it didn't make sense to me, I realized that holiday that I'm a different person & I just can't interact with low T low ambition men, it's a horrible experience. 

I'm not the most effective nor am I that intelligent (although not sure how I even define intelligent) but I am certainly creative and ambitious, and I can only really attribute it to genetics. However I didn't always have access to / abilitiy to leverage either of those, BUT I dont say that means that I suddenly became that way from environment, no. It's I had both as latent potentials, but due to environment, low self esteem, diet, ect... my ambition was not I couldn't act on it, but that doesn't mean I never had it, I did have it, but I didn't understand myself enough & furthermore I was very miserable whereas obether kids would be happy & I didn't now why, part of it was due to not realizing that I just needed to fulfill my ambition. 

So in a sense environment blunts out the amibition, but it's still truly there under the surface. 

So yes environment has an affect & can block/dilute the amibition buty go it never truly goes away. 

So ambition + bad environemnt = recipe for distaster because truly amibitious guys never just stop being that way, they will turn to toxic or illegal methods to fulfill their amibitious yearnings, or they be stuck in mediocrity but will kill themselves because the incogruency & the pain is so strong & unbearable.

Edited October 18, 2022 by Optimized Life

[Optimized Life]

14 minutes ago, spiritual memes said:

I agree that genetics play a role but environment and upbringing have a huge factor. From my observations, mediocre students generally don't have the best upbringing. If 2 identical twins were split at birth and given to 2 extremely different families, their creativity and ambition would likely be very different.

Have you noticed how mediocre the typical upbringing is?t

Hm, I am very tired so my paragraph is just an opinion. I don't kknow the answer, I don't htink any1 knows what the ratio or percantage is, same with Leo or any of us, no one truly knows the exact ratio or how much is genetics, I'm unsure whether its will be possible to map this stuff with science.

I'm not sure that upbringing has a huge impact on amibition, but it certainly does on effectiveness, education, factors that contribute to success. Ambition seems very genetic to me but success is more complicated.

[Fleetinglife]

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Have you seen the mediocrity of the typical wage slave worker?

The biggist mistake of Marxists is that they treat all employees as equal when most of them have no ambition or creativity, which is responsible for generating massive value. This is a very serious critique of Marxism and one of the key ways in which Marxism fails to work in real life.

Just to note in advance before answering, I haven't watched the full episode yet you made but I plan on doing so when I can very soon, just to acknowledge that I am not yet fully aware of the scope of arguments you made in the video that this sub-forum thread is dedicated to discussing towards:

Marx has actually addressed this perceived incongruity in his formulation of the theory of alienation of man from his natural essence of being of enjoying the fruits of his labour and generating value for the rest of his human community under a preposition that man is inherently, to sum it up the best I currently understood, remembered, could and was able, (regardless of any his peculiar qualifying or categorization characteristics) a conscious and free species being which he can't realize for the whole of his species under conditions of estranged labour as means of his continued individual life survival by living of his labour for the sake of his own surviving not for the sake of the enjoyment of the creative, generative process of labour for the rest of the human species and nature (it goes much beyond just the natural world defined as 'living'), as Marx defines it, I am paraphrasing, "nature is human beings inorganic body and life extension without which they can't exist or hope to have ever existed in the first place as conscious species- being with a freedom of will", which can't be possible to be achieved for the sake of all humanity as long as all value-generating and creative labour (which is essentially all labour in one form or another, since it changes fundamentally each time the conditions under which nature and life is being continually maintained and reproduced) serves as a mere means for the survival of life not the end of life in itself, because of it's estrangement through the externalization of it's fruits until they become foreign and alien to their original willful generator and creator in the first place with abstract compensations and extractions intended only for the attempt of it's full symbolical replacement of it's inherent genesis value and worth and the realization of it's end of man existing as free-will conscious species being instead under a repressive class-based and class-maintained production and reproduction material reality. 

Source: On Estranged Labour, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844. Karl Marx. 

Edited October 18, 2022 by Fleetinglife