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

[benny]

1 hour 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?

Over the last year or two it seems you've moved away from a growth perspective to a more genetic-focused, fatalist perspective of potential. Have your views changed?

Edited October 18, 2022 by benny

[Leo Gura]

1 hour 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?

Even if that is so, we are nowhere near providing everyone with an excellent upbringing. The reality leftists and Marxists must contend with is that most people have bad upbringing which produces bad character and mediocrity.

[Leo Gura]

33 minutes ago, benny said:

Over the last year or two it seems you've moved away from a growth perspective to a more genetic-focused, fatalist perspective of potential. Have your views changed?

Nothing's really changed, I'm just a lot more realistic these days.

There are many fantasies in our culture about how success works. The genetic component is under-emphasized because it isn't a hopeful message that sells.

Changing people is one of the hardest things in the world. If you try to change yourself, you'll see how difficult it is to go again your own nature.

Edited October 18, 2022 by Leo Gura

[Joel3102]

@Leo Gura do you think changing yourself socially ie becoming more confident is one of the easier traits to change? 

[Leo Gura]

42 minutes ago, Joel3102 said:

@Leo Gura do you think changing yourself socially ie becoming more confident is one of the easier traits to change? 

No, introversion and/or shyness is a very deep trait.

Edited October 19, 2022 by Leo Gura

[Hardkill]

4 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

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

The mid-1900s in the US was a time of egalitarian growth for practically every American citizen.

According to https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/a-guide-to-statistics-on-historical-trends-in-income-inequality :

"The best survey data show that the share of wealth held by the top 1 percent rose from 30 percent in 1989 to 39 percent in 2016, while the share held by the bottom 90 percent fell from 33 percent to 23 percent.

Census family income data show that from the late 1940s to the early 1970s, incomes across the distribution grew at nearly the same pace."  

That's why we really need to have both the distribution of wealth and distribution of income to go back to the way it was before the rise of neoliberalism occurred.

[Leo Gura]

@Hardkill You are basically talking about the Gini Coefficient:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient

[Hardkill]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

@Hardkill You are basically talking about the Gini Coefficient:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient

Wait, if Russia and China actually each have a lower Gini coefficient than the US does, then is there truly lesser economic inequality in Russia and China than in America?

[Girzo]

@Leo Gura it doesn't matter if you are mediocre, when you get more control of your work, when you get more responisibilities, you grow and grow happier, too.

Education is not required in the beginning. The point of creating Tier 2 workplace is exactly thinking about how to accomodate average people in that system. Saying "oh, it's education and genetics" is begging a question, a kind of conceptual laziness.

Creating a Tier 2 workplace that functions, accomodates average stage Blue and Orange people and doesn't collapse quickly is a life purpose in itself.

The book "Reinventing Organizations" by Laloux is a good exploration of this topic. There's also Corporate Rebels and a few more not as well-written.

[Leo Gura]

@Girzo 

Responsibility is something you have to be willing to take on.

You really think people are willing to develop themselves? You want to reengineer all of society on that assumption? And what happens when it doesn't pan out?

Edited October 19, 2022 by Leo Gura

[Godhead]

@bmcnicho  I agree with you

9 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

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?

He's doing it again. I feel like Leo has a lot of leftover residual self-help / PUA brain.  

If you put someone with outstanding genetics into an abusive household with a shit education system, it is extremely likely that this person will grow up to be quite mediocre or worse. This is just sociology 101.

I seems like a lot of his takes are based on "it kinda feels right to me". And then as a defense against other ideas he uses the "I'm beyond science" or "I'm arguing from tier 2" as if this makes you invincible against critique.

I also feel like his representation of socialism is quite myopic and reading a couple of books on the topic would fix most of that. 

 

Overall I still think the left deserves a lot of critique, however, I wonder where the utility is right now. If you look at history, there are hundreds of examples where leftists criticize each other endlessly, refusing to collaborate because of differing world views and thus letting the right win which worsened millions of lives.  

 

Edited October 19, 2022 by Godhead

[Leo Gura]

11 minutes ago, Godhead said:

@bmcnicho  I agree with you

He's doing it again. I feel like Leo has a lot of leftover residual self-help / PUA brain.  

If you put someone with outstanding genetics into an abusive household with a shit education system, it is extremely likely that this person will grow up to be quite mediocre or worse. This is just sociology 101.

Genetics alone is not enough, you need genetics PLUS the right upbringing and training.

Success requires EVERYTHING to align. Many factors all have to align. Which is why so few people are disproportionately successful. This is precisely what Marxists and leftists do not understand. And why Marxism fails. You do not have an accurate enough understanding of human nature. You can't just take a random person and make him very successful.

Not that I'm fan of Thomas Sowell, but in this case he makes a good point which you should take seriously:

 

Edited October 19, 2022 by Leo Gura

[Leo Gura]

14 minutes ago, Godhead said:

If you look at history, there are hundreds of examples where leftists criticize each other endlessly, refusing to collaborate because of differing world views and thus letting the right win which worsened millions of lives. 

It's not a matter of winning or losing. I don't care about winning. I care about accurate understanding of our situation. And you should too.

You can't win when you don't know what you're doing.

Edited October 19, 2022 by Leo Gura

[Godhead]

15 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Genetics alone is not enough, you need genetics PLUS the right upbringing and training.

That was pretty much my point and I think @spiritual memes tried to say something similar. It seems like you were arguing against that in the comment I initially responded to.

18 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

You do not have an accurate enough understanding of human nature. You can't just take a random person and make him very successful.

Sure, not everyone can be Einstein, but factors like wealth, security, and education have a profound impact on each individual's development. Take the average person from any rich European country and the average person from any developing country and I doubt you'll disagree that the differences will be immense.

Not everyone has to be superman but as your video suggests, environmental factors have a profound impact on humans. 

31 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Success requires EVERYTHING to align. Many factors all have to align. Which is why so few people are disproportionately successful. This is precisely what Marxists and leftists do not understand. And why Marxism fails.

From my understanding, leftists (obviously this is a broad term and encompasses all kinds of ideologies) generally try to enable individuals to reach their full potential by establishing systems that allow for greater freedom and prosperity for the average person. I don't see a lot of leftists arguing, that each person is exactly the same and that their economic output is exactly the same. This seems like a strawman to me.

[Leo Gura]

14 minutes ago, Godhead said:

Not everyone has to be superman but as your video suggests

I never suggested that.

But the issue is one of doing away with inequality, and for that you must first understand why such severe inequality exists in the first place.

Quote

I don't see a lot of leftists arguing, that each person is exactly the same and that their economic output is exactly the same. This seems like a strawman to me.

They don't argue it directly, but all of Marxism rests on the notion that people produce value at roughly similar levels. But in fact people produce value with multiples of 1 million+ difference.

Solving for that is not as trivial as Marxists think, because it's like you're digging a hole in the middle of the ocean.

No one says that society cannot be made more fair, but the question is, at what point have you reached "fair"? Who gets to decide what is "fair" if you do not believe in the free market's decision (which you don't)?

How many times more should Jeff Bezos make than his average worker? And why should anyone agree with your arbitrary number?

Edited October 19, 2022 by Leo Gura

[Hello from Russia]

3 hours ago, Hardkill said:

Wait, if Russia and China actually each have a lower Gini coefficient than the US does, then is there truly lesser economic inequality in Russia and China than in America?

Even the most piss poor people in Russia at least have a somewhat decent housing and the basic utilities are cheap af .

It isn't really that surprising if you look what happens to poor people in US

Edited October 19, 2022 by Hello from Russia

[Godhead]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

It's not a matter of winning or losing. I don't care about winning. I care about accurate understanding of our situation. And you should too.

You can't win when you don't know what you're doing.

I rather have an imperfect left in power than a demonic right. That's why I care about winning. Understanding has its importance, but not at the cost of letting Psychos rule the world. 

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

No one says that society cannot be made more fair, but the question is, at what point have you reached "fair"? Who gets to decide what is "fair" if you do not believe in the free market's decision (which you don't)?

I'd worry about that when we get close to actually having a fair society. It doesn't seem like, the U.S for example. is anywhere near that. Who gets to decide what is fair? Society, Politicians, etc. fairness is a fluid concept that shifts and changes with society. "Who gets to decide" implies that there is no perfect answer. Correct, there isn't. But there are certainly societies that have created greater equality and "fairness" than others. We don't need perfect answers, we just need better ones. 

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

How many times more should Jeff Bezos make than his average worker? And why should anyone agree with your arbitrary number?

There's no need to have the perfect ultimate answers right now. The fact of the matter is, workers get exploited and a few people at the top own more than small nation-states. I will worry about Jeff being treated unfairly once his workers get compensated for their work and once he pays his fair share of taxes. I'd hope people would agree with me because they share my radical far-left values of humanity and fair compensation.

Edited October 19, 2022 by Godhead

[Girzo]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

How many times more should Jeff Bezos make than his average worker?

Not much. The thing is Jeff Bezos doesn't create that much value, he is a master at siphoning it from other sources. If Bezos and his company didn't destroy their competitors, they would still exist and would still pay and treat their workers better than Amazon, as they did in the past. "Oh if Amazon didn't destroy them then something else like Amazon would have bought it." That's the point, something like Amazon shouldn't exist.

Yes we need big capital to make investments and long-term projects. In our system it's giants like Google or Amazon, Elon Musk, etc. that invest in big projects. But you know who else does big projects? The government, the creators of the Internet and guys who put man on the moon. The government can do everything that big companies can do. We can have big companies, but not too big.

Quote

And why should anyone agree with your arbitrary number?

It all comes down to how much you value human life, I value it highly. So values, cultivating similar values in society. Aiding individuals and societies in development on the Spiral.

[Girzo]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

They don't argue it directly, but all of Marxism rests on the notion that people produce value at roughly similar levels. But in fact people produce value with multiples of 1 million+ difference.

I disagree, people produce value with at most 3x rate. But some people have access to leverages and they leverage these to differences to absurd degrees, like you say million times difference.

But speaking from an avsolute perspective people are not that much different in intelligence and neither creativity, nor productivity.

We are all stupid copycats, and if there are some exceptional people, they are not Musks, Jobses, Gateses and Bezoses, they are the people they all have copied from.

[Leo Gura]

54 minutes ago, Godhead said:

I rather have an imperfect left in power than a demonic right.

I didn't say anything about a demonic right being in power.

Quote

There's no need to have the perfect ultimate answers right now. The fact of the matter is, workers get exploited and a few people at the top own more than small nation-states. I will worry about Jeff being treated unfairly once his workers get compensated for their work and once he pays his fair share of taxes. I'd hope people would agree with me because they share my radical far-left values of humanity and fair compensation.

Except this is not all theoretical.

Mankind has implemented systems to give you exactly what you claim you want. It was called the Soviet Union and the Democratic People's Republic Of North Korea. The founders of those systems all shared your radical far-left values for humanity and fair compensation.

23 minutes ago, Girzo said:

Not much. The thing is Jeff Bezos doesn't create that much value

Again, you have no idea what you're talking about.

Quote

If Bezos and his company didn't destroy their competitors, they would still exist and would still pay and treat their workers better than Amazon, as they did in the past. "Oh if Amazon didn't destroy them then something else like Amazon would have bought it." That's the point, something like Amazon shouldn't exist.

Something like Amazon should exist. People want it. Who are you to deny them?

Amazon's scale is what makes it work.

Quote

But you know who else does big projects? The government, the creators of the Internet and guys who put man on the moon. The government can do everything that big companies can do.

No it can't! That's the whole point.

No government in the world has been able to do what Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Tesla, or SpaceX did.

Quote

It all comes down to how much you value human life, I value it highly. So values, cultivating similar values in society. Aiding individuals and societies in development on the Spiral.

Your good values and intentions are not enough. You are tinkering with complex systems which you do not comprehend.

18 minutes ago, Girzo said:

I disagree, people produce value with at most 3x rate.

You are off only by a factor of 1,000,000 or so.

Quote

But speaking from an avsolute perspective people are not that much different in intelligence and neither creativity, nor productivity.

This is exactly why Marxism failed.

You grossly underestimate the depth of this problem

You are fixing a system whose scale you do not comprehend.

- - - - - -

Those of you who say you don't need my video, you need it the most. But you are too arrogant to really listen to it. It will take you 10 years to fathom the significance of all the points I made. And that's assuming you listen to it a bunch of times.

Edited October 19, 2022 by Leo Gura