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

[Godhead]

5 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

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.

Brother, I said billionaires should pay their fair share of taxes and pay their workers and you counter that with "They had systems like that in the USSR and DPRK" ?

Come on. 

[Leo Gura]

2 minutes ago, Godhead said:

Brother, I said billionaires should pay their fair share of taxes and pay their workers and you counter that with "They had systems like that in the USSR and DPRK" ?

Come on. 

You said, and I quote:

Quote

I'd hope people would agree with me because they share my radical far-left values of humanity and fair compensation.

Don't deny your Soviet comrades now!

[Girzo]

7 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

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

I have. I have watched your video and I think you miss a point. You think about value from a personal perspective of a worker, or a user of a service. I think of value as net positive or negative effect on society. Your Bezos by creating so much value can be creating a net negative effect on society by fueling resources and human life hours towards useless pursuits like faster shipping or another pointless space travel company. 

I know it's hellishly difficult to compute. That's why we are having this conversation and why I am sure you neither know what are the real results of big capitalists' actions.

Take it as a feedback Leo. I am not a lefitist and I am not sold on many arguments in that video. It's just not that good.

15 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

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

Because they also want fair wages and normal working conditions. They just lack vision to compute that they have to choose, but once the choice is visible, then it's kind of obvious what is really valuable, which systems should be upheld and not given away to all-consuming Amazon amoeba.

[Leo Gura]

12 minutes ago, Girzo said:

You think about value from a personal perspective of a worker, or a user of a service. I think of value as net positive or negative effect on society. Your Bezos by creating so much value can be creating a net negative effect on society by fueling resources and human life hours towards useless pursuits like faster shipping or another pointless space travel company.

I think of value from all perspectives, especially the collective perspective. Jeff Bezos' value is not personal, it's precisely collective. And you fail to understand this.

Amazon's achievements are precisely the opposite of useless pursuits.

It will take you 1000 lifetimes to generate 1 thousandth the value of Bezos' one space company. Never mind Amazon. That's how unproductive and useless your life is. Yet you think you are intelligent and are entitled to something.

Quote

I am not a lefitist and I am not sold on many arguments in that video. It's just not that good.

As I said, it will take you 10 years to understand what was said in that video. Longer with your arrogant attitude.

Edited October 19, 2022 by Leo Gura

[Girzo]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

It will take you 1000 lifetimes to generate 1 thousandth the value of Bezos' one space company. Never mind Amazon.

Because value in either of these companies is not Bezos', but thousands of workers, decades of developing infrastructure, billions worth of physical materials and fuels and millions of their clients giving them data.

It's a matter of who you ascribe the value to. I ascribe it to people and Earth, from which people have extracted the resources. You ascribe it it personalities and abstract companies.

If Bezos never existed there would be many other valuable things created with that value, if big companies had limits to growth, there would develop some new interesting, creative dynamics on a lower scale. We don't need competition in every field, on every scale. What makes humans unique is cooperation, and government should in my opinion do everything to support cooperation between humans.

I see existence of giga companies like Amazon as a residue of a progressing change towards their break-up or heavy, heavy regulation. They are descendants of company cities and other power-hungry forms of societal organization from the past.

Edited October 19, 2022 by Girzo

[TrustTheProcess]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

It will take you 1000 lifetimes to generate 1 thousandth the value of Bezos' one space company. Never mind Amazon. That's how unproductive and useless your life is.

why so flippant and discouraging towards your followers

[Leo Gura]

@Girzo You are not telling me anything new. I'm well aware of the problems of capitalism.

[Leo Gura]

25 minutes ago, TrustTheProcess said:

why so flippant and discouraging towards your followers

Deeper points are being made.

[Thought Art]

@Girzo I think you under estimate the value of leadership, vision, and CEO level intelligence and skills. 
 

 

[Girzo]

@Thought Art I discount executives and MANAGERS, because society generally overestimate them. My initial point has been really about managers, it has turned out to be about CEO because in my opinion it is ridiculous to think that a manager produces million times more value than a janitor. So we started talking about Bezoses.

And I prop the normal average workers, because they are often underestimated. 

I am all in for what works. I am not some ideologue. I understand our current structure of society works. I am all in for exploring other working alternatives and innovations to the current system. I believe one alternative is empowering average workers because they hold a lot of potential, and the potential of workers at a company is far greater than a potential of any CEO. Is it hard as hell to empower that potential? Yes, it is, that's what I have said that even trying it on a small scale with a single company is a life purpose in itself. I think it should be tried, someone trying would be a CEO worth his salary, a really valuable CEO in my opinion, like Jos de Blok.

Not Bezos, Bezos' value is mainly in his postition and role, I think most of his innovation and existence of something like Amazon are attractors, something that would have probably happened either way based on how our world had been shaped and the direction it was going towards a few decades ago.

[TrustTheProcess]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

Deeper points are being made.

Ok, and some sjw would have the same defense to justify being abrasive and condescending toward some stage blue Hank Hill dude... 

[Danioover9000]

@bmcnicho

On 2022-10-18 at 9:03 AM, 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

   A part 2 is clearly needed, he said there's much more for him to say and cover. The video must be complete, and I get the sense that it's like getting stuff out of your chest for a while.

[sholomar]

I have yet to watch the video but my answer as to why the left has become dangerous comes down to this... they have so much power over our institutions, particularly the mainstream media and college campuses. Any group in power is apt to become dangerous if they amass too much power. It doesn't matter who they are. A good government has checks and balances to protect us from our own nature, our herd mentality, however that doesn't protect many of our institutions. Cancel culture, suppression of speech, ostracization of those with differing viewpoints, along with an inability to admit one is wrong, are all part of it.

As a centrist, I don't see the right as demonic. I think they are seen as demonic from the perspective of the leftist echo chamber that spoon-feeds democrats these narratives. The same echo chamber feeds the right wing conspiracy theories. I think many of these people need to spend less time on forums (including myself haha) and turn off social media.

 

What we should do... both sides make a list of what the other thinks goes too far and list it, like Leo said below, and then compare.  

For me the big one is gender changes in adolescents. Similarly to how we have laws about drinking age and consensual sex, I think it's irresponsible to do chemical castration and other surgeries on people who are barely out of puberty, or encouraging them from birth to be something other than what science would call their birth sex/gender. To me that's grooming, and I think there's a lot of money to be made by hospital administrators from these procedures. Kids go through phases throughout their youth where they don't know what they want and go with what's trendy, and it's dangerous to say just go change your gender, at 11 years old.

Another one... unchecked immigration. The right are not radical racist nationalists, at least the ones I know.  They believe in letting in the best and brightest who they know will better our society, letting in people who prove they can work, who prove they have no criminal record, as opposed to letting in anyone with a pulse. There's only so much aid you can give to people before you start to get housing shortages and other problems. Most of these Nordic nations are being forced to take in immigrants by the globalists also. I don't even see immigration as a left/right issue. There are plenty of more "left" leaning nations that have strict immigration policy. There are capitalists that want any immigration for cheap labor also.  Make them legal citizens, you have to pay them more money, and not off the table.  Too much what is basically slave labor goes into making lots of the items we take for granted. On the other hand, you can't save everyone. I believe in teaching people to fish, not giving them fish, and letting in people who can contribute to society, not be a burden or parasite on it.  I know plenty of whites I would consider "welfare parasites" and immigrants often work far harder than their American counterparts since they are used to less, so it's not like I'm racist on this issue.  On the other hand, I will acknowledge the wages suck compared to the cost of living and real estate prices these days.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/11/business/sweden-economy-immigration.html

Another... this lax enforcement of crime, eliminating cash bail, and in general not enforcing laws. This is pure pavlonian conditioning here. If you don't put people in jail for less serious crimes, it encourages more serious crimes to occur, and more people to commit them.  There are  epidemics of high speed chases, car thefts ("kia boys") and increases in crime because liberal prosecutors and police chiefs don't want to enforce laws, largely in blue cities.  Felons caught with firearms and people on probation aren't even losing their probation when they commit new crimes, and court cases are backlogged for 2-3 years also. Juveniles also never seem to be punished at all unless they murder someone.

The increase in cancel culture... the left used to be the party that believed in free speech over all, but they've turned into the party where if you say the wrong thing, you can get expelled from college, fired or worse. I'm not saying people should go around saying the N word everywhere they go, but simple scientific statements like "there are two genders" should not get you the kind of backlash it now does.... or wearing a "white lives matter" or "all lives matter" t-shirt.  The worst thing I ever see the left being called by the right are "Let's go Brandon" signs... whereas I see the left calling the right nazis, bigots, etc on a daily basis. To me the left seem like bullies.

One area I really dislike what both parties are doing... we should be banning sale of R1 residential real estate to investors or people who don't "owner occupy" the homes. This notion that corporations and investors bought 1/4 of all homes the last year... this is going to lead to massive problems going forward, and neither party will do anything about it. There is a wealth disparity that is growing, and it's going to become a huge problem. There is a small group of people who have huge amounts of liquidity in society and their share continues to increase dramatically. There's no easy fixes, only hard choices. In my case, acceptance of what is would be the best option.. there's some things that are simply outside my control... it is what it is.  There are other things I could criticize the right (and left) about, but my post is long enough.

I apologize if I hit and run. I tend to do that or I'd be on the internet all day. I tend to be a habitual post editor and when I'm finally done with my 10 edits and long drawn out diatribes, I'm ready to shut the computer off.

Edited October 20, 2022 by sholomar

[Leo Gura]

Here's an exercise for you leftists:

Sit down and write out of a full list of every case in which the left goes too far. Don't do it for me, do it for you.

Hint: If you list is not at least several pages long, you're kidding yourself.

Edited October 20, 2022 by Leo Gura

[Gennadiy1981]

I watched part one so far and I am glad that Leo brought a lot of valid points this time for the left, as he did for the right in the past. But to be very honest it’s not really a left versus right, it’s enlightened human versus not. Let’s be honest most people just parrot what other people say and some are doing for career purposes or try to fit in the group. 
while some people claim to cling to a democratic wing a lot of them can also be very racist or as Leo pointed ethnocentric for conservatives. At the end of the day it really boils down to individual fear and every human if they’re not developed they can go that route. That’s why I don’t like when Leo says people on the right have more fear than on the left. Again, people who are truly into politics, and no matter which spectrum, Democratic and Republican, will have a lot in common because their common goal is to how to help the community and the country. All those individuals who just scream and point fingers really do that out of fear or gain populist vote that’s all. 

I want to gift to examples. One time I was in the bar and one guy who claimed he was nationalist was speaking very poorly of immigrants in that way that he wanted to punch their face. I asked him what were his reasons and he said he was nationalist. I said that’s fine, but as a nationalist you supposed to like your nation and ask him whether he was helping poor people in his nation to which he replied that those people don’t need help as poor people are just being lazy. So really he was there just to hit people and he used nationalism as an excuse, if there was no politics he would just be a simple bully hitting indiscriminately.

another example, there was a progressive rally advocating for minority rights against police brutality. Yes there were individuals who were cheering and etc. but believe me they were saying so much xenophobia against other ethnicities that the only way they fit into that rally was because they could have joined that club and guess what, also to be violent in the demonstration.

basically to conclude most people are doing things out of fear and not so much out of politics, as a true politician would not stoop to a low level they’re looking how to make things better. All the other talk is just a way to criticize others and that’s what people love to do

thank you Leo for bringing such valid points, that was a truly deep insight which I applaud you for.

[Gidiot]

I agree with 99% of what you say Leo, but I think its a bad take to say that someone whos unproductive and "useless" doesn't generate collective value deserves to die. There is no explicit goal to life obviously, your life purpose doesnt need to involve making money or "creating value" it simply could be to help maximize love in your own way. if society says those types of people deserve to die, to me that isnt a very developed society, is the only reason parents have kids in order for them to maximize value and productivity? or like you say is it out of love? i know not every society should have the resources to meet survival needs for everyone but I if designed society I would value letting people existing whether i get value from them or not. its not my job to judge peoples worth on my benefit, if they arent hurting anyone they should have the right to exist. maybe this is too forward thinking when you still have to compete with other countries and people like a fucking chimp in a capitalist world, but the only way to transition away from that is a society that treats human life with dignity. we all have something to contribute in this life, and not everyone should be forced into wage slavery or being a business owner, a mystic is just as viable as a ceo in my eyes its clear to me that you need lazy people in life too. I mean thats how god planned it. if everyone was highly creative, successful, and productive this world would probably be a mess. people need to be able to go their own way with dignity.

[Thought Art]

@Girzo Have you considered that organizations require people to do certain processes, for example being a janitor, HR person, driver, Accounts receivable administrator etc… 

That without a CEO, founder or management over looking all the processes, goals, vision, regulations etc that the janitor, HR person etc wouldn’t have a job or stable income? 
 

All the workers are valuable and deserve a fair wage. 
 

However, a CEO isn’t exactly like an employee…
 

Without these CEO’s and managers these workers wouldn’t have jobs at all. 
 

Ive read stories of CEO’s saving failing companies and their leadership earning companies millions of dollars, rescuing the work culture and contributing to the well being of the world.

Yes, janitors are very important and business can’t function without them. But, they simply don’t provide anywhere near as much value as an amazing CEO. If a janitor quits and is replaced it’s not likely the company will change much at all. But, if a CEO leaves a company… it could result in the entire company failing and thousands or hundreds of thousands of workers losing their jobs, etc

I wonder, have you read much about Bezos and how he made Amazon what it is today? All the challenges he overcame, the difficulties, the problem solving, all the naysayers and calamity howlers he had to deal with? He had to put his own money and life on the line to build Amazon. He serves millions of people everyday is a powerful way with his vision. 
 

Yes, that vision is realized with the hands of many. He can treat his employees better. But. The average person can provide even a smidge of the value Bezos has provided in the world.

Edited October 20, 2022 by Thought Art

[mr_engineer]

On 10/19/2022 at 0:27 AM, 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.

I'll tell you a harsh reality about pricing - the way it works, is by a perceived value-disparity. It really is just a matter of supply and demand. How hard is it to become a police-officer?! Or, a fire-fighter?! Through the training?! Not very hard. I mean, of course, it is hard. But, the percentage of people who'd be able to clear that would be significantly higher than the percentage of people who could become programmers or gain technical proficiency/technical expertise in something. For the latter, you have to get good grades. Which aren't that common. 

I'd highly suggest that you read a book on Austrian economics to understand how entrepreneurs set prices. For products, for labor, etc. 

This is why, the way to get rich is to create best from waste, to be a creative motherfucker. Someone who can do that improves the efficiency of the overall system, because wastage goes down and output goes up as a result of doing something like that. And this is why so few people get rich. Because so few people develop themselves to have this ability! The one who can do this becomes the market-leader, because they come at the forefront of their industry in terms of innovation. 

Edited October 20, 2022 by mr_engineer

[puporing]

It's not a one-size fits all with CEOs, it depends on their level of development (moral/ethical included). There are many different stages of development with business leaders and they tend to get lumped into one (ie, the hero or the villain). But you can kind of tell by the way they conduct business, how they make decisions that affect the "bottom line" vs workers/clients. Often it's hard to know the details, but chronic bad press usually contains some kernels of truth. Ideally people vote with the dollar but we also have a system where most people are poor and do not feel they can afford to vote for the most ethical and efficient one.

Edited October 20, 2022 by puporing

[Leo Gura]

3 hours ago, Gidiot said:

I agree with 99% of what you say Leo, but I think its a bad take to say that someone whos unproductive and "useless" doesn't generate collective value deserves to die.

I never argued that people deserve to die.

But you need to have some realistic perspective about how survival works. If you cannot manage survival then nature herself will kill you.

The universe gives you no right to life. If you think you have the right to life, you are fooling yourself.

Edited October 20, 2022 by Leo Gura