Critics of Lex Fridman

[axiom]

20 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

The problem is that conservatives, by virtue of having lower overall cognitive and moral development,

This is not the type of rigorous scientific statement that I have come to expect from Leo Gura Esquire.

[Kanddle]

16 minutes ago, axiom said:

This is not the type of rigorous scientific statement that I have come to expect from Leo Gura Esquire.

That's right. It's axiomatic ... 

[Danioover9000]

@axiom

46 minutes ago, axiom said:

This is not the type of rigorous scientific statement that I have come to expect from Leo Gura Esquire.

   He's right when replying to me, so I don't see the problem here. It's actually the case that most conservative brains have higher activity in their amiggdala, in their reptilian brain that is strongly associated with survival and fear than most liberal brains. And Leo Gura is mainly a life coach, philosopher and spiritual teacher, not a scientist or into academia, so it makes little sense.

[Danioover9000]

@Leo Gura

21 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Re: Destiny debate:

Of course race realism is downgraded by the algorithm, because it overlaps with racism by like 90%.

Of course social media platforms downgrade topics which have a high potential for being hateful, racist, sexist, disinforming, etc.

The problem is that conservatives, by virtue of having lower overall cognitive and moral development, are naturally drawn to retrograde ideas which are harmful, toxic, and dangerous, which normal decent people don't want to hear about.

But these conservatives are too self-biased to understand this. So they whine about it. But that's like a racist whining that his philosophy isn't given equal treatment to Buddhism. Not shit. Because Buddhism is healthy and racism is toxic. They are not supposed to be treated equally. That's not a bug, that's a feature. But if you're a racist, you are incapable of understanding that.

   So, does this mean that your take falls more in line with what Destiny's position in regards to the algorithm shadow banning certain content creators based on words used and views expressed? Because I get the feeling that Destiny while debating this guy from counterpoints complaining of getting conservative views shadow banned by social media, for instance in this case twitter, doesn't want to appear to agree with the guy by writing off his position, but how he justifies his own position about shadow banning is that it doesn't happen at all, and seems to want to say it's more the fault of how these conservatives market and promote themselves.

   But Destiny also is in the wrong for how he's framing this situation, as anyone who knows him and has researched Destiny knows, that he himself has been banned multiple times in Twitter and Twitch for saying phobic and racist jokes and for inflammatory language and has a very biased and skewed view of this situation. Like you've stated, social media companies control for and against certain views for their own survival and for attention because what your Brand is associated by has severe consequences, and will downplay and downgrade topics related to endorsements of Racism, Xenophobia, Phobias towards LGBTQ communities, white supremacy, Nazism, Sexism and misogyny, based on how the content is written and communicated. Destiny being dismissal of shadow banning existing is to me a bit bad faith and downplays the significant effects that social media has for not just younger minds but all minds that consume social media content, which to me I expected from him given how he also benefits from this dynamic greatly, but less so than conservative guy. I think the overall debate and argumentation of the entire stream was mostly bad faith and uncharitable framing from both sides of this issue.

[zurew]

1 hour ago, Danioover9000 said:

Destiny being dismissal of shadow banning existing is to me a bit bad faith

If you rewatch the debate carefully you can see that he didn't downplay anything. The claim wasn't just about shadowbanning people based on a certain set of rules, but the claim was about shadowbanning conservative people just because they have a conservative political ideology(even if they didn't do anything that would justify the shadowban). So the claim is that conservative people got hit by the 'downregulating algorithm' much more compared to liberals or progressives without being justified, and that claim is entirely different from the first one and that requires evidence, because without evidence thats just an empty conspiratorial claim that poisions the public even more. So imagine if you do anything thats in an x set, you will get downregulated no matter what ideology you have, but the conservative's claim that a lot of them got downregulated even though they didn't do anything thats in that x set. Note here, that there were people that are not conservatives, who were shadowbanned and downregulated, but because conservative people are the majority when it comes to doing things thats in that x set, they get downregulated much more, but they have and had the free will to do and to choose otherwise.

Thats an entirely different talk whether the rules by which the algorithm goes are good rules or not. The talk here is about the conspiratorial claim, that a set of rules(by which the shadowbanning and the downregulating algo goes) wasn't applied properly and evenly across all ideological groups and that of course requires evidence.

Edited December 14, 2022 by zurew

[Leo Gura]

This situation is a bit like a black person complaining about racism when a cop catches him stealing a TV from a broken shop window.

Racism can exist, but in this case, the arrest is justified and the cry of racism is just an excuse.

So you have to look at whether the shadowbans are well-justified, not merely that they exist.

For example, many of these right-wing accounts probably have made posts like, "Climate change is a hoax" or "Covid is a plandemic", or "Why do Jews run the world?", or "Trans is a mental illness", or "Gays should be converted to straight", or "Trump won the election", etc. Which violates terms of service and basic empirical reality.

They make such posts and then cry about not being treated equally. Of course not all ideas cannot be treated equally because some ideas are really harmful and dangerous. The core problem is that right-wingers are in denial that some of their fave ideas are harmful and dangerous. Good luck getting them to understand that.

Edited December 14, 2022 by Leo Gura

[Danioover9000]

@zurew

1 hour ago, zurew said:

If you rewatch the debate carefully you can see that he didn't downplay anything. The claim wasn't just about shadowbanning people based on a certain set of rules, but the claim was about shadowbanning conservative people just because they have a conservative political ideology(even if they didn't do anything that would justify the shadowban). So the claim is that conservative people got hit by the 'downregulating algorithm' much more compared to liberals or progressives without being justified, and that claim is entirely different from the first one and that requires evidence, because without evidence thats just an empty conspiratorial claim that poisions the public even more. So imagine if you do anything thats in an x set, you will get downregulated no matter what ideology you have, but the conservative's claim that a lot of them got downregulated even though they didn't do anything thats in that x set. Note here, that there were people that are not conservatives, who were shadowbanned and downregulated, but because conservative people are the majority when it comes to doing things thats in that x set, they get downregulated much more, but they have and had the free will to do and to choose otherwise.

Thats an entirely different talk whether the rules by which the algorithm goes are good rules or not. The talk here is about the conspiratorial claim, that a set of rules(by which the shadowbanning and the downregulating algo goes) wasn't applied properly and evenly across all ideological groups and that of course requires evidence.

   Alright, I have watched again that video carefully, and yes, the original claim of that conservative guy was that the algorithms of social media companies, in this case Twitter, was shadow banning users who are 'conservatives' with 'conservative' values, and the algorithm was downregulating their content way more than those who are socialist/progressive/liberal leaning in ideology and values, regardless of how careful and articulate the 'conservatives' posts were in regards to bending/breaking TOS or forum guidelines. To be clear here, these are now 'conservatives' because I don't know enough about these guys, if they are hiding behind the 'conservatives' label when in fact they're die hard nationalists/traditionalists or even alt right extremists. In this very specific case obviously Destiny takes the win.

   I think I was making a meta big point here, in that if we took Destiny's claim and position here, it looks strange and even bad to state that there weren't any form of shadow banning and downplaying of various content. At one point even the algorithm was upregulating hot topics and other topics with the potential to be very click bait, which turned out to influence a lot of minds in these issues, for example:

   Is where I was going with my previous post, which is why I said DESTINY WAS WRONG AND SELF BIASED.

Edited December 14, 2022 by Danioover9000

[Roy]

10 hours ago, Danioover9000 said:

What would your thinking and feeling be, if Coffeezilla started investigating Leo Gura and Actualized.org, and the suicide that happened here? How would your opinion change of him if he started making critique videos of Leo Gura, but made it a bit more of a rant? Calling him a scammer and crazy self-help life coach, and fake spiritual Guru?

That's a good question. It has happened before so it's not really anything new. fundamentally I just don't really participate in that kind of stuff. I like Leo and being part of this community but I don't feel obliged to defend it, like it's an ideological bubble that needs protection from outside attacks. I view it as a decentralized place where people can come and go, like myself even as a moderator. I'm here out of love and because where I'm at in my life right now, and someday it will be time to leave. I am not an "Actualizer", I'm just a dude from Canada.

Ultimately Leo has to defend himself anyways (if he deems it necessary). I've seen all the criticism and hell, I've made my own directly to him too. It's par for the course when you're on the internet. It can be a bloodbath.

I can only judge things from my own perception, and from what I've seen despite some of the radical and outlandish things he's claimed (which are part of the marketing I'm guessing), Leo has an incredible amount of integrity. He's done a good job to distance and separate himself from his viewers. He sets hard boundaries to keep his own life from getting mixed up with people so it doesn't turn into a cult scenario. The opposite of someone like Teal Swan who might have good intentions but has to go through a scandal because she lives/works/sleeps with people in her community. Just a big mess of drama.

 

[Tyler Robinson]

Who is lex friedman? 

A right winger? 

Who is Techlead? 

A left winger?

Who is Destiny? 

A right winger? 

[Girzo]

@Tyler Robinson no, techlead is 100% not a left-winger. You can notice this by his lack of humor. To lack humor this much you have to skew to the right.

Now, when I read your post, neither Lex or Destiny are on the right. What was the thought behind this post?

Edited December 15, 2022 by Girzo

[Tyler Robinson]

2 minutes ago, Girzo said:

@Tyler Robinson no, techlead is 100% not a left-winger. You can notice this by his lack of humor. To lack humor this much you have to skew to the right.

Now, when I read your post, neither Lex or Destiny are on the right. What was the thought behind this post?

I haven't watched them at all. So I had no clue. I thought maybe they were right wing you tubers, cuz they complain so much 

[axiom]

14 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

This situation is a bit like a black person complaining about racism when a cop catches him stealing a TV from a broken shop window.

Racism can exist, but in this case, the arrest is justified and the cry of racism is just an excuse.

So you have to look at whether the shadowbans are well-justified, not merely that they exist.

For example, many of these right-wing accounts probably have made posts like, "Climate change is a hoax" or "Covid is a plandemic", or "Why do Jews run the world?", or "Trans is a mental illness", or "Gays should be converted to straight", or "Trump won the election", etc. Which violates terms of service and basic empirical reality.

They make such posts and then cry about not being treated equally. Of course not all ideas cannot be treated equally because some ideas are really harmful and dangerous. The core problem is that right-wingers are in denial that some of their fave ideas are harmful and dangerous. Good luck getting them to understand that.

The situation is not helped by former chief scientists of companies like Pfizer explicitly stating that the vaccines are, in his view, designed to curtail global population.

For every dangerous right wing idea, I can count at least one comparably dangerous left wing idea. And you can do this too if you’re being completely honest. The left does not have the moral high ground. Far from it.

It’s really not about right wing or left wing - that’s all bread and circus, divide and conquer. What it’s really about is economic devastation, the failure of Meaning 2.0, the fall of empire, the marketplace of good/bad ideas (social media brainwashing and tribalism) and the Meaning vacuum.

Edited December 15, 2022 by axiom

[axiom]

14 hours ago, Danioover9000 said:

He's right when replying to me, so I don't see the problem here. It's actually the case that most conservative brains have higher activity in their amiggdala, in their reptilian brain that is strongly associated with survival and fear than most liberal brains.

I would be genuinely interested to read the science behind this. Do you have a link? It sounds a bit fishy ;-)

Personally I think it’s sort of obvious that those who would identify as left wing occupy the middle portion of an IQ distribution bell curve. That is, fewer of them would have a very low IQ or a very high IQ.

It’s just a gut feeling, but I also think there may be an upper limit of IQ (still a respectable score, though) for those who are left-leaning.

Hence the caricature of “evil genius” as opposed to “wholesome genius”. 

(Elon Musk probably looks like an “evil genius” to someone of average or lower IQ)

Edited December 15, 2022 by axiom

[zurew]

22 minutes ago, axiom said:

For every dangerous right wing idea, I can count at least one comparably dangerous left wing idea. And you can do this too if you’re being completely honest. The left does not have the moral high ground. Far from it.

What are those dangerous left wing ideas that are comparable to the dangerous ideas and conspiracies, that are on the right?

[axiom]

3 hours ago, zurew said:

What are those dangerous left wing ideas that are comparable to the dangerous ideas and conspiracies, that are on the right?

The idea that the right is somehow “inhuman” or morally / ethically bankrupt is dangerous. The assumption of moral certitude is dangerous.

I see this attitude increasingly these days. It’s no coincidence that with the western world’s youth once again enamoured with socialism, antisemitism is on the rise. It’s the same attitude of “othering” and dehumanisation of those considered to hold together some Capitalist status quo.

The truth is, most of the death and destruction in the past century has been caused by left wing ideas or those inspired by them.

I could give a lot of examples, but perhaps you mean “today’s left” as opposed to the the political movements of the past century which would self-identify as such?

The dangers of left wing ideas are pretty well established by the history though, and whilst at first glance “today’s left” might look relatively harmless to those caught in its midst, it’s quite easy to draw a direct line between things like today’s Cancel Culture and the Struggle Sessions of Maoist China for example. The brutality may not be on par (a matter of time potentially), but the quashing of perceived dissent, the discarding of “outdated ideas” and the push towards en-masse thought reform directly echoes the past.

Things were getting out of hand at Twitter, and personally I’m very glad and relieved to see a centrist like Elon Musk at the helm lest the echo chamber of sanctioned ideas it has thus far incubated further permeates the culture - and pushes us into a Dystopia of Intolerance the Red Guards would have been proud of.

It’s useful to periodically take stock of the extent of one’s own tribalism… because if you’re strongly anti-left or anti-right as some matter of principle, then this has become an identity - and that means you’ve been brainwashed in all likelihood.

Remember that there are in truth no “left wing people”, just as there are no “right wing people”. There are just good ideas, bad ideas, brainwashing and tribalism.

Edited December 15, 2022 by axiom

[Oeaohoo]

I don’t know how any of you can watch this Fridman guy. He’s such a creep that it makes my skin crawl. I just watched two minutes of his interview with Destiny and I literally feel sick. Grotesque!

It’s much easier to excuse this kind of creepy passive-aggressive autism when it conceals a towering intellect. In this case, however, it just seems to conceal deeper layers of creepy autism…

It’s funny that he got all of his meaningless university letters at Drexel University, the same place where Sam Hyde brilliantly mocked all of his kind with the best TED X talk ever, “2070 Paradigm Shift”!

The internet has really destroyed people’s sense of spiritual hygiene. I’ve once again lost interest in this forum and so might as well go out in a blaze of glory…

We must declare spiritual war, armed not with violence but with the Truth, on all internet pseudo-intellectuals! No more “artificial-intelligence nano-tech synergies”, no more empty praise for the “power of conversation”, no more “emergent phenomena”! A new age of noble and manly virtue, of heroic and transcendent splendour, must be brought forth from the ruins of all this effeminate degradation and vain pontification!

All praise to the super-rational discernment of virtue and good character! There can be no neutral discussion with these crepuscular maggot men who make us want to vomit with disgust! We must not waste our time with “good-faith dialogue”, sitting around “debating” and pushing ideas back and forth like dung-beetles pushing bullshit around in the mud! We must destroy the enemy with bedazzling inspirations of super-rational clarity!

Anyway… I notice he uses Dave from 2001: A Space Odyssey as his YouTube banner. Unsurprising that he would resonate with Kubrick’s amoral autism. This scene from that film is a beautiful portrait of the cosmic loneliness that I feel when reading through some of the nonsense on this forum. The way that Kubrick introduces HAL 9000 with the descending melody in the music is so amazingly creepy!

 

[RedLine]

I liked this video. Lex is a dumb rationalist. 

 

 

[Danioover9000]

@RedLine

37 minutes ago, RedLine said:

I liked this video. Lex is a dumb rationalist. 

 

 

   It's relative and based on stage of development, cognitive and moral development, personality, ego development, states of being/consciousness life experiences, other lines of development, worldviews and self bias of the person. For example, while the guy in the video has a valid point, he also has a biased take, as if he's a fan of Kanye West and doesn't like Lex Fridman. His mind seems to have generalized and distorted Lex Fridman's interview as cringe so the entire interview was cringe. Keep in mind Kanye West is likely mostly stage orange/green, introverted Narcissist, ego development is either at opportunist/impulsive or just above them, his state of consciousness is like effected by his level of cognition of that of a Bipolar disordered mind type which effects his ability to stay coherent and consistent with a conversation topic and thread, and tends to more jump to several topics without properly resolving those thoughts and interconnecting them properly. This in turn effects his level of morality, of being able to understand and empathize with other people and in to out groups.

   Kanye West also is bragging his racist and antisemitism views, Narcissism, and his partial mental disorder, also likely as a coping mechanism for his other areas of life regressing, such as his marriage and relationships being declining, and his mind being also religious Christian bias, which affects his fear barrier of facing the possibility of divorce and never seeing his children again, which is such a threat for him that he is distracting himself with this attention whoring, racism/anti Semitism bragging, because he is a billionaire still financially secure enough and still can create another career opportunity for himself later. Lex Fridman, despite knowing this, and identifying as partly Jewish himself, made the decision to interview Kanye West, edit the video, and with little considerations of the ramifications of his actions, decides to post and make public that interview, which to me in my book shows how Lex Fridman is willing to sacrifice some integrity for clicks and viewership increase.

[Danioover9000]

@Oeaohoo

1 hour ago, Oeaohoo said:

I don’t know how any of you can watch this Fridman guy. He’s such a creep that it makes my skin crawl. I just watched two minutes of his interview with Destiny and I literally feel sick. Grotesque!

It’s much easier to excuse this kind of creepy passive-aggressive autism when it conceals a towering intellect. In this case, however, it just seems to conceal deeper layers of creepy autism…

It’s funny that he got all of his meaningless university letters at Drexel University, the same place where Sam Hyde brilliantly mocked all of his kind with the best TED X talk ever, “2070 Paradigm Shift”!

The internet has really destroyed people’s sense of spiritual hygiene. I’ve once again lost interest in this forum and so might as well go out in a blaze of glory…

We must declare spiritual war, armed not with violence but with the Truth, on all internet pseudo-intellectuals! No more “artificial-intelligence nano-tech synergies”, no more empty praise for the “power of conversation”, no more “emergent phenomena”! A new age of noble and manly virtue, of heroic and transcendent splendour, must be brought forth from the ruins of all this effeminate degradation and vain pontification!

All praise to the super-rational discernment of virtue and good character! There can be no neutral discussion with these crepuscular maggot men who make us want to vomit with disgust! We must not waste our time with “good-faith dialogue”, sitting around “debating” and pushing ideas back and forth like dung-beetles pushing bullshit around in the mud! We must destroy the enemy with bedazzling inspirations of super-rational clarity!

Anyway… I notice he uses Dave from 2001: A Space Odyssey as his YouTube banner. Unsurprising that he would resonate with Kubrick’s amoral autism. This scene from that film is a beautiful portrait of the cosmic loneliness that I feel when reading through some of the nonsense on this forum. The way that Kubrick introduces HAL 9000 with the descending melody in the music is so amazingly creepy!

 

   As much as I have a bias against Lex Fridman, based on his SD value systems, cognition, morality, ego development, personality type, states of consciousness, worldviews and bias, compared to me you seem to have a greater bias against him.

   @Leo Gura and @Carl-Richard, is it possible that Lex Fridman is himself a grifter, but one that has cleverly disguised himself as a person pursuing good faith conversations, world peace and love and so on?

[Danioover9000]

@axiom

5 hours ago, axiom said:

The idea that the right is somehow “inhuman” or morally / ethically bankrupt is dangerous. The assumption of moral certitude is dangerous.

I see this attitude increasingly these days. It’s no coincidence that with the western world’s youth once again enamoured with socialism, antisemitism is on the rise. It’s the same attitude of “othering” and dehumanisation of those considered to hold together some Capitalist status quo.

The truth is, most of the death and destruction in the past century has been caused by left wing ideas or those inspired by them.

I could give a lot of examples, but perhaps you mean “today’s left” as opposed to the the political movements of the past century which would self-identify as such?

The dangers of left wing ideas are pretty well established by the history though, and whilst at first glance “today’s left” might look relatively harmless to those caught in its midst, it’s quite easy to draw a direct line between things like today’s Cancel Culture and the Struggle Sessions of Maoist China for example. The brutality may not be on par (a matter of time potentially), but the quashing of perceived dissent, the discarding of “outdated ideas” and the push towards en-masse thought reform directly echoes the past.

Things were getting out of hand at Twitter, and personally I’m very glad and relieved to see a centrist like Elon Musk at the helm lest the echo chamber of sanctioned ideas it has thus far incubated further permeates the culture - and pushes us into a Dystopia of Intolerance the Red Guards would have been proud of.

It’s useful to periodically take stock of the extent of one’s own tribalism… because if you’re strongly anti-left or anti-right as some matter of principle, then this has become an identity - and that means you’ve been brainwashed in all likelihood.

Remember that there are in truth no “left wing people”, just as there are no “right wing people”. There are just good ideas, bad ideas, brainwashing and tribalism.

   Elon Musk seems like a right leaning moderate though, who's hardcore stage orange and saw an opportunity to try and cash into making Twitter his own platform, whilst trying to galvanize support for and from Trump's base.

   I also agree with most of your points, and yes we can draw thousands of historical examples of the failings of Communism and misinterpretations of left leaning ideals. However, I see all that as a byproduct of cultural evolution of thought and consciousness, to me it was the SD value systems, cognition, morality, states of emotions/consciousness, psychology, life experiences, and other lines of development like social infrastructure, economy, market, political, environmental and technological development of communications and so on, and the limits of Traditional Monarchical rule over the peasants. It is due to the technological epoch and transformational dilemma of those cultures.