Leo's Blog: Infinite Insights

Approaching life like an academic is a very unusual way of approaching life. Most people do not approach life like academics because they are entangled in the survival of it. For example, an academic approaches the study of religion as an abstract, intellectual, philosophical exercise, but most people LIVE their religion. That’s totally different. For an academic, religion is not survival, it’s a curiosity, which completely misses the point of religion. Likewise with politics and many other things. The academic point of view on any issue is itself already biased, biased with aloofness and detachment. It is like the difference between studying dead animals vs live animals. Most people are busy wrangling live animals, not autopsying dead ones. Academics have made careers out of telling you how to tame dead lions.

Of course, non-academics are even more biased, lost in the struggle of wrangling lions. But at least they are closer to the reality of wrangling a lion. The academic does not understand how REAL wrangling a lion is. Although, survival within academia is its own form of lion wrangling, which the successful academic has mastered. Survival within academia is a microcosm of survival in general, and that microcosmic survival game also biases the academic mind. The academic mind is biased both by too little survival and too much survival within an artificial microcosm.

Why elites always rule. Fundamental for understanding politics:

Since a young age I have been fascinated with the madness of crowds and collective thinking. The key insight for understanding politics is this: crowds do not operate on rationality, they operate entirely on vibes. What leftists get wrong is that they expect policy and logic to matter. No! No! No! Policy does not matter. Only vibes matter. Politics is about vibes. Nobody votes for Trump based on logic, they vote for him because he aligns with their vibes. For a logical person, this sounds insane. But that's how crowds are. Stop resisting it, stop denying it, and deal with the bleak reality of it. Also, be careful not to overlook how much of your political view is based on nothing but vibes. More than you'd like to admit.

"Crowds cannot reason" — that's the key insight. Until you understand that, you will never understand politics.

For example, the Israel-Palestine debate is not about policy, it's about vibes. And so it is with all political debates.

I keep a lot of plants in my house, which leads to fly problems. And lately I got mosquitoes for the first time. So I started researching the best ways to trap them. I found the following traps. I placed half a dozen of them around the house and within a few days caught dozens of flies in each trap. A few mosquitos too. The flies are attracted to purple UV light at night, which these traps emit. Leave them on overnight.

It is harder to catch mosquitoes because they are attracted more to heat and CO2 than UV light. But I found a smelly mosquito bait that draws them in. Mosquitoes are also mildly attracted to the warmth of the lights.

I tested the following traps myself and confirm that they really work. I was amazed at how many flies I caught so quickly. I wish I knew about this sooner. If you don't take action the bugs only multiply.

Buy Here - Trap 1

Buy Here - Trap 2

Buy Here - Mosquito Bait (warning: smelly)

(affiliate links)

Here's part 1 of a 19-part university lecture series on the basics of sociology. I haven't watched all of it yet, but the first part on Karl Mannheim is really good. Audio quality sucks, but oh well, suck it up. Karl Mannheim has some great ideas for epistemology. Sociology is an important field for epistemology, although, of course, still too shallow. Understanding and knowledge are not the same thing, but learn to walk before you try to fly.

Link to entire playlist

I share this not because I agree with it, but because our work here is about examining different paradigms. If you are anti-Zionist, it's especially important for you to listen to this entire thing. Don't shut it off. Actually open your mind and listen.

This is how a Zionist sees the world:

I shared this because I want you to see just how relativistic sense-making is. This is what post-modernism is really about: not a blind progressivism, but understanding that progressivism is just one paradigm out of many.

I will be posting many of these videos from Neema Parvini because they are so important for truly understanding politics. I highly recommend his channel. It's a political science goldmine.

Note: Neema Parvini, the creator of these videos, has some regressive, right-wing political opinions. I do not agree with those. I share his videos for their educational content about great political thinkers, not his personal political views. Be careful not to fall down some right-wing regressive rabbit hole.

This is a perfect example of rationalism:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DcKEmHfiJ2X

Rationalism sounds rational, it sounds scientific, but it is epistemically and ontologically false.

There is very much a need in science to explain how anything whatsoever exists! And there is tons of evidence of spiritual phenomena which the rationalist simply refuses to experience out of scientific bigotry.