aurum

You don’t even need to be a math nerd to see the flaws. His “proof” doesn’t even follow basic laws of algebra. Most high school kids should be able to debunk it.

Great, glad to hear it was positive for you.

There will certainly be a lot of devilry that goes down, that much is guaranteed. It's just a question of whether it will be a net-positive or net-loss for humanity's development. So far, I'm leaning towards net-positive. Humans have been developing revolutionary technologies for a long time, and they have mostly been net-positive in the long-term. I think it's a mistake to assume that our timing in history is so unique that this trend would stop. But it's a genuinely unclear situation that is near impossible to predict.

Whatever risks exists related to not taking in nutrients for 72+ hours. You’d probably have to speak to a doctor or dietician with an understanding of fasting to get a real assessment of your personal risk profile. The most obvious one to me is simply muscle loss. To put it plainly, if your fast causes you to lose muscle, then it’s hard to justify it in terms of cost / benefit. Muscle is extremely valuable from a health perspective. But it’s also easy to lose and hard to gain back. You will be in an extended catabolic state while fasting and it’s very possible you could lose muscle. Other potential risks could be dehydration from throwing off your electrolyte balance, exacerbating already present nutritional deficiencies, passing out, hypotension, heart palpitations etc. In general, people in the alternative health community can be sloppy with their risk assessment of their various interventions. They will point out all the potential side effects of pharmaceuticals, but not mention their own.

I'm not vegan myself but I am generally sympathetic to the cause. I think we can improve our relationship with the other animals on the planet. So I'm just going to lay out what I feel are a necessary criteria for anyone interested in making veganism more mainstream: 1) Show how veganism significantly reduces the externalities that come from human survival compared to eating meat. The accounting needs to be holistic, including whatever externalities are caused by a vegan diet, including things like Big Agriculture. This is much more challenging than I see many vegans admitting. It is not easy to significantly reduce externalities. 2) Show how veganism will be nutritionally superior, or at least on par, with eating meat. Right now vegans are losing on this point. But this may change in the future as we improve on things like lab grown meat, supplementation, etc. 3) Make veganism pragmatic and accessible to the average person. If people have to spend an extra 10 hours a day to be vegan, pragmatically no one will do so. It needs to be convenient. 4) You need to win a large culture war around the tradition of eating meat. Many people eat meat simply because it's a part of their culture and identity. Just being mad at people for eating meat accomplishes nothing. And it's foolish to think you can just demand society change. You have to actually solve these problems.

This guy's channel is so good at illuminating the geo-political chess game. 10/10

Not legally. There would have to be a trial for that. Maybe. It’s certainly not a good look for Israel. But given that there will be no trial, I suspect ramifications will be relatively minor.

My guess is that it's unlikely there will be any serious consequences for the Israeli leaders. Symbolic move more than anything else.

@shree honestly I don’t really recommend longer fasts for people at this point. My experience is that the benefits are largely overhyped and you’re mostly just putting yourself through unnecessary suffering / risk. You’ll have to decide for you. If you are going to do it, here’s some hacks that will help: 1) Electrolytes. There are specific fasting supplements that exist you can purchase. Some people try to make their own or just add salt to their water, not recommended. Get a real brand. Also I’d recommend spring / mineral water (not distilled!) 2) Essentially amino acid supplement (EAAs). These are such a hack because they allow you to get protein in without breaking your fast. Perfect Amino is a brand I like. 3) Assume you will have no energy to do anything. You may be functional, but that’s not gamble you want to take. Plan like you know you are going to be sick for those couple days. And just relax. 4) I like breaking my fast with watermelon. Super easy to digest, kicks you out of fasting mode quickly.

Yes. But also be mindful, because resonance does not guarantee that what you are putting out is high quality. Nor does lack of resonance necessarily mean that your work is low quality. People mostly just resonate with whatever is at their current level of development and matches their belief system. So resonance by itself is not an adequate indicator of the quality of someone’s work. That’s good. Focus on your lane. But also, don’t be naive about this. You are starting a business. And all businesses need to compete. You are competing against other creators for attention, clicks, likes, donations etc. It’s just a question of to what degree you are competing and if it becomes toxic or not.

@Lyubov The best solution is creating content that is genuinely high value enough that you don’t need to pander. The more low-quality your content, the more you will need to play games, promote bullshit and manipulate the algorithm. Of course, high-quality content is also much more difficult to truly pull off. So it’s a high investment but potentially high reward move. My biggest concern would be whether you can create that high level of content through travel videos. That’s a competitive niche at this point with lots of people doing that. You may end up just fighting for clicks unless your videos are truly exceptional.

Yes, there is repression. It's great that you are deconstructing that. But it also pays to be mindful of your balance. It's very easy when you are deconstructing repression to swing the pendulum hard in the other direction and assume that there should be no limitations at all. Just something to consider.

@Samsonov Are you looking to become a fruitarian?

@ricachica congrats! Cool life purpose you’re carving out for yourself.

Awesome, congrats. I'm not going to be a great source for wisdom on this as I've never owned a home, aren't married and don't have kids. Take my perspective with a definite grain of salt. There is definitely something comforting about a childhood home. My parents still have ours, and there is something nice about being able to visit as an adult. Everything feels very familiar, stable and safe. It's kind of like a rock in a world that sometimes can feel crazy, confusing, scary and tumultuous. I also feel like a home gives you more autonomy over your living environment. You can really set it up almost exactly how you want. With renting you tend to be more limited. Other factors I would consider: 1) How much flexibility vs mobility do you want in your lifestyle? 2) Do you want to live in the city or suburbs / rural area? 3) What kind of school do you want to send your kids to? 4) Do you like taking care of your own maintenance? Ultimately I think either could be a good choice. It's mostly a function of what kind of lifestyle you want.

It's going to be a big shift for you. I'd say some nerves are definitely warranted. But if you honestly can make 120k+ starting while working 5 hours a day remote, that's ridiculously good money and you need to take it. It will set you up to handle your survival needs nicely. Next priority would be continually drilling down on the specifics of your life purpose. And if the company doesn't think you have the experience necessary to hire you, they won't. You will learn the vast majority of what you need on the job. So I wouldn't worry about that.

Making fun of some Stage Green stereotypes: His channel is a goldmine of these.

@Buba I wouldn't go searching for a mystic/guru. These people more than likely cannot help you. If I was in your shoes, I'd look into Fascial Counterstrain (https://counterstrain.com). It's a cutting edge manual therapy modality that seems to have some success when conventional medicine fails. See if a practitioner is in your area. Obviously results are never guaranteed, but given your situation, it may be worth a shot. It may at least be able to help with managing your symptoms.

@Davino I'm mostly staying away from attempting too much at cogniziing what it might be like. Seems like one of those you probably just need to experience. That said, I've had some thoughts. If we can say that hyper-mind is to the human-mind what the human-mind is to an ant-mind, then shouldn't there be a hyper-hyper-mind compared to hyper-mind? And shouldn't there also be a hyper-hyper-hyper mind? How far does it go? Does it even make sense to think about an end point, or is it just an infinite fractal pattern? It's definitely interesting to contemplate.

We could choose to define "whole" in many different ways. For the purposes of this discussion, we can think of "whole" in terms of holons. A human cell is whole, which makes up a whole set of tissues, which makes up a whole organ, which makes up a whole human, which makes up a whole population, which makes up a whole society ->>> to infinity. So we have lesser wholeness within higher wholeness. But it's not just physical stuff that are holons. The psyche also functions as a holon, as seen with the Tier 2 integration of all Tier 1 stages. This holonic thinking is fundamental to Wilber's work.

I would like to see studies as well. I'm pro-empirical data. The problem is that Wilber's work is inherently not academic-friendly. Saying doing studies would be "really hard" is an understatement. To really do a convincing study, you need a narrowly defined quantifiable question and an ability to eliminate as many variables as possible. Wilber's work is broad, subjective and arguably trans-rational. It's the opposite of academically rigorous, which is why it's not taken seriously in academia. In addition, studies cost millions of dollars that need to be funded and published by someone. And usually you need a whole bunch of them to really convince the scientific community.

Wild that some people seem to think that Trump's chances of winning the presidency are actually higher now than in 2020. Biden has spent four years doing a decent enough job as president. Meanwhile, Trump has spent four years mostly getting indicted and crying on social media. And this is already after Trump lost as an incumbent. Even if he wins this trial and it galvanizes his base, I still think he is in a losing position.

However much self-deception exists in conscious development, it is less than the self-deception of unconscious development. Those are your only two choices. Conscious development also includes working through self-deception. Also, the entire function of this forum is for people interested in conscious development. So I’m not sure why else you would be here. Yes, he encourages people to development themselves. This is what most people need. If it becomes neurotic at times then that is admittedly a problem. You cannot escape making prescriptions in life. You are making prescriptions right now, in this conversation. Stop telling Wilber that he ought not take an is and turn it into an ought. You can mix the two just fine. Ethics, philosophy and development all interconnect. As far as evidence for Wilber’s prescriptions, I can see them work in my own life. Test them out for yourself. You’re not going to get a scientific study proving his work.

Sure there is definitely some of that. Although at the same time, I’d also argue you are not going to find a teacher / community who doesn’t suffer from the same fate. The question is to what degree and how toxic it is. Development is happening either consciously or unconsciously. Why would unconscious development be superior to conscious development? That’s your particular, limited perspective on wholeness. How do you know there aren’t other more inclusive perspectives?

Not from a holonic perspective. Which is at the center of Wilber’s work.