danilofaria

The question of having children or not is one I have struggled with quite a bit for most of my life. Leo's latest video (Reproduction Is An Illusion) addresses one of the main reasons why people have kids (to reproduce their genes), and why this does not matter. However, I would appreciate a discussion on the other reasons people decide to have kids and to what extent they are valid or flawed. In my specific case, I've never had an inner desire to have kids and I tend to feel like it would be such a huge investment of time and effort for me that it would end up severely hurting the other goals I have in life. But for me, one of the main arguments for having children (or for having a family generally) is that you need people who genuinely love you at the moments when you need to be taken care of. Leo did mention in his video that in today's society, one doesn't really need his or her family to survive, but I could think of many scenarios where being by yourself vs around your family could save your life (e.g. you got a heart attack and need someone to call emergency for you). I am aware of some of the counter-arguments. One of them is that it is up to you to be as healthy as possible and do all you can to never need anybody's help. The flaw of this argument is that by being as healthy as you can, you are simply delaying the moment when this will happen. Also, certain health problems are not related to one's habits and are inevitable. The other counter-argument is that even if you have children, there is no guarantee that they will be decent people and will get your ass when you need it. Fine argument, but still having a child gives you higher chances of having someone for you than not having one at all. In the end, I really tend to not wanna have children. But this argument (which I admit is a selfish argument) is one which I struggle to find a solution for. Please share your thoughts.

The argument of wanting to have children so you have people to care for you when you're old is selfish because the person having the children is mostly worried about themselves, that's what I meant. But even then, I still think it is one of the strongest reasons.

Could you elaborate on that? I personally have no knowledge of any human being who has done that.

Hey @Angelite, please feel free to elaborate more. Also, what is the name of this book?

Hey, that's insightful. Can you point me to those studies?

@exhale Thanks for the thoughtful and thorough reply, it was delightful to read. Could you tell me briefly what led you to the decision of having kids? Was it just a desire you'd always had or was there something more to it? Do you think it is possible to raise kids properly, have an active life purpose and also a deep spiritual path all at the same time, or is it kind of a pick 2 kind of situation?

@exhale Thank you for your reply from the point of view of someone who has kids and enjoys it. I would really appreciate it if you can elaborate a bit on how the experience of having kids has enriched your life and given you a sense of purpose. Please do share your insights.

To me these albums by Mike Oldfield are pure spirit Ommadawn Hergest Ridge Amarok

I think a very good follow up video to the Spiral Dynamics series would be a long video answering all the commonly asked questions and misconceptions that arise when studying this topic. A few question ideas: How does spiral dynamics relate to intelligence? (is a person on a lower level less intelligent than a person on an upper level?) How does spiral dynamics relate to level of consciousness? (do you get more conscious as you go up the spiral?) How does spiral dynamics relate to level of happiness? (do you get happier as you go up the spiral?) Why should I pursue developing myself up the spiral? How can I help someone I care about raise to a different level? Why can't you skip a level? I invite other people to add their questions here.

I just read the newest insights post by @Leo Gura about the growing earth https://actualized.org/insights/a-growing-earth In it it is hypothesized that bigger animals could thrive in the past when the Earth's radius was ~50% of what it is today. However gravitational theory says that gravitational force is inversely proportional to the squared radius, which means that gravity on the Earth's surface then would be 4 times what it is today. So how can that be a better environment for big animals?

@Leo Gura Why do you consider anti-vaxers green? I've always seen them as people who are just really ignorant about what vaccines are for. How can someone so dumb be in an advanced stage such as green?

@Andre Quinonez It is very easy to see the html source code of a web page. Just right click on the page and choose "View Page Source" or something similar. You can also view the source code of a specific element of the page by right clicking on it and choosing "Inspect". I just did what you said and I saw that there are indeed some hidden books in the source code. The way they are hidden is the code got commented out. That means you will see something like this <!--<div class="book_box"> some html code in here </div>--> (code between <!-- --> does not show up in the browser) Hope that helps.

I had assumed that the Earth was expanding with constant-ish mass. However, if the claim is that the mass is increasing, this is an even crazier hypothesis than just that the Earth is expanding. Because, where would the extra mass come from?

@Leo Gura do you think Osho is in state Orange? Doesn't the fact that he is an enlightened guru with many books written about spiritual topics make him at least above Orange?

@Leo Gura Could you give me an answer to the question I posted on the topic below? Thanks

What is the difference (or similarity) between consciousness, awareness, and psyche? There have been talks about raising all three, and it confuses me. I am not sure if we are talking about the same thing of different things. There is talk about increasing awareness. https://www.actualized.org/articles/understanding-awareness About increasing the quality of your consciousness. https://www.actualized.org/articles/low-quality-vs-high-quality-consciousness And in Spiral Dynamics, there is talk about the different levels of development of the psyche. https://actualized.org/articles/the-grand-model-of-psychological-evolution There is also talk about building mindfulness https://www.actualized.org/articles/mindfulness I've been seeing all these things as the same, with the same process for increasing them (meditation, contemplation, self-inquiry, yoga, etc). But am I wrong? Are they different things? Can you develop one and not the others? From what I understand, mindfulness and awareness are the same thing (being in the moment and having an observation of yourself). The definition given of consciousness in the video above is "the degree of accurate perception you have." That also sounds quite similar. Many dictionaries also define consciousness and awareness as synonyms. When it comes to the psyche, the video on Spiral Dynamics says "psyche includes all the different psychological aspects of the brain and mind." So it sounds like psyche includes the other concepts. But is the development of the psyche equivalent to raising the level of consciousness/awareness and vice versa? Sorry if this has been asked before, but I searched the forum and did not find this question.

@Leo Gura Can you talk a bit more about your video game development career? What made you quit on it? I am pursuing a career in the field and I would like to hear more about your experience.

Feel free to share your notes. I believe they could be useful to other people