zurew

Okay bro. Do you think a psychiatrist is engaging in a low blow, when he thinks that suicidal moments are relevant to and they raise the probability of that person being psychotic?

But this is why I told you that considering more facts can overwrite your interpretation of the insta fact. Your case of it being a low blow is reliant on you thinking that the right explanation of the insta fact is that it was just a one off suicidal moment in someone's life. if you consider the possibility that there are alternative explanations for the insta fact, then you open up the possibility of it not necessarily being a low blow. But also not sure what kind of different data points would you be even be looking - if not for instances, where the person is acting out or where he is very mentally low. For instance, do you think a psychiatrist is engaging in a low blow, when he thinks that suicidal moments are relevant to and they raise the probability of that person being psychotic?

When you say "invalid" there, do you mean this: Because again, if thats what you meant by it being invalid , then thats a strawman, because that never was the argument. If you mean something other than that, then go ahead clarify what you mean by "invalid" and clarify why you think it was a low blow.

What you call an excuse there is what I call me implicitly confessing that I might be wrong about you being a dishonest and bad faith actor and me giving you an opportunity to clarify yourself (by the act of explaining the facts in your own way, where you can show me why I misunderstood our interactions and why im wrong about you being bad faith). You characterization of that whole thing is me running away from answering your question (even though its super clear that I answered a bunch of your questions just before that - again more questions in more detail that Leo will ever do to you related to the cult topic and its also very clear that I was willing to acknowledge which question I do and do not have an answer for [for instance your question about the indepdent standard]). So given all of those facts, everyone can decide whether your characterization about me running away from your question is a plausble one or not. The implication that I draw from you answer is that you pretended that only the insta point was related and relevant to establishing Leo having psychotic tendencies. Again to me , this is not about me having an issue with you not directly responding to all the non-insta bullet points, my issue is your characterization of the arguments that are given. The argument contained 3 elements, not just one. You picked out the insta one and then you said that that is a low blow - but whether it is a low blow or not, even that is dependent on you looking at the situation in a bigger context (for instance , in light of the other two bullet points), because the consideration of more facts can change your view about the insta point. Im not sure what your point was about the insta point being a low blow - if not to point out that that point alone is not sufficient to categorize someone as having psychotic tendencies. - because if that was your point, then again you strawmanned Carl, because Carl never made the claim that his insta point is sufficient to establish that.

This is where you were dishonest, because you only picked out the insta images point and then you implied that Carl's original argument was that that one point alone is sufficient and good enough proof to establish psychotic tendencies.

That doesnt target the issue that I outlined, because the lack of responsiveness and acknowledgement was related to a different argument that you made and responded to. This is the general problem with how you do things: You see this and then this is your general approach: " Okay, so you are telling me that having insta images of playing with a guy and implying that he is so close to unalive himself is sufficient to establish psychotic tendencies? Really? - dont you think I couldnt find some guys who do that and then live a completely functional and normal life? " And then someone tells you that that wasnt the whole argument and then you continue with: "Okay, so you are telling me that claiming to be able to turn into an alien on camera and never being able to show proof of that despite trying is alone sufficient to establish psychotic tendencies? Really? - dont you think I couldnt find some guys who think that or joke about it while they live a normal life? " And then someone tells you that that wasnt the whole argument and then you continue with: " Okay you are telling me that someone claiming to be the most awake person in existence alone is sufficient to establish psychotic tendencies? Really? " --- No, you take all of those things into consideration together and given that conjunction of factors you can still disagree, but be honest about what argument was given. Edited just now by zurew

Having issues with Leo's behavior and ethics is comaptible with thinking that he is a smart and intelligent guy. He gave you more than just that , but you curiously havent responded to those other things and you havent taken into account those other things - when it comes to him trying to establish the point that Leo has psychotic tendencies. He even gave you bullet points there. See, this is why I think you are not approaching in good faith. You respond to 1 thing from a list of things and you make it seem like you managed to address all the points or that someone's original point was just about that one particular thing that you picked out and responded to. You see this and then this is your general approach: " Okay, so you are telling me that having insta images of playing with a guy and implying that he is so close to unalive himself is sufficient to establish psychotic tendencies? Really? - dont you think I couldnt find some guys who do that and then live a completely functional and normal life? " And then someone tells you that that wasnt the whole argument and then you continue with: "Okay, so you are telling me that claiming to be able to turn into an alien on camera and never being able to show proof of that despite trying is alone sufficient to establish psychotic tendencies? Really? - dont you think I couldnt find some guys who think that or joke about it while they live a normal life? " And then someone tells you that that wasnt the whole argument and then you continue with: " Okay you are telling me that someone claiming to be the most awake person in existence alone is sufficient to establish psychotic tendencies? Really? " --- No, you take all of those things into consideration together and given that conjunction of factors you can still disagree, but be honest about what argument was given.

I dont understand a lot of things with respect to the bigger post that that smaller quote is embedded in. (There is a reason why I emphasized that post, I just didnt want to immediately spell out my take on it) But here is what I see in that bigger post and in his other posts [1, 2 , 3, 4]in that same thread: Aside from the fact again, that in the bigger post Leo starts with undermining the validity of your cognitive a spiritual faculties , and he tells you that you are in a cult and you are not thinking for yourself (as long as you disagree with him on spirituality and "arrogant" enough to entertain that he might be wrong on spirituality) and aside from the fact that 1) thinking for yourself, 2) not being a in a cult, 3) being properly AWAKE and 4) not being self-deceived and 5) "Properly" caring about the truth (encourage you to give up/undermine your own personal boundaries related to teacher-student ethics and justifies why the dissing rhetoric needs to be used on you and why you are the one who is reponsbile for and to be blamed for the harshness of the rhetoric and methods anyway) - disagreeing with his judgements related to the 5 listed things is tied together with the negation of all the 5 things being applicable to you (if you disagree with his judgement related to the 5 listed things, then that automatically means that you dont care enough about Truth, you are not AWAKE, you are not thinking for yourself and you are in a cult and you are self-deceived all at the same time. He created a scenario under which he made the students necessarily reliant on him on all sorts of things (as long as they disagree with anything related to the 5 listed things) and he gets to directly control the narrative and be the exclusive judge of all the things that are related to the listed 5 things - he gets to directly control and be the exclusive judge of what kind of teacher-student ethics you need to be okay with, he gets to control and be the exclusive judge of how AWAKE you are, he gets to control and be the exclusive judge of when you are "thinking for yourself", he gets to control and be the exclusive judge of when you are in a cult and when you are not, he gets to control and be the exclusive judge of when you are self-deceived and when you are not. He also gets to control whats the "right" and "correct" interpretation is of that very post - The post very carefully justifies itself in a way where only his 1 spelled out interpretation of that very post is accurate and is valid, and any negative interpretation of that post under which he would be seen in a negative light just automatically means sheer lunacy and an utter disrespect for his work. So you either agree with all the things related to the 5 listed things ( you give up your sovereignty and your control and your alternative interpretations related to the list and related to the content of that whole post) or the negation of the 5 listed things are all applicable to you and you are engaging in sheer lunacy and you are also disrespecting his work and you are gaslighting him and you gets to be a deluded fool like Nahm, WinterKnight, Frank Yank, TJ Reeves, and all the others. This is a lot more than just him using improper rhetoric and him not choosing the right set of words to express himself and him just not caring about your suffering (which are the main things that he apologized for in his original apology blog post). To my understanding - He never apologized for the gaslighting , for the mind games and for making everyone reliant on him and for him dictating all the narrative related to everything and for him banning and threatening people. (but he doesnt need to apologize , imo he should rather change his behavior and stop sliming around and he should acknowledge the gravity of his mistakes) And again, this is all aside from the other things that I mentioned and laid down in my main, long post.

This one post in particular is very good at targeting most of things that I have issue with. it speaks for itself.

Yeah I dont think that he backed off from him having the ability to become an alien in front of the camera yet or at the very least clarify that he is agnostic on that claim. Interesting that in the past , @AdeptusPsychonautica was needed to push Leo to walk back his claim about awakening healing you and it solving all of your problems Although he quickly switch back and makes a bunch of other claims.

If you are looking for a sentence that contains that exact set and sequence of words made by someone - in that case , I wont able to give you that - but again, I think thats a strangely specific thing to ask for, the same way it was strange for you imo to try to make a relevant distinction between Leo not making any explicit and exact 2026 sentence about him being the most conscious being on the planet, instead of him just making the claim that he is the standard on epistemology and that he is willing trash everyone else except himself on epistemology.(and again, not just related to spirituality, but it was specifically given in response to and related to what definition of cult ought to be used by everyone). The main pont there is just that my claim is that there are people and moderators here imo who put Leo above everyone else (including themselves) and they will be defensive about Leo and again wont make any serious criticism about Leo and will usually diss people who make criticisms about Leo and will label them closed minded - Now, if you think there are no such people here, great, then Im wrong and that criticism doesnt target anyone. I obviously think that there are such people, but I wont name them, because im not interested in derailing this thread by fighting with those people right now and im also not interested in providing data and arguments to defend that specific claim - feel free to disagree or to be skeptical about it. I think I provided data for a good chunk of my other claims that I made in my main post - feel free to disagree, but I would prefer if you again, wouldnt just go point by point, but if you would provide an overall coherent story that can explain all the facts that I provided in my post (not talking about you explaining my characterization of the data, im talking about you clicking the links, reading through those threads and providing an overall coherent story where you account for all the facts that are relevant and related to Leo in those threads). Or if you want to go point by point, then show us which specific claims made by me are false and why (and provide supporting data for your claims if you think its necessary to do so) , because I think thats different from you not denying almost any of my claims (you agreeing with almost literally everything descriptively laid down there) and only disagreeing with my operating definition of cult.

I dont label them as suckups - I label those as suckups who not just frequently glaze Leo , but those who buy into Leo's idea that he is the most conscious being in the Universe and I refer to people and moderators here who label people "closed minded" who dont want to blindly buy into that idea and im talking about people who almost never ever make any serious criticism of Leo and who are willing to excuse all his behavior no matter what he does.

I updated my post. You can disagree , but your point does not address the issues that I outlined. From now on its on Leo to actually respond to those points if he wants to.

Instead of doubling down and trying to shove down your one highly specific and conveniently declared defintion of cult inside everyone's throats in a way where you also imply that everyone who disagree with you on that must be wrong and there is no room for disagreement - you can just stop playing superiority games and you can just stop undermining literally everyone else's takes and views on things you care about and these threads are gonna die very quick and they will lose all of their appeal. its very very easy for you to stop , but you choose to continue. You continue to play superiority games and you continue to undermine everyone's sovereignty except the ones who agree with you perfectly on things you personally care about. This is all on you. You can at any given moment : stop declaring yourself to be the exclusive and proper standard of epistemology , and stop explicitly saying and stop implying that everyone else is spiritually and or cognitively impaired for disagreeing with you on matters that you care about and you can stop at any moment declaring yourself to be the most conscious human being in the universe. Make it very clear, that your belief about you being the most conscious human being in the Universe and about you accessing the highest states relies on you making assumptions about data that you dont have any access to. You dont have any access to anyone's history on how conscious they are or what states they achieved or what awakening they have had - you rely on making inferences about those things based on your trips and based on your awakenings . But you know this very well, that making inferences is not a foolproof epistemic activity, and you know very well, that inferences are subject to be wrong, and you would never ever in your life (including your fans) accept or entertain such an inference to be made by any other spiritual teacher (let alone by any of your non-suckup members), so stop pretending that its a legitimate move and stop pretending that that claim of yours is unshakeable and that you have grounds to make that claim in any definitive way. None of the suckups here who rhetorically ask the question of "but how do you know that Leo is wrong about him being the most conscious being in the Universe" ask the same question to themselves in a way where the subject of that question (Leo) is changed to a different person . Leo cant answer this question in any definitive way either , but for some reason the suckups pretend and demand from non-suckups to give a definitive answer to that question, because if they cant, then they must be closed minded and must not be doing the "real" work. Most non-suckups dont make the claim that they definitively know that Leo isn't the most conscious being in the Universe, they rather say that no one knows who is the most conscious being in the Universe, because no one has access to all the relevant data to make that evaluation (and this is aside from the obvious issue that there is no definitive and indepedent answer about what standard should even be used to make the evaluation in the firstplace). To be very very clear on this - Its the suckups and Leo who pretend that they know beyond any doubt what standard needs to be used for that evaluation and its the suckups and Leo who make that leap of faith (about Leo being the most conscious being in the Universe) and they are the ones who diss non-suckups for not doing the same. Even granting your whole epistemic frame about Relativity and there being ever deeper awakenings and that previous awakenings and inights are never undermined by deeper awakenings (just only recontextualized) - you never addressed the epistemic issues that comes with such a frame [1 , 2] and again, granting that such a frame is true, that just gives you even more reason to not make definitive statements about how deep other people have gone, because your depth perception is limited by your current depth and you cant know what set of insights and what set of recontextualiztations lie in deeper awakenings. But regardless you dont buy into this Relativity thing , you only buy into it at the times, when its convenient for you to do so. Ask yourself this question - Why must everyone hold the belief that Leo is the most conscious human being in the Universe? If the answer to that is that none of that is necessary, then why continue to engage in that dynamic and why continue to contribute to such dynamic ? A dynamic, that creates more blind suckups and a dynamic, that creates an idol from Leo and distract people away from doing the work. Why is it not enough to make the claim that there might be more that can be achieved (for instance, if they did x,y,z spiritual practices)? If the answer to that is "because they are the kind of bunch, who are not open to the fact that they can be wrong and that there is more" - in that case, explain to us how is your solution helpful in persuading those people (those, who you actually think are belong in the closed-minded category) by making yourself to be an idol? Leo tell us again, why is the idolization of yourself is necessary to achieve any of your goals? And before you will dishonestly make your caveat again that you can be full of shit - here is a post you making that caveat and clarifying "but not on this issue" (implying that you might be full of shit about everything else, but not about you being the most conscious being in the Universe) Leo also tell us a story about how you banning people and how you threatening that you will ban them (if they dare to disagree with you on the fact that you are not the most conscious being in the Universe and or that you might be wrong about spirituality ) contributes and contributed to their development, contributes and contributed to their wellbeing? Leo tell us a story about how you treating everyone like a retarded child the moment they disagree with you on things you care about helps them in any way at all? Leo tell us how you rountinely Gashlighting people like this and not actually taking responsibility for your actions (the apology that you gave is framing all these issues as just bad rhetoric use) is helpful and useful to anyone here and how does that not make you an abuser ,where you can arbitrarily and conveniently let go of the human frame the moment you need to take any responsbility for the things you did and said? Where is the moment where you stop pretending that this is just an issue about a few crashouts and just an issue about your rhetoric and not about your dogmatic beliefs about you being better than everyone else and about you thinking that everyone else are just unconscious rats ? [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. You either become a suckup or you have to be subjected to Leo's abusive tactics , because thats when you are serious about the work and thats when you are doing the real work and thats when you are thinking for yourself. Leo tell us why you treat your non-suckup moderators like this and tell us how playing these mind games [1 , 2] on them help them in any way at all? Especially the part where you PM them" to talk it out" Leo, why not for once in your life - answer these questions plainly in detail with actual substance without redirecting, without accusing people of not understanding or being purportedly disrespectful for having a different opinion and without you pretending that all of this can be simply explained away by you having a few crashouts here and there and or by you simply using "bad rhetoric" for strategic purposes (which again, you never explained anywhere - how and why that tactic is effective at converting closed minded people) and how that tactic is not just another plausible deniability move from the big plausible deniablity stack that you usually appeal to and that you frequently use (including the new one, where your forum posts apparently and suddenly dont need to be taken seriously and they need to be treated as just casual convos the moment you are cornered about the things you did and said. Even though previously your stance was this on it and not this:

if you actually thought that, in that case you wouldnt have created this thread and you wouldnt be replying to people here and trying to persuade them to do what you think is more productive for them to do.

I know that you are, but im not sure about the other guy.

Talking shit about someone's appearance without showing your face first is cringe.

its also important to repeat that moderators are not getting paid for any of this. I understand that you wouldnt want a person in your team (who is again there to provide service for free) to make a public thread like this about you, but I personally wouldnt want to be an employee or part of a team where the group leader can publicly diss me and I am not allowed to do the same or to raise concerns publicly about his public behavior.

Most of the interactions with Leo are public here including the ones where he publicly disses and dismisses people (including moderators). No private or special facts were leaked here that wasnt already avalaible to anyone who frequently uses or visits this forum. If you think its not okay to do this kind of behavior publicly without a bunch of qualifications where you include and outline all the positive things about Leo before you include the negative things, then you surely also have issue with Leo dissing and dismissing people here publicly (unless you think that its reasonable to apply a higher standard for moderators than what you apply to Leo)

I think its worth to bring some attention back to the fact about how little is being asked from Leo and from the community here (regardless whether you agree with the operating definition of cult used by me or by other people who call this place a cult) It also seemed to have been the case, that even most people here who disagreed with the label, they mostly agreed desriptively with the underlying issues that were outlined here and they also agreed that it would be cool if those things would be resolved - but I personally havent seen any of them bring up these issues to Leo or bring Leo's attention to these issues, and I think thats quite clearly a collective failure. The defenses provided here were almost never that the provided data and facts arent true or that they arent problematic - the defense was that the problematic facts arent sufficient to satisfy your working definition of a cult. It also worth to bring attention back to the fact how disagreement was largely handled here. After agreeing with you that the things that you outlined are problematic, those same members want you to leave the group rather than collabing with you and putting pressure on the leader to make a change about things that everyone agreed are problematic and whose resolution would make everything better.

Let me rephrase my original question then - lets say your friend was in posession of all the background facts that you have about Leo right now. Do you think that, given this additional info that your friend's assessment of Leo's previously presented replies and behavior would be significantly and more positively recontextualized?

@Thought Art If a friend showed you the same kind of evidence about another spiritual leader whose responses and behavior were essentially identical to Leo's, do you think you would view that leader's statements in a similar way, or do you think that you might interpret them differently?

What do you mean? @UnbornTao was specifically asking for video evidence there and Leo responded to him. Do you think Leo makes a difference between turning into an alien and between turning into an alien in front of the camera in his reply there ? Look: But regardless, I havent seem him admitting anywhere that he was wrong about it and at best you can only say in light of the linked thread, that Leo didnt respond to the video stuff that @UnbornTao was asking about there (under the most charitable interpretation of Leo's reply you can possible go with there - if you want to maintain your position that Leo didnt make any additional claims beyond his initial claim about him having an ability to turn into an alien in front of the camera)

I dont think so

The video evidence was uploaded here 2 millennia ago, actualized.org members were just too unconcious to see it and to recognize it.