Jayson G

@Leo Gura I think there's miscommunication because it's not that I'm not serious. I've been seriously considering to do it for years. What I was referring to was the deep spirituality it brings you into which scares me off. But for the other benefits you mentioned in the past which I've seen are life transforming, that's what draws me to it seriously, which is why I've been wanting to do it for years.

@Leo Gura I always wondered this, but sometimes I don't know if I want to dive that deep into spirituality, god consciousness and all that, but all the benefits of kriya yoga seem appealing to me. Does it make sense to pursue kriya yoga if you're not actually looking to find god and stuff? I know the very definition of that, is to find god, or union, and I think you said earlier that the goal of kriya yoga is that, but I do recall all the other benefits you mentioned in the past. Practically speaking, if one does it for 6 months they'd know if its the right path for them and whether to continue or not? Maybe thats what gets you to desire deeper spirituality when you experience it for yourself? Just wondering if you had any thoughts on this. I'm still quite business and practical life oriented at the moment.

@Leo Gura I connected with my history teacher after 10+ years and he basically confirmed that this is already happening. They're making his life much harder, AI and the students.

@Leo Gura on a side note, I've been observing your recent replies and I'm not sure but I don't think you commented at all or much on the war with Iran? Not that I'm depending on this, but it would be valuable to hear your thoughts on it .. unless you're planning an episode on the entire fiasco or something? This is the first time I have people, family from around the world affected by this, even hearing the sounds of the attacks and shaking of the windows. This seems somewhat unprecedented.

@Leo Gura ah damn I didn't even think about that. Kid aside, even I don't want to live in a world where everything around me is AI-augmented in terms of meaning, writing, etc. That's quite depressing. Tbh its probably already likely happening, but just the start of it. Billboards, posters, food items, everything. There likely will be no escaping it just like how devices have become an integral part of society that is quite hard to escape.

@Leo Gura well its no different from any other trap a parent should guide a child to avoid in life: drugs, weed, etc. Of course one wouldn't be able to completely shield from AI, but there's still a lot that can be done to prevent crazy AI misuse. Worst case? Move to the scottish countryside and hang out with chickens and cows and enjoy nature and stuff lol .. half kidding half serious

@Leo Gura Yes, I have a big problem with this aspect: "obviate human intelligence, consciousness, and creativity" which is why I vowed to never allow my child, when I have one, to use AI for like 20 years. I can forsee that people will outsource their intelligence to AI and that will just make humans dumber. That's pretty clear that this will occur. My conclusion on AI is that its a hallucination machine, from one perspective. Hallucination is not truth. It is a hyper-creative hallucination machine which they're trying to tame, align, etc. but its still a hallucination machine. Misunderstanding AI as truth has caused me problems. I think also as the community of actualized.org, we are not accounting for many communities who proactively outsource their intelligence heavily, don't know how to think for themselves, etc. and they will all suffer immensely, because this beast will ride them. (not to say that we are immune to its dangers though).

@Leo Gura a quick test of human intelligence vs. AI intelligence hit me when I was talking to ChatGPT and then switched to deep journaling in OneNote. I instantly realized how much more powerful that level of contemplation, creativity, understanding, etc. is with OneNote. I also think there's something quite deeply wrong when they say that AI intelligence is PhD level.

@Leo Gura I think the AI hype is very real, but why are we underestimating the power of these tools though? Here is where I was deceived with AI: 1) I spent months on projects because AI was hyping me up. I saw through that, and now I'm very cautious about long-term decisions and consulting AI on that. But here's where it's undeniably valuable, and not just talking, but actually doing tasks: a) helped me see for example that the US invasion or Iran didn't make Trump a hero for freeing the Iranian people (naive of me to first see), but that there's deeper mechanics at play, with crashing their economy with a targeted play, no current real nuclear threat right now, oil, etc. I was able to see these nuances in a sea of misinformation with politics. That's a pretty real use case. b) AI pulled me out of dangerous situations in Baltimore, helped me solve stressful home repair situations, etc. c) I use Claude Code to apply for jobs for me -> it finds jobs based on my resume, assesses if I qualify, fills out the fields based on what it knows about me, etc. and this has led to a handful of interviews so far, since I started 3 weeks ago. .. Claude Code in particular is quite amazing at task automation, etc. I quite regularly tell it to delete files on my computer, stale, non-needed files, often cache. This is my real experience that has been genuinely useful. Not just talking, but actual task completion. This is only a small list. But would I give my kid AI? heck no. Has it deceived me? Tons of times. But to say this is all just slop and all that misses nuance, and different perspectives. To say these aren't powerful tools is also misguided.

my god, i miss that song mad world .. I haven't thought about that in so long, that was the first song that made me reflect deeply on life as a teen

would be funny if it actually is slop talking about the destruction that slop is doing to our society

@LordFall but strategically that seems like a low reward high cost desperate situation to now anger all these countries in the process, just for targeting a handful of US bases .. I mean to get now not just US and Israel against you, but all these other countries. That can't be that smart?

Gah damn the implications of this are big .. so many countries are getting hit in the process. I have family in Dubai and they're getting hit, and there's nothing I can do about it. Has iran lost their mind to hit so many countries? I understand USA attacked first, and that's also crazy but how are we supposed to make sense of all this?

@Natasha Tori Maru They do seem like open, good people relatively, but idk if I missed something but what's the main purpose of doing podcasts at all? I actually listen to a lot of podcasts, but Leo seems far better off in his main episodes, unless there's some deeper reason to podcasts that I'm missing? opening the minds of the rationalist community or something? lol .. is that why we're doing this?

@Leo Gura Just checked out the episode, don't mean to be critical here, but I thought some feedback could help: - honestly, I felt like the hosts were friction, and I just want to here you go deeper like you do in your episodes - your episodes are great because the audio quality and depth are locked in I think socializing, like you'd do with the hosts gets in the way, or their questioning didn't probe deeper. Idk I only got 20 minutes in. Your main episodes feel like a mind odyssey. The contrast helps me see and appreciate your main episodes more.

I remember in 4th grade I felt like time was slowing down during rare moments. I'd go to the bathroom, sit down, and just feel time slowing down to an abnormal degree. I told my mom and she didn't know what to say. She told her mom, my grandma, and she was like "eh its nothing". It went away though after a year or so. I always wondered what that was. But other things happened to me too. Like last year I went to the beach at night, and it felt like this slight electrifying feeling going through my body. And that happens like after I shower and enter a quiet room. But at the beach that night it happened like 50x. Now I look back and just think okay maybe reality is more than what I'm told it is by everyone, that there are just these anomalies, and that in itself is as weird or normal as all else that's going on that we call normal. But idk

@Leo Gura but how much value do you think is in the new agey space now? or even eastern medicine? I think one time you also said a psychic predicted a few things and they were surprisingly accurate to your knowledge - so Im sensing there has to be a good amount of value in all this? I haven't delved much in these areas but I was planning to over the years to see if theres value. I'll test for myself, but was wondering what your take was. But there's no doubt to me that most are BS'ers. I mean thats human nature in almost every field I see, that most people are either average, liars, fake, exaggerating, etc.

@Hojo lol you might have a point ..

@Leo Gura I think there's a difference though .. I never had an issue sleeping with girls. It's quite simple to put a condom on and save yourself from 99% of issues. But I've only done psychedelics like 4x - one ended up with cops and paramedics involved. I couldve been more strategic about it, but as a 22 yr old back then, lack of guidance, etc. - I dont think psychedelics are for most people unless you get a strong foundation going in many ways.

ahh okay nice .. Im here for it all though longterm

@Leo Gura I'm not trying to misquote you or something, but when you said "My goal is to create the most advanced and clearest philosophy for mankind which synthesizes science, rationality, and mysticism" is that just one of your goals and the goals of actualized.org? Im wondering if personal development is still a big goal of actualized.org? Things like more practical fields too like creativity, investing, emotions, etc.? Honestly I try my best to learn about that stuff when you share, but I feel like it'll take me time to invest deeper into that stuff, those other areas of reality until I achieve baseline levels of self and life mastery.

@Leo Gura Well its a good thing I don't eat eggs lol But nah I hope you're wrong. Though now feels similar to the dotcom hype to crash.

@Leo Gura one big thing I've been trying to understand is if its true that "USA needs to win the AI development war so as not to be dominated by China." Eric Schmidt for example is big on this. Sometimes I can see merit to this. Other times, I question whether I have some bias here or some blind spot or some truth I'm missing. From one angle the manhattan project was just that. Us winning led partly to hitler being stopped, if I understand correctly. To add to that Trump, even though I know how incredibly corrupt he is, is activating this AI development largely. So is he doing good here? or is this whole thing grounded in falsehood. I don't even know how to derive at the truth here. It could also just be a way for America to get more power, maybe its just Eric's biased towards being identified with the US military. USA is always on a drive to get more and more power. It could just be that. It could be that these powerful people use some truth to support a largely false argument, to weaponize some truth, or it could actually be true, which maybe I'll never know without all the facts.

@Leo Gura loll yeah I can see that being possible with him, my biggest internal struggle is sorting truth from falsehood. It's frustrating at times. Reality is messy

@Leo Gura I don't think we can honestly know what is true and what is not for the most part sitting on the outside sidelines. Hype train bias? for sure. I've seen he's all AI-biased. He has an argument for every possible AI scenario being on the positive side of history. He doesn't think there's a negative scenario in AI for the most part, which sounds too biased.