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@CARDOZZO Great share, thank you.

I initially had a lot of concerns about AI art but then fairly quickly corrected my thoughts after researching and understanding it more. The idea that it's going to replace traditional art is mostly false. Obviously, there are some trad artists who will be affected but most not. AI art is excellent - but in its own way. The main limiting factor with AI art is that it's *not* good at successfully responding to professional creative briefs which is precisely what the job of a traditional artist is. AI art can create incredible images, but this is not what's important. People miss this. The important metric is - can people use the technology to respond to real requirements and specifications from a client. It can't do this. Because you'd need to explicate so many details and nuances that a human artist will automatically understand. AI art can be used in the preliminary stages (idea generation, mood boards, initial ideas, etc) because there aren't specific requirements for the image to look a particular way. After the initial stages, AI art tech can't be used. I generally consider AI art to be the next form of Fine Art, which has a very specific definition. Fine Art is art that has primarily aesthetic value and no functional value which, in general, describes AI art. And aesthetic value is very important (most expensive items in the world are works of fine art) so AI art is a very important evolution that I'm quite excited about. Lots of really amazing artists generating some awesome AI fine art. But it kinda exists in its own bubble away from trad art. There's some overlap, but not much. @Ethos

Over the past few weeks and months I’ve been getting increasingly concerned and admittedly very depressed about the onset of A.I art and its impact on professional artists like myself. In 2021 I escaped wage slavery, quit my 9-5, and became a professional freelance editorial illustrator. But only after literally years of hard work and practice. I’ve put thousands of hours into this. Endless nights of grind to get where I’m at now. Only to now recognise that in the not too distant future my work could easily be replaced by an A.I art generator. Some of you might think, ‘surely A.I isn’t that good yet?’. I’m telling you it is. It is truly exceptional. And that’s coming from myself as an artist with a critical eye who knows what is good and isn’t. And it’s only going to improve. It’s definitely stronger in some areas vs others, but on the whole it’s exceptionally good already. In 2,3 or 5 years how good will it be? And that’s my issue. Sure, maybe it’s not taking my jobs right now, but in a few years time it very likely will be. And that’s the depressing part. Whats the point in continuing on in my line of work (which is already very competitive) if the majority of it will be taken up by a.i generators. Very depressing. I’m struggling to get myself out of this state. Feeling very down and have no motivation to work. My wonderful vision for my life has basically crumbled in front of my eyes. I genuinely feel purposeless which is a dangerous state for a man to be in. The only thing I’ve ever been skilled/talented at (art and drawing) is now slowly becoming useless. And look, I’m exposed to this stuff every day. I know what’s out there. I know what kind of art is being made by A.I. And if there’s anyone who would deny the competency of A.I art generators it would be me! It’s in my agenda to deny their capabilities and talk badly about them. But from what I’m seeing, they will be taking a significant large amount of art jobs in the coming years. So there are obviously areas of art which A.I artists will easily take over and there are domains which it won’t. Stock images and photography - this will be the first to go. A.I artists are already creating stock images that literally look like photographs you see on shutter stock, but far more specific to the prompt. Concept art - this will be heavily affected. It includes things like landscape and environment art, character design, a lot of game-related concept art (in-game objects, user interfaces, textures, characters, etc.). Even concept art for films will be affected. I've seen so many landscape artworks, buildings, machines, and cityscapes that could easily be used for film or game concept work. Editorial illustration - This is my field of work. The Atlantic has already published articles with A.I generated artwork. Admittedly, those particular articles may have just used stock imagery rather than an editorial illustrator's work, but it shows that art directors are aware of A.I generators and are more than willing to use them. Cosmopolitan used an A.I artist to create their cover image (although in fairness this was probably just a one-off thing). And just generally I see a lot of A.I art that could easily be used in replacement of actual editorial illustrators. I know what art directors are looking for, I know this space, I know what images work in editorial contexts and what don’t. The reality is that it will become increasingly easy for art directors to input the core idea of an article into an art generator and find a suitable image within minutes and most importantly for FREE. They don’t have to pay illustrators like me to create images. I’ve already seen people inputting music lyrics into the generators to create images. This is similar in a lot of ways to editorial work, except that editorial is just text about some political or social issue for example. It’s all the same. I definitely see graphic designers eventually being affected. There’s no reason why an A.I. artist can’t generate incredible website designs, logos, poster designs. It can’t do it now, but in the next 5 years I predict we will see this. You’ll be able to input a bunch of specifications, all the text and imagery you want included, and then bam! the A.I generator gives you 10 different options in less than 30 seconds. A few tweaks here and there and you’re done. Obviously there are going to be some forms of art that won’t be affected by A.I. For example, there will always be a need and market for fine artists e.g. real paintings. Any kind of art that involves creating 'physical' stuff rather than digital work is not going to be significantly affected. One of the best free A.I. art generators now is called Midjourney. You can use it for free here: https://midjourney.gitbook.io/docs/ Click on the discord link, sign up, and enter /imagine [your prompt] in one of the bot groups in the left-hand side menu. Just seeing what Midjourney can do already is very disheartening and depressing for myself and for many other artists. I feel like I’m back to square one again after so many years of hard work and effort. And like I said, I’m not saying my jobs are just going to be taken away next week. This will obviously be a slow gradual process. But the point here is that in 2, 3, or 5 years will I be needed as an artist? Or at least how many jobs will there be left? I guess the silver lining here is that no matter what I’ll always love creating art and I always can create art. No matter what I'll always have that available.

Yea you gotta go to the right guys. I paid £1000 for a 3-day daygame bootcamp in London with James Tusk and his coaches back in 2019. It was a one-off thing where they reduced the cost but had more guys come onto the course. So it was like 2-3 students per coach, but also sometimes 1on1. We rotated around the coaches, so it was almost like 3-4 bootcamps in one. Ironically (or maybe not), James Tusk was the worst coach. He was basically on his phone the whole time, wasn't attentive at all. The other coaches were fantastic, but they don't have public profiles so I can't share their stuff. But it was easily some of the best money I've ever spent. I think I did around 60-70 approaches over the weekend. Instant, direct feedback from coaches. Learnt a bunch of technical stuff, plus some good life advice. Sounds like I got super lucky though. Couldn't imagine paying 10k for a bootcamp. "Only $10k to get rejected 100 times in 3 days! Limited time offer!"

I did about 24 rounds. I haven't done any in a while for various reasons. Partly just because the supplements can get quite expensive after a while. To be totally honest I didn't notice any significant changes. Although it's hard to say because I did the rounds over quite a long period of time, so it's hard to remember what my cognitive state was like 2 years ago. But I did it because, as I said, I had 3 big amalgams in my teeth for years. So I mostly just chelated to have a sense of reassurance that I'm at least partly heavy metal free. I wasn't necessarily looking for some significant changes in cognitive function. I did have a handful of interesting experiences though. One time halfway through a chelation round my usual social anxiety that I used to have at work completely dropped away. Was like an ultra boost of confidence just out of nowhere. But it wasn't a consistent or permanent thing.

@RobinOntwikkeljezelf I never did any of the tests because I had 3 massive amalgams in my teeth for years. So I just assumed that I had abnormal levels of heavy metals in the body. I generally ran under the assumption that if you had teeth amalgams you need to get them removed and then chelate. My intuition is to go with the safer option of hair and blood tests, even if they are more unreliable.

@Leo Gura Good interview to watch aswell:

No one can give you a definitive answer here, but I would suggest that this is the most likely cause haha. I've had massive heart openings on 5-MeO just from 1 session so I'm sure some crazy things can happen from regular repeated usage. I suspect the intensity of the love will fade over time.

The 'peak' chapter on the Mushrooms vid is insane. Strangely pleasurable to watch. I keep replaying it haha. It has a really unitive, oneness, boundary-collapsing feel to it. Feels like I'm merging with the video almost. I don't know why but it reminds of the peak of 5-MeO, even though the 5-MeO visuals aren't as strong. It's like the best visual depiction of total ego dissolution. Not sure if other people can see that or feel the same way.

Why don't you think he's awake? He had a full-blown Kundalini awakening. Does that not fit into your definitions of Awakening anymore? Genuinely curious.

Go and do 300 approaches and then decide.

@Loveeee Not sure I agree with this. I'm not saying astral projection/lucid dreaming etc are not valid practices but just based on people's reports of those things, they never lead to genuine insight. You can do all the astral projecting you want, but you're still ignorant about the nature of reality. I might say that these things are tangential to psychedelics, but ultimately psyches go way further and can lead to genuine spiritual transformation.

Yea, 100%. This is the number 1 issue my PUA mentors talk about. Most guys aren't consistent and/or give up approaching, so it seems like it doesn't work. I've personally done ~300 approaches, with a bucket full of phone numbers but only 2 dates and nothing more than that. Yet I'm almost certain that if I did another 700 approaches spread out consistently over the next few years i'd have a lot of success.

@Emerald Hey Emerald, only just noticed you're back on the forum. Welcome back!

This has to happen. The time is right. When this thread was created I wasn't sure that Lex would be a good fit for Leo but Lex has since significantly broadened the type of guests and the type of conversations on his podcast. Lex is constantly trying to ask his guests the big questions, about Consciousness, Love, Free Will, Death. Yet every time they fail to give any substantial answers. I've never heard any of his guests, ever, give a good answer on the question of 'what is consciousness?'. Leo are you still interested in doing these kinds of podcasts? If not, we should close the thread and leave it at that. Twitter @'s might be the best route for getting his attention, as long as a few of us do it.

Not at all. Most teachers have a very small % of 'successfull' students, in pretty much any field or domain. Yea it varies a bit, but generally speaking the vast majority of people, 99.99% of people that watch Leo will not be 'successfull'. Particularly in spiritual domains! The vast majority of people who have taken Leo's LP course will not have developed a strong robust career. Same with any course, teaching, university course, whatever. What is not obvious to most is that the 'successful' students, those that have realised some of the same truths as Leo, do not need to speak about it and mostly keep themselves to themselves. I consider myself one of them, but even saying that will be interpreted as arrogance or even a dogmatic blind follower. I disagree with Leo on many things, yet I have realised some of the things he points people towards. And I do not speak about them because I don't feel like I need to.

It is completely spontaneous and automatic. I do not choose to do them. Anyone doing them without psyches is just messing about trying to be spiritual. I also don't have the 'idea to do them'. They are completely automatic and spontaneous. There's no decision process. The 5-MeO seems to unlock or release energy in the body which makes it do those movements. It's very similar to meditation kriyas (is that the right word?) where you see people's bodies swirling, vibrating, moving in different ways. It's just energy being moved around the body. But with 5-MeO the movements are symmetrical specifically because of the ego-dissolution. The body just automatically wants to move in symmetry. I also said it adds nothing to the experience. I'm not claiming they do. If Martin is claiming that, then fine, he's doing his thing. Like I also said, the body movements settle down fairly quickly and then after that I sit near motionless and go into deep contemplation for the majority of the trip/ I do suspect that Martin kinda accentuates the movements. Like I've never felt the need lift my ass into the air.

Very much disagree with this. I always have these symmetrical movements when taking 5-MeO. Every time. It is totally spontaneous and automatic. There is no-one doing it. Martin isn't doing it for show. It kinds feels like Reality is dancing with itself and it would feel quite strange to want/try to stop it. It would be an egoic/intentional effort to stop it. However it doesn't go on forever, usually stops after a while, at least for me, and then more contemplative/inquiry stuff can take place. So it does seem a little strange that Martin does it for so long. It definitely seems like some people have these bi-lateral movements and some don't. They don't provide anything 'more' to the experience of 5-MeO, and don't facilitate the awakening in any way. It's just a side thing that happens, but completely automatic and almost like it has to happen. Similar to the intense full body vibrations that I always have. It's why I've always said 5-MeO is very body-centered for me. Usually the body stuff happens at the beginning of the trip and then wind down fairly quickly.

Whilst the video has 230k views, most people will watch it and forget about it in a few hours. People watching it aren't interested in this work, they're just looking for entertainment. And thats fine, I'm not judging them. It's just not a serious video because I know the creator and the viewers have no genuine interest in the subject. Let alone actual awakening or insight.

@Rasheed Nah i don't remember anything from books i've read. But I do have a general sense of the books I've read and usually a handful or sometimes just 1 useful piece of advice. You gotta be intentional about turning the book into a few actionable bits of advice to test out. It's funny that you're profile pic is one of Cal's books because they're my favorite non-fiction books and some of the only books that have actually changed my life. But i don't remember quotes or text passages from the books, just general insights and messages. But usually you need to read a significant part of the book to understand those general insights and messages and know how to implement them into your life. I find that books tend to have the biggest impact in the short term. You read a book, get a few pieces of actionable advice, test out those actions in the short term. See whats works, what doesn't etc. Something might work in the short term but then you forget about it 2 years down the line. Nothing wrong with that and I think thats pretty normal for most people. I don't read much these days though. It really is true that most books could be condensed into 1 chapter.

@Molaric Yea its a tough one to overcome, but it can be done. The thing is you don't really want to quit video games. You're just telling yourself it's a good thing to quit, so you end up fighting with yourself and making things more difficult. Which I understand because I'm in that position as well. I'm mildly addicted to video games atm, but it's not too crazy and it doesn't stop me doing work. I play maybe 1-2 hours a day. So I understand your position. When I've quit games in the past I've often have thoughts like 'What will my life be like in 5 years if I quit now vs if I kept on playing?', and 'I know I'm not gonna play this game forever so whats the difference between quitting sometime in the future vs quitting now. I may as well just quit now and do other things'. But here's a few ideas and ways forward: 1) Force yourself to go cold turkey. This is actually possible. The trick is to push through the initial withdrawals which may be days, may be weeks depending on the game and your level of addiction. You have to accept and come to terms with the fact that you're not gonna play league ever again. It's like a breakup. You're not ever gonna see that person again and it fucking sucks. Same with video games. But you will get over it. You're not gonna be crying about it for the rest of your life. But you'll be glad that you let it go. And then when you inevitably have a bunch of free time you start thinking about other things you could be doing. You automatically fill up that time with other things which helps to forget about the video game. 2) Another idea is to just swap it for another game. I haven't ever played league but I've heard its a life destroying brain rot of a game. So i'd say any other game is probably gonna be better for you. I mean there's so many other games that you could play on a more casual basis that still allow you chill out and have fun, but don't destroy your attention and time like LOL does. 3) A common bit of advice here is to swap the video game out for some other activity, like sport, some other hobby, maybe even pickup, or going to the gym. But it needs to be something that is really really fun and has the same 'chilled' easy going vibe that playing video games has, otherwise you'll still want to go back to the video games. 4) Another common piece of advice is to have a ridiculously strong and awesome vision for your life that overpowers your desire to play video games. This is definitely possible but video games are so damn addictive and easy to access these days that i'd say this is pretty hard to achieve. Anyway, hope that helps.

This is pretty common for people. Have you tried just using a chair rather than cross-legged?

Apparently the pizza box thing was just speculation from the original journalist who wrote the story. I think it was all just a coincidence and weird timing.

@Razard86 Chill man, he's just asking for practical info about how to go on retreat. Honestly I'm not sure how to explain how it feels. Ego backlash might come afterwards, but personally i think that term is overused a bit. I used to eat a bunch of junk food after my retreats as a way to comfort myself but only for like 1 meal. I didn't keep eating junk food for days on end. The other main addiction detox is from the internet, social media, youtube, news. It's just an uncomfortable, uneasy feeling not having any of that immediately at hand. You end up just sitting around literally doing nothing, which most people can't do easily and don't know how it feels. So that just takes some time to get used to IMO.