WikiRando

I am going to give a very unconventional answer but a self help book I read when I was a child before my big placement exams was called "I am Gifted, So Are You!" by Adam Khoo (also a successful investor and market analyst. I still follow his market updates) and the principles in that book not only changed the trajectory of my education by giving me tools to study, but it was the light in the darkness of the negative beliefs in my society. I learned how to believe in myself, how to study effectively, how to speed read (for less important documents), how to make mind maps, etc. tools that I have never forgotten, and have used all my life. It was truly an incredible and foundational book that came early, and thus is every sense it is the book that has had the biggest impact on my life, even though it was a book aimed at elementary school kids. There was real success insight there.

@Leo Gura That looks like an NFT

@Leo Gura But you mentioned liking Bitcoin? What is the nuance and distinction here? Personally, I see Bitcoin as a commodity that is structurally distinct from the rest of the shitcoins, which are more like (bad) securities. I don't think many people are nuanced or well-researched enough to make that distinction?

@LordFall Some real world examples from the article I shared: -North Korean hackers have used malicious browser extensions to spy on inboxes and exfiltrate sensitive emails. -The DataSpii scandal exposed the private data of over 4 million users—collected and sold by innocent-looking productivity tools. -Mega.nz, a privacy-respecting file storage service, had its Chrome extension hacked. Malicious code was pushed to users, silently stealing passwords and crypto wallet keys. It took them four hours to catch it—more than enough time for real damage. -Cyberhaven, a cybersecurity company, was breached in late 2024. Their extension was hijacked and used to scrape cookies, session tokens, and authentication credentials—compromising over 400,000 users. I wonder how we can effectively vet extensions to at least maximize security, if some risk is unavoidable.

Has anyone done any reasearch about the safety of browser extensions? I've heard some stuff about how there could be security risks but I'm not sure. https://nbtv.substack.com/p/the-most-dangerous-thing-in-your?r=1fin2g&utm_medium=ios&triedRedirect=true

Did Leo recommend any good resources on how to read effectively? I personally read very slowly and digest information one bite at a time, I also noticed it's hard for me to finish books this way. Any resources on how to do effective reading? Or how learning works?

Isha Kriya is good for beginners Pretty sure Leo put out a guided meditation long ago as well

@Leo Gura My intuition says no, because health problems are no joke. As for Truth, I will reserve judgment in knowing you well enough to compare paths, but I am happy with my own path. I know infinite intelligence, infinite love, my undying core, and I genuinely live a life that is blessed and blissed out, partly thanks to your work. Maybe you should tell us if it's worth becoming you?!

I would not do it because I am already young and financially free. Knowing what I know now I would not become JP either, because the things I know that JP doesn't (God, Love) are worth more than $20m or becoming a public intellectual. Money is nice for security, but it is also such a trap. Some people will get 20m and suffer more, because they will get new richer friends, up their lifestyle, and start trying to keep up with the joneses. And that's just another endless treadmill of suffering that your $20m led you to.

Spot on. I really take it all in and try to understand it deeply. I also really enjoyed the Learning = Making Distinctions and Awareness is Curative episodes. Those have been foundational. Great reminder to contemplate them again!

@Nilsi @Cireeric Love this one, much lesser known than his big hits.

One of my all time favorite albums about awakening. Last song (Haqq al-Yaqin) is my fave: Blue orb on the spine's horizon From the mosque of the silent mind Mendicant vows to walk the field Guiding light of the nerves cremation Through the port of seventh shrine The adept integrates upon the single eye Toward the hill of the purifier Dross burns the offering Soul merge with the ocean - Attains refuge To the eighth state of absorption By degrees of the ascent now rise The faqir takes the narrow road As the opal blue globe is burning At the shore of the inward light Life-force transits through the gate Point centralized will emerging On approach of the sovereign ground From the karmic tombs awaken Lanterns of the quadrant guardians From the triune sheaths emerge Through innerspace accedes Shekhina And the phoenix has ascended Glides upon the divine wind Liberates from the world sojourn

222 ms right after I did some kriya yoga

It's helpful to keep in mind our own biases and experiences shape how we perceive this, though we can kinda avoid that by focusing on just the hard metrics. Not to give away too much personal information but I've had incredibly high exposure to mainland Chinese all my life, probably higher than most people, unless you are a Mainland Chinese yourself. Which is why I am more conservative on China's potential. I am not saying it isn't going places, it just might be slower than expected, because I have seen the not so great side of China all my life. Again, this is my own experience and bias. Which I will summarize as this: 1. Incredible, unhealthy competitiveness, focus on materialism and climbing the social ladder. Not only is self worth externalized, but the worth of others is also seen through this materialistic lens. Materialism is life, and life is materialism. The problems stemming from this are clearly myriad. This is not just a Chinese problem but Chinese take it to a very high level. 2. Blind nationalism, cultural superiority complex. Look, in many senses they do live in an awesome society, but as a lower perspective, there is a fundamental lack of questioning of the pillar of their civilization and society (their government). There is also a sense of superiority, due to China's amazing history, rich culture, and all their recent achievements. It's not subtle either and can be highly egregious, undermining their soft power, like Chinese influencers flexing / taking dumps on other countries lack of development. Which ties into my next point. 3. Lack of tact, manners, refinement, civic mindedness. Basic things we take for granted elsewhere like speaking politely, respecting queues, to even worse things like scowling, throwing tantrums, spitting, urinating in public etc. I understand not all Chinese are like this and it also comes with the recency of their boom, but it remains to be seen if they can rectify this in a timely manner. Among people with extensive exposure to Chinese, there is a serious perception of mainland China's lack of refinement and civic-mindedness, that undermines their pursuit for global influence the more people start to work closer with them. 4. Corruption. There is a very ingrained culture of "guanxi" where doing favors (which often ends up as bribery in professional settings) is how you advance in the world. You scratch my back, I scratch yours. It's about relationships, not just competence. I suspect that despite all their efforts (and being so large), there is just massive corruption beneath the surface which fundamentally undermines this whole effort of advancement. Even when compared to other less developed, highly corrupt countries (which I also have extensive experience with), rarely have I seen such unabashed, ingrained eagerness to buy favors so blatantly, and so early on in the relationship, even in business settings. I will now mention some strengths of China and Chinese people that I see: 1. Positive collectivism (already mentioned and encapsulated incredibly well by Leo so I won't repeat) 2. Strong familial ties. Chinese people are super tight with the family, basically. Not just with the immediate family but with the entire extended family. This gives them a level of stability and support (fulfilling their hierarchy of needs) that I feel many westerners don't have, but can also be a massive impediment to developing beyond that center of gravity and treading new ground. 3. Hardworking. They value hard work, making a living. It's okay, even celebrated, to just really work your ass off and make lots of money. (good, but also bad) This is just to add some nuance, I am not saying China is bad or that anything was said before this is untrue. Just sharing my extensive (biased) experiences with Mainland Chinese all my life. This is ignoring the geopolitical points I have made on China elsewhere on this forum.

I'll rank them in general order of helpfulness 1. Clarify, expand and organize my thoughts and models so I can deepen my own processing. 2. Investigate my inner beliefs 3. Express my emotions 4. Fantasy and roleplay entertainment with characters like an interactive novel or game. What I do not use AI for 1. precise, tight metaphysics or epistemology (lacks precision and has materialistic bias) 2. rigorous facts or fact checking (too many mistakes) 3. Serious objective analysis (again, too biased) 4. Highly precise and technical questions 5. Highly creative and complex things I mainly use ChatGPT but I am open to better AIs for my purposes, just haven't tried many of them since GPT seems good enough

Yes things move very rapidly like with the tariff announcements and it's not black or white, lotta nuance is required. And it doesn't mean the US will be completely weak or irrelevant either just as UK wasn't. But overall I appreciate the discussion and I'm learning a lot! I am curious about the idea that China doesn't want a world reserve currency. We talked about the limitations of it. Do they really aim to achieve dominance without it? If they don't want to be the world reserve currency, how do they see their relationship with the US and their entrenchment in the US based financial system? Surely if they build new rails they would want to be the reserve currency too, or is that a false assumption? I guess it makes sense to just let the US continue running out of gas. Lastly, I find the existence of bitcoin interesting and possibly valuable as a neutral asset in this multipolar context.

@Breakingthewall I see the value of this perspective and I agree that China is playing it long and subtle instead of fast and loud. Which ties in to their respect of stability and hierarchy. We've been through this before but they still have a huge geographic and energy disadvantage and lack the mililtary alliances and trust. Instead they have reliance on Russia and Middle east for oil, expansionism in S China Sea and indebted small countries, and their best friends are the likes of Russia, N Korea, compared to what the US has (bases everywhere, EU, Saudi and allies, Japan, S Korea, UK, Aus, on and on) But the main reason why I believe China is not close to number 1 yet even if their economy size and manufacturing is, is because of the dollar dominance. People just do not appreciate the role the US dollar has in the financial system. There is like a trillion a day or more of volume on US rails. Until I see that trillion or more daily volume flowing into the Chinese system, they just are solidly not number 1. Yet. Who runs and controls the financial system is the number 1. The liquidity, market depth and and network effect of the US financial system is unparalleled. We have barely even begun a transition to a Chinese financial system. Although Trump could certainly hasten it

@Elliott Low vs high perspective

That sounds insane, thanks for sharing

@zazen that was illuminating, appreciate the depth Countries are desperate to resume trade, so I can definitely see global trade continuing without the US if they don't stop the tariffs. But pain from the reorganisation will hurt everyone.

@Husseinisdoingfine That is indeed an interesting picture, and the perspective is new and appreciated. However, with some basic economic understanding, you can tell it's incredibly, egregiously misinformed. Refinancing the debt? That sounds weird to me but maybe I don't understand. Deflation? They don't have the power to cause that. Flight to treasury bonds? Treasury bonds are the source of the government debt! I'm sorry but it is complete clownery. Someone looked up some terms, mashed them together, and an unserious dude took it to make an entertainment video. The fact that he has 2m followers sheds amazing light into the depth of ignorance and why Trump is in power.

My understanding is that the dollar based financial system is at risk of breaking because of debt, and the question becomes what is the system stability and how will the new system emerge. As of now, there is nothing left to pick up the pieces if the financial system truly breaks. That is the entire world as we know it since WW2. China has not built a new framework for the world to fall into. Nor has it shown its hand, earned the trust, built the rails, or proven itself in war. Therefore, if the US does not wake up and turn it around, we will enter a stage of more uncertainty and instability in the system. Given that MAD assures the planet isn't destroyed in war, it could eventually coalesce into a new bipolar world of two spheres of influence competing for power with the US sphere in decline, with an uncertain level of relative pain, death, or internal collapse. It's up to the US now to turn it around. The other alternative is that China just gets big on its own and the shift happens that way but that's still decades away and might never happen. It didn't happen with Japan. We can also just kick the can down the road for longer. Better comfort and technology ensures people don't start eating rats and cockroaches and start a real revolution, no matter the economic pain. Instead they remain relatively comfortable and sedate.

@LifeEnjoyer I have it on all my devices! Monster Train is amazing too, same genre as StS Into The Breach is another classic!

The story of civilization is daylight robbery into revolution into daylight robbery. Lol

Here are 2 helpful frameworks to approach it. 1. Income Stategy vs Balance Sheet Strategy - The income strategy is your business, job, earning money etc. - The balance sheet strategy is how you allocate, invest, take on debt, make portfolio decisions. This gives you clear precise framework of what exactly you're doing in your financial situation. 2. Money IQ vs Money EQ - Money IQ is the stuff like understanding economics, numbers, charts, market updates, financial literacy, financial skills. -Money EQ is your relationship to money. Investigating your beliefs and assumptions around money. Do you fear money? Judge it? If money is about psychology, then your fears and limiting beliefs about money will utterly define your financial success.