Leo's Blog Discussion Mega-Thread

[Santiago Ram]

Quote

If you can't approach a girl, how the fuck are you going to handle the weight of realizing God?

Well Im gay lol

But I get your point

I live amongst these type of guys, I mean in the middle way home, they all fit that profile

And so do I...

Edited June 21 by Santiago Ram

[Onecirrus]

I knew women were less attuned to truth when conveniently my mother was the only person who thought I could be a model

[Leo Gura]

12 minutes ago, Onecirrus said:

conveniently my mother was the only person who thought I could be a model

Lolz

A mother's love like that is priceless. Your mother did you right.

Edited June 21 by Leo Gura

[Natasha Tori Maru]

Why The Masculine Values Truth More

Really great & balanced deconstruction of truth, its functionality, and then reintegration into a framework as it relates to both the masculine and feminine. Agree completely

I like this take as the frame is so powerful, it can be used to expand upon and walks you through the mechanisms at play. What we do for survival, why we do what we do, what we value, and how it links back to the truth. Good mixture of concrete and conceptual examples - everyone thinks and takes in information very differently, so I think this type of prose is really sharp and well crafted.

The topic is a bit of a minefield so I think you navigated it with a lot of skill.

The notes at the end - I see how you immediately heard the counter arguments and bias

Came in armed, swinging a 36inch chain, pre-empting the 'BUT LEO'

Edited June 21 by Natasha Tori Maru

[MuadDib]

Just jotted down some of my counterpoints to the most recent blog post and had AI tidy it up and reinforce it for brevity:


Empathy + Ruthlessness = Superior Survival

The blog post rightly observes that raw, fact-driven action (“ruthlessness”) can be indispensable in high-stakes arenas like warfare or billion-dollar boardrooms. It also notes that traditional child-rearing pushes mothers to soften harsh truths. Those are real evolutionary pressures I’m happy to concede.

Yet history, data and modern doctrine all show that pairing ruthlessness with deliberate empathy—rather than treating them as masculine vs. feminine binaries—produces the most resilient outcomes as far as survival is concerned.

---

1 Empathy pays in cold cash

• Corporate performance. In Harvard Business Review’s Global Empathy Index, the ten most-empathetic firms grew in market value more than twice as fast as the ten least-empathetic and generated 50 % more earnings. (hbr.org)
• Employee retention & innovation. EY’s 2023 survey of 1,000 U.S. workers found that mutual empathy from leaders boosts efficiency (88 %), creativity (87 %) and even revenue (83 %). (ey.com)
• Brand-safety reality check. After Elon Musk’s takeover, monthly U.S. ad revenue at X/Twitter slid 55 % year-over-year as advertisers fled an environment perceived as hostile to minorities—an object lesson in how ignoring customer feelings burns shareholder value. (reuters.com)
  

Bottom line: in competitive markets, emotional intelligence surfaces blind spots and protects revenue streams every bit as much as price discipline or cost-cutting.

---

2 Battlefield truth now requires empathy

Modern militaries no longer see empathy as a luxury:

• The U.S. Army’s Leadership Requirements Model explicitly lists empathy toward “families, local populace, and even enemies” as a core attribute of effective command. (archive.org)
• Field Manual 3-24 tells soldiers they must be “nation-builders as well as warriors,” codifying “hearts and minds” alongside kinetic force. (army.mil)
• History bears this out: the Mongols’ first major defeat—Ain Jalut (1260)—came when the Mamluks matched Mongol cavalry ferocity and leveraged local alliances and popular support, stopping an empire that had steam-rolled purely terror-based opposition. (en.wikipedia.org)
  

Reading an adversary’s motives, social networks and morale is intelligence work; empathy is simply a data-collection technique that supplements satellite photos and casualty counts.

---

3 Gender: overlapping curves, not iron laws

Average sex differences in empathy and aggression are real but modest. Training and context shift them more than chromosomes do. Women who run global M&A desks learn to act decisively without losing rapport; male pediatric ICU nurses cultivate emotional attunement without “turning feminine.” The distribution overlap means any individual—man or woman—can train whichever dial their role demands.

---

4 A two-dial model for leadership

Product pivot. When a company must change direction, the “ruthlessness dial” involves killing beloved but under-performing features quickly. The matching “empathy dial” means listening deeply to users to understand their unmet needs. Together, this mix usually translates into higher customer retention.

Peacekeeping. In a fragile post-conflict zone, success hinges on firm rules of engagement (ruthlessness) paired with active civil-affairs outreach to local communities (empathy). Balancing the two reduces the number of new insurgents and stabilises the region more sustainably.

M&A negotiation. Effective deal-making couples a non-negotiable walk-away price (ruthlessness) with a careful mapping of the seller’s emotional drivers and personal goals (empathy). This dual approach secures better terms while minimising late-stage surprises.

Smart operators treat the two qualities like twin throttles on an aircraft: push whichever lever the terrain demands, rather than locking one forward and one back because of gendered ideology.

---

5 Closing thought

Truth shorn of human context turns sterile; empathy unanchored from reality turns naïve. Master both—and toggle as circumstances change—and you out-compete anyone who fetishises only one.

I disagree that men and woman don't have equal access to truth. Just access to different tools of survival. Pragmatism requires both to be most effective at survival, and truth seeking.

Consider:
Who would most effectively lead humans to God
A misanthropic cyberbully, or a leader who embodies the whole gamut of humanity?

When I understand my enemy well enough to defeat him, then in that moment I also love him - Ender Wiggin

 

[Deziree]

5 minutes ago, MuadDib said:

Consider:
Who would most effectively lead humans to God
A misanthropic cyberbully, or a leader who embodies the whole gamut of humanity?

Haha😂 omg. Dude you click. 

[RendHeaven]

@MuadDib All the virtues of empathy you listed lie on top of structure provided by ruthlessness which is being taken for granted.

Obviously empathy and ruthlessness taken together in balance will outperform pure ruthlessness. But the ruthlessness had to be implemented first for profound reasons.

Empathy is like the luxury add-on DLC to make things even smoother. But the core gameplay runs on brutality mechanics.

A stage red warlord could not work in the 21st century because expectations and standards (and technology) mean more voices have to be accounted for and balanced. But don't forget that the only reason stage green works right now (and not really even that. it's mostly orange pretending to be green - performative empathy to maximize profit extraction) is because we've had thousands of years of stage red cementing the bedrock of human leadership and organization.

Leo's point stands because Leo is talking about hardwired instincts extending as far back as hunter-gatherer nomads. High-performing empathy as a counterargument swerves the crux of his argument.

[Leo Gura]

36 minutes ago, MuadDib said:

Modern militaries no longer see empathy as a luxury

Key word there being "modern".

Yes, in a modern military it is now even acceptable to have pussy.

That is after 10,000 years of rape and butchery.

Edited June 21 by Leo Gura

[Deziree]

6 minutes ago, RendHeaven said:

@MuadDib All the virtues of empathy you listed lie on top of structure provided by ruthlessness which is being taken for granted.

Obviously empathy and ruthlessness taken together in balance will outperform pure ruthlessness. But the ruthlessness had to be implemented first for profound reasons.

Empathy is like the luxury add-on DLC to make things even smoother. But the core gameplay runs on brutality mechanics.

A stage red warlord could not work in the 21st century because expectations and standards (and technology) mean more voices have to be accounted for and balanced. But don't forget that the only reason stage green works right now (and not really even that. it's mostly orange pretending to be green - performative empathy to maximize profit extraction) is because we've had thousands of years of stage red cementing the bedrock of human leadership and organization.

Leo's point stands because Leo is talking about hardwired instincts extending as far back as hunter-gatherer nomads. High-performing empathy as a counterargument swerves the crux of his argument.

Wasn't truth less about survival and more about leading to God or am I missing something? 

[RendHeaven]

Just now, Deziree said:

Wasn't truth less about survival and more about leading to God or am I missing something? 

Yes, Truth ultimately extends far beyond survival. In fact, Ultimate Truth is anti-survival and anti-life because Infinity-proper will necessarily annihilate and reabsorb the finite such that the finite loses its unique distinctness (God = Death).

But on a more rudimentary level, being able to clearly distinguish accurate VS inaccurate will help you survive longer within the finite realm. Truth VS falsehood plays out on every level of reality with different consequences. At the highest level, it's God's Mind playing with itself. At lower levels, it's you as a human scheming to live another day.

The problem is, you won't ever realize God if you're constantly getting T-boned by unforeseen obstacles as a human. The pursuit of Ultimate Truth and God rests atop a foundation of survival surplus where you have the luxury to forget about tomorrow, to finally splice together the cosmos.

Living a good life as a human requires skill, and a basic level of truth-discerning clarity, before you ever even consider God.

[Leo Gura]

@RendHeaven Well said 

[Santiago Ram]

Quote

Living a good life as a human requires skill, and a basic level of truth-discerning clarity, before you ever even consider God

That Is pretty cool

[MuadDib]

24 minutes ago, RendHeaven said:

@MuadDib All the virtues of empathy you listed lie on top of structure provided by ruthlessness which is being taken for granted.

Obviously empathy and ruthlessness taken together in balance will outperform pure ruthlessness. But the ruthlessness had to be implemented first for profound reasons.

Empathy is like the luxury add-on DLC to make things even smoother. But the core gameplay runs on brutality mechanics.

A stage red warlord could not work in the 21st century because expectations and standards (and technology) mean more voices have to be accounted for and balanced. But don't forget that the only reason stage green works right now (and not really even that. it's mostly orange pretending to be green - performative empathy to maximize profit extraction) is because we've had thousands of years of stage red cementing the bedrock of human leadership and organization.

Leo's point stands because Leo is talking about hardwired instincts extending as far back as hunter-gatherer nomads. High-performing empathy as a counterargument swerves the crux of his argument.

Everyone starts at beige brah.
Beige needs a momma to make it.
Or wolves.

[Deziree]

12 minutes ago, RendHeaven said:

Yes, Truth ultimately extends far beyond survival. In fact, Ultimate Truth is anti-survival and anti-life because Infinity-proper will necessarily annihilate and reabsorb the finite such that the finite loses its unique distinctness (God = Death).

But on a more rudimentary level, being able to clearly distinguish accurate VS inaccurate will help you survive longer within the finite realm. Truth VS falsehood plays out on every level of reality with different consequences. At the highest level, it's God's Mind playing with itself. At lower levels, it's you as a human scheming to live another day.

The problem is, you won't ever realize God if you're constantly getting T-boned by unforeseen obstacles as a human. The pursuit of Ultimate Truth and God rests atop a foundation of survival surplus where you have the luxury to forget about tomorrow, to finally splice together the cosmos.

Living a good life as a human requires skill, and a basic level of truth-discerning clarity, before you ever even consider God.

Good points. But there's always a but. You can't survive without empathy. This is also a truth. I understand that the core mechanism is brutal. That's how nature designs it. This is a very reductionist evolutionary pattern of thinking, the cavemen, hunter-gatherer nomad reductionist type. Stage red survival is very typical but it evens out as more empathy begins to seep in, as in collective consciousness, yes it takes time but it has to start somewhere, it's very threatening to the survival impulse because the brain is programmed that way through eons of evolutionary patterns of survival and is deeply rooted in conflict. But. Where's the but here. Truth exists on multiple levels of reality, as you said. You can have the truth of collective cohesive survival or you can have the truth of individual survival. Collective survival truths will clash against individual survival. So it's not the matter of truth, it's about how relative that truth really is. Your explanation is birthed somewhat from Maslow's Heirarchy of needs. It slowly gets replaced by higher consciousness broad spectrum. 

[Leo Gura]

Everyone starts at stage Lizard

[RendHeaven]

11 minutes ago, Deziree said:

Good points. But there's always a but. You can't survive without empathy. This is also a truth. I understand that the core mechanism is brutal. That's how nature designs it. This is a very reductionist evolutionary pattern of thinking, the cavemen, hunter-gatherer nomad reductionist type. Stage red survival is very typical but it evens out as more empathy begins to seep in, as in collective consciousness, yes it takes time but it has to start somewhere, it's very threatening to the survival impulse because the brain is programmed that way through eons of evolutionary patterns of survival and is deeply rooted in conflict. But. Where's the but here. Truth exists on multiple levels of reality, as you said. You can have the truth of collective cohesive survival or you can have the truth of individual survival. Collective survival truths will clash against individual survival. So it's not the matter of truth, it's about how relative that truth really is. Your explanation is birthed somewhat from Maslow's Heirarchy of needs. It slowly gets replaced by higher consciousness broad spectrum. 

To call brutality reductionist IS the reduction IMO.

Brutality is never phased out or replaced.

It is always silently dormant in the background. It just looks like it's been replaced because we don't personally see it.

The amount of slavery, torture, and death that funds your lifestyle (yes, you) at this very moment is unfathomable. The fact that you have an electronic device with which to access this forum means you're loosely interconnected with and reliant on a web of child slave labor in Africa (mineral mining to produce electronic chips). Not to mention food, care products, transportation, electricity, your work/education - and even if you somehow manage to side step every evil by meticulously planning every micro behavior to dodge consumerism and champion sustainability, your friends and family are entangled in a web of slavery, torture, and death, and your life is entangled with their lives.

Notice the somewhat cold and confrontational way that I wrote this. I didn't particularly intend to sound so harsh, but it just naturally comes off that way when you announce the accurate state of affairs. This is the cost of truth. Truth means you're eating a bacon burger and I remind you that you're funding and relishing in the torture and extermination of pigs and cows. I'm not TRYING to make you feel bad. I'm just saying what is the case.

Or maybe you're vegan and you think you're above animal cruelty - well then I'll remind you that for your salad bowl to exist at all, there had to be soil-eroding, biome-destroying monocrop agriculture and enormous transcontinental shipping chains with a combined harm yield of: slave labor, ecosystem destruction, species extinction, ocean pollution, and so much more that I can't even wrap my head around.

I'm not saying this to say "you're wrong."

I think you made great points about the importance of empathy in survival. I basically agree with you on everything other than your idea that brutality is a reductionist relic of the past. I am generally pro-empathy.

I am just highlighting how empathy tends to conflict with truth and avoids accurate reflection. And accurate reflection always unearths things that you would rather not admit to yourself.

Like if your girl asks "do I look fat?" you're basically obligated to say "no honey you're gorgeous" even if she's actually a land-whale. Because you care about her feelings. And more importantly, she cares about her feelings. So she's not even asking the question wanting to know the real answer. She's asking to feel good, which has nothing to do with accurate reflection. This is a silly (but common) example, but the overall dynamic is preserved across most instances of empathy between humans.

[RendHeaven]

AG1 sucks.

[Anton Rogachevski]

@Leo Gura The kind of truth you're referring to—about masculine vs. feminine modes of perception—isn’t the same kind of truth you usually mean when you talk about truth in a philosophical or epistemic sense. Isn't it confusing to use the same word for such fundamentally different things?

[MuadDib]

33 minutes ago, RendHeaven said:

To call brutality reductionist IS the reduction IMO.

Brutality is never phased out or replaced.

It is always silently dormant in the background. It just looks like it's been replaced because we don't personally see it.

The amount of slavery, torture, and death that funds your lifestyle (yes, you) at this very moment is unfathomable. The fact that you have an electronic device with which to access this forum means you're loosely interconnected with and reliant on a web of child slave labor in Africa (mineral mining to produce electronic chips). Not to mention food, care products, transportation, electricity, your work/education - and even if you somehow manage to side step every evil by meticulously planning every micro behavior to dodge consumerism and champion sustainability, your friends and family are entangled in a web of slavery, torture, and death, and your life is entangled with their lives.

Notice the somewhat cold and confrontational way that I wrote this. I didn't particularly intend to sound so harsh, but it just naturally comes off that way when you announce the accurate state of affairs. This is the cost of truth. Truth means you're eating a bacon burger and I remind you that you're funding and relishing in the torture and extermination of pigs and cows. I'm not TRYING to make you feel bad. I'm just saying what is the case.

Or maybe you're vegan and you think you're above animal cruelty - well then I'll remind you that for your salad bowl to exist at all, there had to be soil-eroding, biome-destroying monocrop agriculture and enormous transcontinental shipping chains with a combined harm yield of: slave labor, ecosystem destruction, species extinction, ocean pollution, and so much more that I can't even wrap my head around.

I'm not saying this to say "you're wrong."

I think you made great points about the importance of empathy in survival. I basically agree with you on everything other than your idea that brutality is a reductionist relic of the past. I am generally pro-empathy.

I am just highlighting how empathy tends to conflict with truth and avoids accurate reflection. And accurate reflection always unearths things that you would rather not admit to yourself.

Like if your girl asks "do I look fat?" you're basically obligated to say "no honey you're gorgeous" even if she's actually a land-whale. Because you care about her feelings. And more importantly, she cares about her feelings. So she's not even asking the question wanting to know the real answer. She's asking to feel good, which has nothing to do with accurate reflection. This is a silly (but common) example, but the overall dynamic is preserved across most instances of empathy between humans.

True, and if nobody ever cared about your feelings, held you close at night, reminded you of the truths of beauty, love, friendship, warmth, you'd find unhealthy coping strategies (drugs/alcohol) or commit suicide under the weight of it all. Only amplifying suffering. Else you become jaded or traumatised and actively inflict more suffering on the world and others. This is a more accurate and holistic view of things.

As horrific as child slavery is, child slaves in Africa find moments of joy in their lives. It's also true that bacon and/or a well made salad are delicious. How else does one get fat?

All I'm saying is you need both for effective survival, and therefore truth seeking.

[RendHeaven]

6 minutes ago, MuadDib said:

True, and if nobody ever cared about your feelings, held you close at night, reminded you of the truths of beauty, love, friendship, warmth, you'd find unhealthy coping strategies (drugs/alcohol) or commit suicide under the weight of it all. Only amplifying suffering. Else you become jaded or traumatised and actively inflict more suffering on the world and others. This is a more accurate and holistic view of things.

As horrific as child slavery is, child slaves in Africa find moments of joy in their lives. It's also true that bacon and/or a well made salad are delicious. How else does one get fat?

All I'm saying is you need both for effective survival, and therefore truth seeking.

Yes, it's not an accident that basically everybody avoids accurate reflection.

The genius of femininity is that it finds a way to cherish the moment without running accuracy checks