Leo's Blog Discussion Mega-Thread

[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, 2025 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

[Leo Gura]

39 minutes ago, Anton Rogachevski said:

@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?

There is a relationship between relative truth and absolute truth.

You can't just treat them as separate domains since truth is ultimately One.

Becoming more clear on relative truth is a huge part of this work.

For example, figuring out how to get laid requires truth, requires understanding how women actually work vs fantasies.

Edited June 21, 2025 by Leo Gura

[RendHeaven]

5 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

requires understanding how women actually work vs fantasies.

noooo but leo its all looks and moneyyy

it's hopeless 

[Daniel Balan]

23 minutes ago, Anton Rogachevski said:

@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?

@Leo GuraThats exactly my complaint too! The word truth has lost all its meaning! I think every instance of the word truth in the blog post should have been replaced with selfishness, survival, greed, domination of other, survival intelligence, competition, exploitation, accurate understanding of reality. I totally agree with Leo that men fare better at surviving than women, but this has nothing to to with truth! In my eyes, selfishness has nothing to do with the truth, Usually the ones doing the best at survival are the least truthful, the most deceitful, the most corrupt, and the most bloodthirsty individuals! They are like a crocodile waiting to disembowel you if they get the chance to do so! Leo posted prior about that BS spreader Andrew Hubermann who makes billions by selling powdered supplements. How is that thief valuing truth? Just because he is a master at exploiting and deceiving people into buying crap ain't no hallmark of truth! Just because you are able to accurately make sense of reality doesn't make one truthful. Being able to observe that once you manipulate the massed with bs words and stories, they buy whatever you sell them, is a sign of survival intelligence and a sign of endless greed and corruption, not truth! So please Leo, stop using the word truth to describe greed! I usually agree with all your posts, I agree with that one too, but the word truth has a purity attached to it, and none of the dealings that ensure mankind's survival, have anything to do with truth! Selfishness, greed, exploiting & scamming others of their resources ≠ truth! 

[RendHeaven]

1 minute ago, Daniel Balan said:

@Leo GuraThats exactly my complaint too! The word truth has lost all its meaning! I think every instance of the word truth in the blog post should have been replaced with selfishness, survival, greed, domination of other, survival intelligence, competition, exploitation, accurate understanding of reality. I totally agree with Leo that men fare better at surviving than women, but this has nothing to to with truth! In my eyes, selfishness has nothing to do with the truth, Usually the ones doing the best at survival are the least truthful, the most deceitful, the most corrupt, and the most bloodthirsty individuals! They are like a crocodile waiting to disembowel you if they get the chance to do so! Leo posted prior about that BS spreader Andrew Hubermann who makes billions by selling powdered supplements. How is that thief valuing truth? Just because he is a master at exploiting and deceiving people into buying crap ain't no hallmark of truth! Just because you are able to accurately make sense of reality doesn't make one truthful. Being able to observe that once you manipulate the massed with bs words and stories, they buy whatever you sell them, is a sign of survival intelligence and a sign of endless greed and corruption, not truth! So please Leo, stop using the word truth to describe greed! I usually agree with all your posts, I agree with that one too, but the word truth has a purity attached to it, and none of the dealings that ensure mankind's survival, have anything to do with truth! Selfishness, greed, exploiting & scamming others of their resources ≠ truth! 

your posts always make me smile lol, the excessive exclamation points give this impression of wholesome yelling 

[Leo Gura]

@Daniel Balan You are missing the important insight that masculinity priorizes truth over feelings while femininity does the opposite.

Don't get blinded by stubbornness.

Every time you guys try to debunk my blog posts you are missing important lessons. Would be wiser to not get distracted and extract the lesson.

Edited June 21, 2025 by Leo Gura

[Daniel Balan]

2 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

@Daniel Balan You are missing the important insight that masculinity priorizes survival over feelings.

Don't get blinded by your stubborness.

Now I agree with you!