Leo's Blog Discussion Mega-Thread

[ExploringReality]

1 hour ago, Daniel Balan said:

Hi @Leo Gura! I just bought your book list. I wanted to buy it since 2019 but for some reason I never had enough money to buy it. Now that I've bought it I'm so happy! Literally I'm the happiest I've ever been. I never been so happy not even when I proposed to my fiancee. I'm like a child in front of the Christmas tree. This means a lot to me because I finally could repay a small token of appreciation for saving my life. Had I not learned spiral dynamics from you, had I not ditched the stage red friends I had from elementary school, I'd have been dead with them in 2022 when they drove while drunk and hit a bridgehead and died. I owe you that. Without you, I wouldn't have ever heard about spiral dynamics. I wouldn't have realized that the friends I was hanging out were at the most dangerous stage of development (RED), and I'd have still hung out with them and I would have died with them. 

I can't wait to embark on this life long journey of reading. I jumped straight to the politics & government section. I am really lost when it comes to politics and I am sure that by reading the books you are recommending on your book list I will get a lot of clarity. 

Can't wait to also buy the life purpose course. 

Thanks a lot. Your work is unparalleled! 
 

Amazing!!! The book list along with the life purpose course was probably the two top investments I've ever made in my young life. Keep going bro, you just inspired me again to go to the book list

[OBEler]

@Daniel Balan back then I was probably as happy as you. Such a great idea. Leo had on some books even a short audio review.

I neglected the book list after taking psychedelics. When things get serious you will drop some books. But I will come back sometime again.

[Daniel Balan]

11 hours ago, ExploringReality said:

Amazing!!! The book list along with the life purpose course was probably the two top investments I've ever made in my young life. Keep going bro, you just inspired me again to go to the book list

 

11 hours ago, OBEler said:

@Daniel Balan back then I was probably as happy as you. Such a great idea. Leo had on some books even a short audio review.

I neglected the book list after taking psychedelics. When things get serious you will drop some books. But I will come back sometime again.

Thank you guys! Cheers 🥂 

[Leo Gura]

On 9/24/2025 at 0:43 PM, Daniel Balan said:

by reading the books you are recommending on your book list I will get a lot of clarity. 

Absolutely that will happen.

[Daniel Balan]

58 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Absolutely that will happen.

Thanks a lot Leo for creating the book list. I was blown away by the books I saw in there, I never heard of 99% of the books you have listed there. I'm a bit sad because I thought I'd find a book about understanding economics. About understanding how governments should handle the economy, how economy works and how could the government handle the economy better, a book that goes into detail about privatisation vs nationalization. I hope you will add such a book in the future! 

[Leo Gura]

43 minutes ago, Daniel Balan said:

Thanks a lot Leo for creating the book list. I was blown away by the books I saw in there, I never heard of 99% of the books you have listed there. I'm a bit sad because I thought I'd find a book about understanding economics. About understanding how governments should handle the economy, how economy works and how could the government handle the economy better, a book that goes into detail about privatisation vs nationalization. I hope you will add such a book in the future! 

I don't know of such a book. It's hard to trust economists.

[Daniel Balan]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

I don't know of such a book. It's hard to trust economists.

I think I'm better off not reading such a book about economics. There is a bigger chance I'll be indoctrinated into a foolish economic philosophy like marxism or libertarianism than actually deeply understanding how the economy works. Thus I'm better off contemplating using only my direct experience and my own reasoning on such complex subject. This is probably the only way to avoid self deception.

Edited September 26 by Daniel Balan

[freddyteisen]

Speaking of economic bias, both my parents are economists & they often recommend ‘Financial Times’ and ‘The Economist’. Do any of you guys get information from these news sources?

And Whats the problem with trusting economists? Maybe the bias of ‘more growth is always better’ and ‘we need at least 2% GDP growth per year’ and ‘the market powers are always right’.

I might be blind to a lot of ‘economists bias’, but can’t it be a powerful lense to look at the world through?

[Daniel Balan]

30 minutes ago, freddyteisen said:

Speaking of economic bias, both my parents are economists & they often recommend ‘Financial Times’ and ‘The Economist’. Do any of you guys get information from these news sources?

I read the financial times from now and then.

 

31 minutes ago, freddyteisen said:

And Whats the problem with trusting economists? Maybe the bias of ‘more growth is always better’ and ‘we need at least 2% GDP growth per year’ and ‘the market powers are always right’.

I might be blind to a lot of ‘economists bias’, but can’t it be a powerful lense to look at the world through?

It's not sound reasoning to read very biased books. Bias is inevitable but combined with ideology and self deception, it may forever sway a mind into an unhealthy ideology like Marxsim or Libertarianism. And most of the economists today are one lense free market promotors. Some are even downright libertarians.

[gettoefl]

23 hours ago, freddyteisen said:

Speaking of economic bias, both my parents are economists & they often recommend ‘Financial Times’ and ‘The Economist’. Do any of you guys get information from these news sources?

And Whats the problem with trusting economists? Maybe the bias of ‘more growth is always better’ and ‘we need at least 2% GDP growth per year’ and ‘the market powers are always right’.

I might be blind to a lot of ‘economists bias’, but can’t it be a powerful lense to look at the world through?

The FT is Europe's Wall Street Journal. It doesn't just report the news it establishes it. It's required reading for anyone handling money. Economist is stellar too and has better depth and authority than any other weekly. Though it became more for gossip than truth, Both alas have seen their best days and are dying slow but certain deaths.

[Daniel Balan]

@Leo Gura I'm rewatching your - The Psychology of being wrong video.

I'm 20 minutes deep and you stated that I the listener could be wrong when criticising other people like criticising politicians, public figures etc.

I wanted to ask you on this regard, since you criticise Trump a lot, how do you know you are not wrong when you position yourself against Trump? 

I'm not interested in Trump particularly, I want to know when I am against a politician, how to know that I am not wrong when I speak against that person. Or vice versa how do I know I'm not wrong for supporting and agreeing with my favorite party or politician?

Edited Tuesday at 10:02 PM by Daniel Balan

[Leo Gura]

20 minutes ago, Daniel Balan said:

how to know that I am not wrong when I speak against that person.

That's a very tricky issue. There cannot a guarantee of correctness. There is no formula for being right.

Criticism is often wrong or partial or misguided. And I am guilty of that if I'm not super careful.

With Trump it's just so obvious he is pure corruption. With most people it's less obvious.

The more epistemology and consciousness work you do, the better you will become at judging character and seeing corruption accurately.

You have to be careful that your criticism is fair and doesn't strawman or come from ego.

You will notice that I am pretty good at steelmanning perspectives before criticizing them. I can steelman almost any perspective. I can steelman Hitler. That is because I actually care about understanding others. I don't just demonize Trump, I actually care about understanding his state of mind.

A commitment to genuine understanding of perspective is the key to avoiding the criticism trap. Understand before you criticize.

Edited Tuesday at 10:22 PM by Leo Gura

[Daniel Balan]

@Leo Gura The issue with you Leo is that you indeed have steelmanned Hitler in the past on the blog and forum, but I never saw you steelman Trump. That is very telling of you. You can steelman Hitler, but you never ever steelman Trump. Why is that? 

P.S. Don't take this comment seriously, I'm just jocking with you because you indeed have never steelmanned Trump🤣

Edited Tuesday at 10:50 PM by Daniel Balan

[Daniel Balan]

26 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

That's a very tricky issue. There cannot a guarantee of correctness. There is no formula for being right.

Criticism is often wrong or partial or misguided. And I am guilty of that if I'm not super careful.

With Trump it's just so obvious he is pure corruption. With most people it's less obvious.

The more epistemology and consciousness work you do, the better you will become at judging character and seeing corruption accurately.

You have to be careful that your criticism is fair and doesn't strawman or come from ego.

You will notice that I am pretty good at steelmanning perspectives before criticizing them. I can steelman almost any perspective. I can steelman Hitler. That is because I actually care about understanding others. I don't just demonize Trump, I actually care about understanding his state of mind.

A commitment to genuine understanding of perspective is the key to avoiding the criticism trap. Understand before you criticize.

Last year you gave me a response that detailed what consciousness work is:

 

Now that you have mentioned epistemology work, could you please give me a list of what work can I do to develop better epistemology? I really want to discover what is true without my biases and self deception getting in the way, and I'm also tired looking for truth in authority figures like you. I want to arrive at truth using only my mind. 

I want to know whether Hitler or Trump were good or bad guys just by using my own sense making, not needing academics or philosopers do the philosophy for me. I want to do the philosophy myself.

 

Edited Tuesday at 10:48 PM by Daniel Balan

[Leo Gura]

7 minutes ago, Daniel Balan said:

You can steelman Hitler, but you never ever steelman Trump. Why is that? 

I do steelman him in my head, but I don't do it publically because he does not deserve such kindness. I am not going to be fooled into bothsidesing this jackass.

Hitler is dead so steelmanning is not a problem. Trump is actively destroying America so I will not be charitable to him as he does so.

[Leo Gura]

11 minutes ago, Daniel Balan said:

I want to know whether Hitler or Trump were good or bad guys just by using my own sense making, not needing academics or philosopers do the philosophy for me. I want to do the philosophy myself.

This is really not about philosophy so much as raw history. If you want to know why Hitler was bad you just need to read a good history of Nazi Germany.

As for Trump, well, you also need to read about his actual life and things he has done like rape women, scam customers, racism, crime, etc.

The best way to see the "evil" is to just look at the raw acts of evil these people do. Look at the note Trump wrote Epstein. Etc.

You don't need advanced epistemology to understand that raping women and gassing Jews is wrong.

I suggest you read raw history just to get raw facts about evil people.

Edited Tuesday at 10:59 PM by Leo Gura

[Daniel Balan]

1 minute ago, Leo Gura said:

I do steelman him in my head, but I don't do it publically because he does not deserve such kindness. I am not going to be fooled into bothsidesing this jackass.

Hitler is dead so steelmanning is not a problem. Trump is actively destroying America so I will not be charitable to him as he does so.

But if you ask Trump he will say that he is improving America. He will say that he is making America great again. And he is really believing that. Trump believes that he is doing a lot of good for America.

Don't get me wrong, you won't find a more anti right wing person than me. I hate Trump and the Maga movement with a passion. But after watching your video Everyone acts with good intentions I really got an existential crisis. That video threw me into a pit of uncertainty and confusion. 

It made me feel like a bad person for being against someone like Trump who in his skewed mind wants to do good. 

Also with the video The Psychology of being Wrong, after watching it when it came out it made me feel like I am wrong for being so anti right wing, for being anti Trump. 

Such videos make me very very doubtful of my own sense making. Initially I believed I had the right outlook on Trump and the Right-wingers but this video made me very doubtful of my own sense making. Maybe they are right for wanting a dictatorship. Maybe they are right that democracy is failing the people. 

I always liked to explore those fringe ideas of the right, I am also very keen in understanding my opponents. But your videos make me doubt myself and make me believe that my opponents (the right wingers) are right 

[Daniel Balan]

3 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

This is really not about philosophy so much as raw history. If you want to know why Hitler was bad you just need to read a good history of Nazi Germany.

As for Trump, well, you also need to read about his actual life and things he has done like rape women, scam customers, racism, crime, etc.

The best way to see the "evil" is to just look at the raw acts of evil these people do. Look at the note Trump wrote Epstein. Etc.

You don't need advanced epistemology to understand that raping women and gassing Jews is wrong.

I suggest you read raw history just to get raw facts about evil people.

Precisely! But what if we lived in a world where Hitler won WW2? Today we all would know how evil Stalin, Churchill and FDR were. 

There would have been hundreds of books where would have been written that Stalin killed ethnic Germans and Europeans in gulags and that Hitler fought for the freedom of Europe.

There would be books where Churchill plotted to use the citizens of Europe as cannon fodder in a future war with the USA for world dominion 

Basically the most evil shit historians attributed to Hitler, had Hitler won, the same historians would have wrote about the losers which in our case would have been Stalin, Churchill and FDR. 

Note: I'm not a Holocaust denier, I'm not a conspiracy theorist. But I do believe that the history is written by the victor. Hiter did a lot of evil, but I do believe that a lot of that evil is put on his name without him being directly responsible for it. In the 20th century the whole of Europe was infested with hatred for the Jews, blaming that on Hitler is silly. anti-Semitism was in Europe long before Hitler was born. 

The 20 million citizens of the USSR that died, were killed all because of Hitler? I bet at least a quarter were killed because of how the Soviets killed their own soldiers for not being brave enough or for the slightest suspicion of Nazi collaboration.

[Leo Gura]

@Daniel Balan Look, dude, in the absolute sense truly nothing is ever wrong. Wrong is a relative idea we invented to help us survive. Trump is wrong because he threatens our survival. That's what wrong really means. And for some people Trump is not wrong because he aids their survival.

For an antisemite Hitler is not wrong or bad, Hitler is great! Literally!

When I say Trump is bad all I mean is that he will harm the majority of Americans if given enough power. This is not a moral statement, this is more like physical fact. People will die thanks to Trump because he is so fucking stupid and selfish.

My video made you doubtful and confused? Perfect!

Edited Tuesday at 11:44 PM by Leo Gura

[Rishabh R]

@Leo Gura Why it is that questioning others is easy while questioning oneself is tough ? Also I have found that questioning oneself is the cause of a better life as it opens you up to surprises in life . So is it better to ask yourself questions or asking others question ? 

Edited Wednesday at 04:21 AM by Rishabh R