Leo's Blog Discussion Mega-Thread

[Natasha Tori Maru]

7 hours ago, Joshe said:

What do you mean by "relationally understand you"? 

You're right, I often don't have high confidence that I know what you're getting at. I pick an interpretation and roll with it and expect explicit correction if I misinterpreted. I try to parse and understand you, then you let me know if I've misunderstood, then I adjust. No need to get hung up on misunderstandings or dwell on the fact that it happened. Good-faith communication keeps moving forward. 

Understand my meaning. Not just surface analysis where you think because a mechanism is "explained" their behaviour, intentions, meaning and experience are known. 

For example - with a passage like this:

Quote

It’s time to feed Leo’s superiority complex. This is just him finding some weird thing to use as an excuse to tell you he’s more conscious than you all are. It has nothing to do with any deep insight that you’re missing or that he wants you to see. It’s a recurring pattern. Tends to come in waves. This wave probably isn’t over. 

What are you trying to achieve, other than to advertise an analytical observation of mechanistic behaviour? It substitutes analytical interpretation for relational understanding. Your action here appears to take Leo's observed rhetoric and convert it to a model of Leo's inner state and motives. That model/analysis may be partially or entirely correct. Do you think you might be trying to produce insight? This is unlikely, by itself, to produce the kind of self-recognition that facilitates voluntary change. Especially as this sort of analytical model-push has been repeated by you many times (and others) on the forum, over a prolonged period. Again I make no comment as to whether I think you are correct or not. 

If you want to achieve a change in Leo, you need to create the possibility of affecting recognition from him. He needs to recognise himself in your representation of him. There is very little relational connection occurring in the interaction as described. Connection needs to have this relational aspect to be transformational. Hit from both axis (insight "There is a pattern here" + recognition "Yes, I see this pattern occurring in me").

Your analysis of Leo denies his meaning before discovering it. Imagine Leo responds to the above "That's not what I'm doing at all. I'm actually trying to articulate something I think people are misunderstanding." Often the response will be: "That's exactly what someone with a superiority complex would say." (in fact, I can imagine you writing this - and maybe you wouldn't, but my mind took me there!). But that is a self sealing model where anything Leo says is more evidence for the model. That is the opposite of relational understanding. This the other dataset you are overlooking by focusing so much on analytical understanding (mechanistic explanation) then the "mind reading" epistemological leap. And that dataset is found in relational understanding. 

By avoiding relating in this way, you subtly dehumanise Leo (you may not intent to do this at all, it is just this mode of relating can have dehumanising effects regardless of intention). You can remove yourself from the relational experience of what you're saying, and therefore from what it may be like to repeatedly have someone interpret your inner world through armchair psychology. 

Stripping someone of their humanity like this is just going to block your message from being recognised. Relational knowledge and understanding is part of the pathway by which another person can actually receive and integrate a message. Explanation is not understanding.

Having said all that - this is why I am confused as to what you are trying to achieve. If you just fancy your ability to diagnose and play psychologist, or if you are genuinely trying to get through to Leo and aren't aware that you have more tools available to you. And if the case is the latter - the dehumanising effect your persistent comments can cause is shooting you in the foot.

Edited yesterday at 02:56 AM by Natasha Tori Maru

[Sandroew]

Uh i dont want to open a whole topic for this, so i guess im gonna ask here.

Is my sense of time messed up here ?

Youtube tells me the Spiral Dynamics episodes are 8 years old. Which would date them to 2018 ?

Did they get reuploaded then, or i remember wrong that they should be older than that ?

[Joshe]

@Natasha Tori Maru

This is rich. You're doing the same thing to me you're claiming that I'm doing to Leo, which I'm actually not doing.

Had you inquired into my interior before writing all this, you could have understood the actual motivation behind my comment rather than guess between two wrong options.

So, if you want to understand:

Is it intellectual peacocking?

No. If someone else would have posted the exact same thing before I did, I never would have commented, unless I quoted it and said something like "100%".

Am I trying to change Leo?

No. In fact, if the forum had a "hide from Leo" button, I almost certainly would have pressed it here because I don't like saying negative things about people where they can read it.

So why did I do it anyway? It's far more complex than either of the options you floated.

The motivation to interject in these situations is: toxic or harmful stuff going unnoticed.

The point of interjecting these reads is that no one else is or that people are not aware of them. When there's something people aren't seeing, that's when I interject. Crude/visible bad behavior doesn't need me. The sophisticated, room-confusing kind is what pulls me. If everyone could already see it, or if someone already pointed it out, I often don't feel a pull to interject unless there's an open discussion specifically about the topic.

And it's not to be the one doing the delivery. I think this is some projection on your part. I actually don't like it when people see me as intelligent or anything like that. I even experience mild agitation when this happens. I don't like to be elevated in any way. I do like to transfer ideas, but not "my ideas", just "ideas". I've never felt special for being the one who has ideas or who can see. This is just weird shit to me.

So, when I harp on Leo's superiority complex, it's because of the harm I see in it and because no one else is seeing it.

Now, I need to explain how Leo's superiority complex is harmful, because it's not obvious.

He's not meaning to harm anyone. It's just a byproduct of his nature. I've explained elsewhere the psychological disposition that produces his behavior regarding putting others beneath him, so I won't elaborate here, but it basically works like this:

Leo creates a hierarchy of mind/intelligence/consciousness/awareness and positions himself at the top. Then, when his superiority needs fed, he finds ways to erect that hierarchy and puts people beneath him. This specific instance was "you leftist don't understand conservatives, but I do. I am above you leftists on the mind/intelligence/consciousness/awareness hierarchy."

If you don't see it like this, that's on you. I can't tell you how to see the truth of it for yourself, especially when you have the disposition that thinks "remaining open" and refusing to convert evidence into usable conclusions is the wise approach to life.

But anyway, whether or not I'm right or wrong about this isn't the point here. The point is that I see harm that most everyone else is missing or letting slide. The harm is teaching people to rank themselves below an unearned authority and to distrust their own perception. People being being nudged to defer and subordinate themselves primarily for the benefit of a grandiose ego, not for their own betterment. All because some dude's ego needs boosted, and at their expense.

I see that as harmful and worth calling out.

Also, you need to keep in mind. I don't hold any personal grudges toward Leo. I don't walk around with animosity toward him. It's simply the case that when his superiority complex rears its head, I call it the fuck out because sometimes, that's the best or only tool for keeping it in check. I'm not going to pretend like it's not a thing, even if you or anyone else finds it uncomfortable or off-putting.

Also, you don't understand my model of Leo. If you did, you would know that there is no fixing this aspect of his behavior. It will exist for the rest of his life. I know you're probably cringing at this statement because you can't fathom how this could be known. But again, it takes specific effort to arrive at such knowledge. Just because you haven't put in the work, doesn't mean you can't. Strap on a sack and start figuring stuff out, is all I can say. 

No amount of "relating" would ever work here.

[Natasha Tori Maru]

@Joshe correct - that's why I (if you reread carefully, I think you again didn't relationally ask me) didn't claim to know exactly what you mean.

I offered my hypothesis and asked you to tell me. That's what I am saying to do. 

The worst my post could come across as is a speculative interpretation with some explicit epistemic hedging.

And yes, my speculation is analytical and looking at mechanism as a possible explanation. But once again, I am asking your meaning, but also illustrating potential gaps that could be missed in this process.

Calling out Leo by psychologically analysing him can be received poorly. Just also Leo's words can be received poorly.

Do I mean to understand this as a rightuous endeavour on your behalf? 

Also again you express to "know I am probably cringing" .

Also notice I am not saying your model is wrong. 

[Natasha Tori Maru]

@Joshe Can I ask why you think no one else sees the pattern you illustrate and the causative harm chain? How did you come to this conclusion? 

[Joshe]

17 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

Do I mean to understand this as a rightuous endeavour on your behalf? 

lol, no. It's just an expression of my innate values. I would never think of myself as "righteous" or being morally superior to anyone else, even if I were. If you built a scale and I ranked high on it, I would not be interested in my high grade because satisfaction from elevation is just cringe to me. 

14 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

Can I ask why you think no one else sees the pattern you illustrate and the causative harm chain? How did you come to this conclusion? 

"no one else" wasn't literal. I even made sure to include "mostly no one else" once or twice in hopes of avoiding this nitpick, lol. 

I'm aware of the few on the forum who have acknowledged it publicly. And it's easy to see it's not really a thing on the radar for the vast majority.

[Natasha Tori Maru]

31 minutes ago, Joshe said:

"no one else" wasn't literal. I even made sure to include "mostly no one else" once or twice in hopes of avoiding this nitpick, lol. 

I'm aware of the few on the forum who have acknowledged it publicly. And it's easy to see it's not really a thing on the radar for the vast majority.

Cheers ~

It didn't intend it as a nit-pick - it was rather clumsy and poorly phrased question by me that didn't communicate my thoughts properly. I should have said "why do you think so few people see the pattern"? People largely aren't oblivious to seeing poor behaviour - I think many see behaviour and do not call it out. I also think it is a ordinary human behavioural pattern to call it out. It does not necessarily need a psychological motive. 

And to be clear, I am aware I am putting forth a hypothesis that involves inference. I am inviting you to correct me

So to rephrase - how did you come to the "mostly no one else sees the harmful pattern" conclusion? 

And to be even more frank, this:

Quote

there is no fixing this aspect of his behavior. It will exist for the rest of his life.

is probably the sort of leap I see you make often. I would move to challenge this because it requires substantially more evidence than you have access to.

Edited 5 hours ago by Natasha Tori Maru

[Joshe]

27 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

why do you think so few people see the pattern

Because most people don't models minds with high enough resolution. 

You said:

Quote

Imagine Leo responds to the above "That's not what I'm doing at all. I'm actually trying to articulate something I think people are misunderstanding."

That's the obvious interpretation and it's what it appears to be for most everyone. When Leo says "You leftists have no clue how much conservatives love their culture", the most accessible interpretation is that a good-faith person is sharing insights.

The idea that the person is asserting their position atop a hierarchy is not an easy one to see, and even harder to verify. 

It takes a good bit of deep psychological insight and analysis to accurately model someone. Most minds aren't interested in that kind of work.

And if Leo was never called out on any of this in recent past, the blindness would be even greater.

There are several other contributing factors, but this is the biggest. 

Edited 5 hours ago by Joshe

[Natasha Tori Maru]

2 hours ago, Joshe said:

Because most people don't models minds with high enough resolution. 

You said:

That's the obvious interpretation and it's what it appears to be for most everyone. When Leo says "You leftists have no clue how much conservatives love their culture", the most accessible interpretation is that a good-faith person is sharing insights.

The idea that the person is asserting their position atop a hierarchy is not an easy one to see, and even harder to verify. 

It takes a good bit of deep psychological insight and analysis to accurately model someone. Most minds aren't interested in that kind of work.

And if Leo was never called out on any of this in recent past, the blindness would be even greater.

There are several other contributing factors, but this is the biggest. 

Okay, cheers. You avoid parts of my enquiry. I won't press further.

I perceive the above is a bit circular. It appears like a potentially self-validating epistemic structure. "I see the hidden psychological structure and others don't, so their ordinary interpretation is superficial & my deeper model explains why they are missing it". Because if anyone disagrees with you, their disagreement can be explained as "They simply don't have sufficiently high resolution psychological modelling capability". If you follow. I do this also. Leo does this. Many forum users also make this move.

I think it is a slight trap some of the more sophisticated thinkers slink into. Not always consciously. 

Edited 3 hours ago by Natasha Tori Maru

[Joshe]

2 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

Okay, cheers. You avoid parts of my enquiry. I won't press further.

Sorry, what exactly did I skip over? 

2 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

I perceive the above is a bit circular. It appears like a potentially self-validating epistemic structure. "I see the hidden psychological structure and others don't, so their ordinary interpretation is superficial & my deeper model explains why they are missing it". Because if anyone disagrees with you, their disagreement can be explained as "They simply don't have sufficiently high resolution psychological modelling capability". If you follow. I do this also. Leo does this. 

You asked "why do you think people miss it?" I responded "because it's a hard thing to see" and explained why it's hard. 

It's like asking someone who can read sheet music why most people can't and they respond "because they haven't put in the work", and then calling their reasoning for why most people can't read music circular because it relies on them having superior capability.

It's fucking absurd Natasha. And I think you know it is.

Also, if anyone disagrees with me and wants elaboration/explanation or to stress test it, it's not like I haven't went into great detail about my position. I've elaborated on it and pointed to resources that flesh most of it out, many times.

I'm pretty sure you've read most of the stuff I've written on the topic, as you were involved in the threads. You voiced no disagreement on the technical points. Seemingly only disagreement with my confidence level. If you want to argue that I'm wrong, you have to tell me what exactly I'm wrong about. NOT point to some epistemic process you suspect I botched. 

Karen Horney's "expansive solution" is most of my model. You would need to explore it for several hours and look closely for patterns. But like I said, most people aren't interested in this type of stuff. And unfortunately, that work alone probably isn't sufficient for installing high confidence. I think you have to be able to read well in the first place.

But anyway, now that I've explained my interior to you in more detail, did you update your model of me, or do you find my self-reports untrustworthy/unconvincing? Because I feel like you're not updating. I ask because I get the sense that there's another motive beyond understanding me.

Edited 2 hours ago by Joshe

[Natasha Tori Maru]

@Joshe 

The sheet music case isn't circular in reasoning like the "most model don't model minds with high enough resolution" case, because there is an independently testable skill. But I only say that because you haven't gone into how this could be empirically proven - which you could reasonably do. And is a sufficient line of reasoning to explain how your reasoning isn't circular. I thought you would take that route. I like figuring out how others perceive "Knowing".

I just perceive you as being confident in your theoretical psychological analysis - but also hesitant to address me as coming charitable intent. You expressed your meaning a lot better here - so I understand that a lot better now through relational dialogue. I no longer see you as motivated by justice seeking or egoic stuff. I think your rhetoric is a bit charged though. I don't think you appreciate my questions. And I don't want to upset you. Within my experience I feel as if you aren't able to accept I can be a charitable person to entertain a dialogue with. It appears as if you are trying to find my motivations behind this line of enquiry - I wanted your meaning and how you think. Not to make judgement. Just curious. And I apologise if I did phrase or put anything in a way that might make this unclear.

Tapping out so we can go back to the blog discussion