Leo's Blog Discussion Mega-Thread

[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 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!

[Daniel Balan]

4 minutes ago, RendHeaven said:

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

Haha! That was my point of using "!" all along. To make the reader feel the indignation with which I write! 

[Leo Gura]

7 minutes ago, Daniel Balan said:

Now I agree with you!

No!

You are still missing two key insights:

1. Masculinity values truth
2. Survival requires truth

Stop acting too cool for school.

Edited June 21 by Leo Gura

[Daniel Balan]

6 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

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

Don't get blinded by your stubborness.

If you would be right, then men would behave more truthfully! Which is not the case! Most men are run by greed not truth! Does owning 5 yachts have to do anything with truth? Once you have one or two houses do you need another 7 of them to earn passive income off of them? Hell no! You would behave truthfully and not buy those, so others can have their house too! Once you have a woman would you try to have another 10 women in your rotation? Hell no! You would behave truthfully and love your partener both making her loved and happy and allowing other 10 men each have one woman partner by not taking all 10 for yourself. Behaving truthfully means sometimes sacrificing some survival benefits for truth! Hoarding endless wealth and resources signals devilry, not truth!

[Leo Gura]

Just now, Daniel Balan said:

Most men are run by greed not truth!

That doesn't contradict what I said.

You are looking at it too much from one lens. Try another lens. It won't kill you.

[Miguel1]

18 minutes ago, Daniel Balan said:

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!

He would not be making that money, had he not realized the truth that most people are dumb as hell, and they need to be sold supplements BS, and not God.

[MuadDib]

I'd say masculinity prioritises thinking over feeling. Not necessarily truth over feeling.

Is thought a better vehicle to arrive at truth? Perhaps, but I'm not entirely convinced.

It might simply be the case that survival is generally easier as a man, and so truth seeking is easier. Not so much that men have a higher intrinsic capacity for it because of their masculinity.

Men and women don't generally value truth primarily. They value survival, and truth insofar as it augments survival. Women meet their objectives primarily through feelings, and men with thinking.

[Leo Gura]

7 minutes ago, Miguel1 said:

He would not be making that money, had he not realized the truth that most people are dumb as hell

Ahahahahaha 

[Leo Gura]

4 minutes ago, MuadDib said:

men have a higher intrinsic capacity for it because of their masculinity.

That is exactly my point.

But hey, feel free to reject it.

[RendHeaven]

2 minutes ago, MuadDib said:

I'd say masculinity prioritises thinking over feeling. Not necessarily truth over feeling.

Is thought a better vehicle to arrive at truth? Perhaps, but I'm not entirely convinced

No, the dichotomy is genuinely truth vs feeling.

Case in point, my earlier silly example about the girl asking if she looks fat or not. She intentionally doesn't want to hear the truth

Whereas a guy asking the same question is positing a logistical query. Is my belly popping yes or no?

The reason the feminine-coded POV here is anti-truth is because reality-mapping becomes strictly secondary to the positive feelings she is seeking.

[Daniel Balan]

19 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

No!

You are still missing two key insights:

1. Masculinity values truth
2. Survival requires truth

Stop acting too cool for school.

I don't see how survival corelates with truth one bit! From my life experience I saw that those with the biggest mansions and nicest cars exploited other humans and nature the most, had 10 mistresses, paid dirt wages to their employees, worked them 14 hours a day, were friends with all corrupt politicians and religious figures and so on! While the men or women who valued truth were exploited by those you defend for valuing "truth"! I know men who didn't steal a penny in their life, who respect their family, and behave friendly and with respect towards all beings while earning 500 €/ month. Those are far more truthful men than those who earn 6 figures, exploit every human or animal for their benefit, rape the earth of its resources and pollute it, beat their wife when they go home, and cheats  on his partner at every chance! I reckon the first man in my example is far more truthful than the second, despite doing more poorly at survival!

Edited June 21 by Daniel Balan

[Daniel Balan]

10 minutes ago, Miguel1 said:

He would not be making that money, had he not realized the truth that most people are dumb as hell, and they need to be sold supplements BS, and not God.

This is devilry! Not truth! Truth means caring for your costumers, not milking them like cows!

[RendHeaven]

1 minute ago, Daniel Balan said:

I don't see how survival corelates with truth one bit! From my life experience I saw that those with the biggest mansions and nicest cars exploited other humans and nature the most, had 10 mistresses, paid dirt wages to their employees, worked them 14 hours a day, were friends with all corrupt politicians and religious figures and so on! While the men or women who valued truth were exploited by those you defend for valuing "truth"! I know men who didn't steal a penny in their life, who respect their family, and behave friendly and with respect towards all beings while earning 500 €/ month. Those are far more truthful men than those who earn 6 figures, exploit every human or animal for their benefit, rape the earth of its resources and pollute it, beat their wife when he goes home, and cheats his partner at every chance! I reckon the first man in my example is far more truthful than the second, despite doing more poorly at survival!

but you're comparing men vs men now.

regardless of how they stack up against each other, on average they will both prefer to interpret sense data in a self-consistent manner

whereas the average woman will choose to interpret sense data in whichever way sparks joy

[Natasha Tori Maru]

There is a functional truth to feeling & emotion (ie it has survival purposes). The masculine & feminine see truth and value it in different domains. 

If you are about to be shanked by some dickhead, fear is going to fucking motivate you. Fear is serving survival. Survival is truth. 

I see a lot of interplay between feelings & truth. 

I don't see feeling vs truth.

[MuadDib]

7 minutes ago, RendHeaven said:

No, the dichotomy is genuinely truth vs feeling.

Case in point, my earlier silly example about the girl asking if she looks fat or not. She intentionally doesn't want to hear the truth

Whereas a guy asking the same question is positing a logistical query. Is my belly popping yes or no?

The reason the feminine-coded POV here is anti-truth is because reality-mapping becomes strictly secondary to the positive feelings she is seeking.

Shes asking a question to probe for a deeper truth.

Namely, do you love me in spite of my flaws?

Truth is the handmaiden of Love.

[Deziree]

1 hour 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.

(first off you made really good points) 

living a completely ethical life is practically impossible due to interconnected global systems. it's nearly impossible to live a life free from complicity in these harmful systems, even for those who strive for ethical consumption.

It is fairly understandable that empathy conflicts with truth on a foundational and ethical level or let's say the other way around, that truth conflicts with empathy in lieu of survival.  I agree that it's nearly impossible to be completely 'pure' in our consumption, and that many forms of suffering are indeed out of sight, out of mind for most of us.

I acknowledge all your points while defending my stance on empathy versus truth. I'm just saying that it's a bit more nuanced than truth is brutal for survival because empathy is woven even into this brutality. You might say that these electronic chips needed child labor but what if these same mobile phones were used in emergency services saving lives calling ambulances. Do you see this as empathy in motion? Truth might be brutal but empathy is not just about feelings. If a life is saved, this is empathy in action and this action is survival too. Do you look at it with this perspective? 

However, I don't think acknowledging these realities necessarily negates the importance of striving for empathy or for reducing brutality where we can. While brutality might always be a potential in human nature or within global systems, the degree to which it's expressed and tolerated is precisely what we have some agency over. My point about brutality being 'phased out or replaced' wasn't to say it disappears entirely, but rather that societies can and do evolve to diminish its overt forms and establish norms that condemn it. The fact that we even discuss and deplore child labor or environmental destruction, for example, is a testament to an evolving empathy, even if the systems haven't caught up. Do you consider this? Just trying to add a bit of mine to your perspective as well. I basically agree with you wholeheartedly but adding a bit of nuance where empathy is concerned. 

Perhaps the 'truth' you speak of and the 'empathy' I talk about here aren't mutually exclusive. Empathy can be a powerful motivator for seeking out those uncomfortable truths and then working to change the systems that perpetuate them. It's about finding a balance between acknowledging the harsh realities and not becoming paralyzed by them, instead channeling that awareness into action, however small. The alternative—accepting brutality as an unchangeable constant—feels like a more dangerous reductionism to me. So how about enmeshing both. To some degree both go hand in hand. With survival surplus as you said, we begin to think of empathy more and more at the top of the chain. 

 What I'm suggesting is that empathy isn't just about feeling good, but about driving change. Positive change like technology that helps disabled people operate better? 

The fact that we can even have this conversation, that there are movements dedicated to ethical sourcing, environmental protection, or human rights, suggests a collective moral evolution, however slow and imperfect. This evolution, I believe, is fundamentally driven by empathy, by our ability to recognize and respond to the suffering of others, even if they are distant.

My argument wasn't that brutality vanishes, but that our societal response to it can change. The 'dormant' brutality you mention is precisely what empathy seeks to expose and, ideally, diminish. The "truth" you're highlighting, while painful, can also serve as a catalyst for greater empathy and, consequently, more informed action. If we accept the 'cost of truth' as simply being harsh without any call to action, then what's the point of uncovering it? For me, the discomfort that truth brings should fuel our desire to mitigate harm, not lead to resignation. That's what I meant. Of course I don't condemn brutality, in a more moralistic frame, yes, but fundamentally our survival is connected with brutality but love and empathy are core components of driving change to accommodate max survival I'd what I meant.