Drama Alert! Another YTber is calling us a cult! 😈☦️

[Elliott]

Just to clarify, I don't consider you guys debating actualized being a cult as being manipulative or mean, I only interjected on the narcissism. I won't interject on a clean debate about being a cult, I meant it when I said I don't have any interest at all. I think the thread turned abusive toward Leo, is all.

[zurew]

On 2026. 06. 17. at 2:05 PM, Elliott said:

To me you guys @zurew @Joshe @Carl-Richard appear to be at the peak range of intelligence on this forum, have you considered that most of the other people on here might just have different behavior patterns than yourselves in general that look more 'cult following' monkey see monkey do than yourselves? Perhaps you're expecting less intelligent people to react in a similar manner that you three do to certain things, or are disturbed by behaviors that can just be attributed to lower intelligence.

We havent interacted much on this forum yet, but I dont really like comments like this.

It puts the mentioned people (us) in a bad position, regardless of whether I interpret your comment as sarcastic or not, and regardless of whether I reply or not.

1) If I interpret it in a sarcastic way and if I reply to it with that interpretation in mind, then its successful bait (if you tried to bait), 2) If I don’t reply, it might seem like I agree with the underlying premise, and 3) if I go with a non-sarcastic interpretation and try to explain myself why I disagree with the underlying premise, then it might come off as dishonest virtue-signaling (since you already elevated us in the sky and now I need to fight against that characterization and also against the characterization that 'other people who disagree with us perhaps have lower intelligence  compared to us to the point where their behavior disturbs us').

So it creates unnecessary tension between people and also warrants a response from the mentioned people, where they need to explain themselves for things they havent said or implied.

----

I will go with the non-sarcastic interpretation.

Firstly, my honest answer to that is that I dont think that im more intelligent than other people here. You can pick IQ , you can pick spiral dynamics or other cognitive complexity chart or metric - it doesnt matter, I dont think that I will score higher than most people on this forum.

Secondly, I dont think that disagreements in general (on most topics) are explained by intelligence difference related factors. Experts, high IQ people with high cognitive complexity can always disagree with each other (we see this all the time) and I think that in the vast majority of the cases disagreements are explained by non-intelligence difference related factors  (And I think that applies in this situation as well).

Edited Friday at 08:45 AM by zurew

[Elliott]

4 hours ago, zurew said:

We havent interacted much on this forum yet, but I dont really like comments like this.

It puts the mentioned people (us) in a bad position, regardless of whether I interpret your comment as sarcastic or not, and regardless of whether I reply or not.

1) If I interpret it in a sarcastic way and if I reply to it with that interpretation in mind, then its successful bait (if you tried to bait), 2) If I don’t reply, it might seem like I agree with the underlying premise, and 3) if I go with a non-sarcastic interpretation and try to explain myself why I disagree with the underlying premise, then it might come off as dishonest virtue-signaling (since you already elevated us in the sky and now I need to fight against that characterization and also against the characterization that 'other people who disagree with us perhaps have lower intelligence  compared to us to the point where their behavior disturbs us').

So it creates unnecessary tension between people and also warrants a response from the mentioned people, where they need to explain themselves for things they havent said or implied.

----

I will go with the non-sarcastic interpretation.

Firstly, my honest answer to that is that I dont think that im more intelligent than other people here. You can pick IQ , you can pick spiral dynamics or other cognitive complexity chart or metric - it doesnt matter, I dont think that I will score higher than most people on this forum.

Secondly, I dont think that disagreements in general (on most topics) are explained by intelligence difference related factors. Experts, high IQ people with high cognitive complexity can always disagree with each other (we see this all the time) and I think that in the vast majority of the cases disagreements are explained by non-intelligence difference related factors  (And I think that applies in this situation as well).

Cool cool

[Joseph Maynor]

There is definitely politics involved in any social relation.

[Elliott]

2 hours ago, Joseph Maynor said:

There is definitely politics involved in any social relation.

Do any of those other ones have members that warn about the group being dangerous but then stay in it, posting in other threads like any other day?

 

 

Edited Saturday at 02:40 AM by Elliott

[AerisVahnEphelia]

1 hour ago, Joseph Maynor said:

There is definitely politics involved in any social relation.

"you just need to accept to be dead to be more polite"

Edited Saturday at 02:06 AM by AerisVahnEphelia

[Joseph Maynor]

36 minutes ago, Elliott said:

Do any of those other ones have members that warn about the group being dangerous but then stay in it, posting in other threads like any other day?

Everyone is at a different stage of development.  

[Elliott]

11 hours ago, Joseph Maynor said:

Everyone is at a different stage of development.  

They're at the Steve Irwin stage

 

Edited Saturday at 02:09 PM by Elliott

[Natasha Tori Maru]

More drama here than I have between all the women in my life. 

And men aren't as emotional as woman? HA! 

[Joseph Maynor]

2 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

More drama here than I have between all the women in my life. 

And men aren't as emotional as woman? HA! 

Lol.  You love it.  

[Natasha Tori Maru]

14 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

Lol.  You love it.  

It's delicious  

[Joseph Maynor]

35 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

It's delicious  

Delicious and instructive too.  

[Natasha Tori Maru]

4 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

Delicious and instructive too.  

Very much so. I always look at these sorts of charged discussions in retrospect to juice out what I can do better. How it went wrong. How we can present ourselves and our arguments in a more neutral way.

Offense generally appears to be produced by content, framing, timing, and the listener’s identity and context.

[Human Mint]

Coexistence with oposing views is healthy. Let thy ego crumble!

[zurew]

@Carl-Richard @Joshe @Natasha Tori Maru @Osaid

Soo -  this is what is supposed to be a thorough , high consciousness , tier 2 response to all the problems that were outlined in detail: 

https://www.actualized.org/insights/robert-greene-on-self-belief

Edited 4 hours ago by zurew

[Natasha Tori Maru]

@zurew intentional or not, I felt it was a misunderstanding entirely of how the word is applied in this setting.... 

Self belief = confidence. Self belief =/= narcissism.

[Carl-Richard]

@zurew You know it's not a substantial engagement and just more persuasion when like with cult, he refuses to engage or go more into definitions than one layer. And in that post, he didn't even define narcissism.

And that's why I predict and why you should expect that he will never go into detail on what narcissism is because that proves he is one. And if he does, he will say "I care about other people" and then he will not engage with the examples brought up that argue against that fact.

And then perhaps he will try to wriggle himself out by saying "being an asshole doesn't mean you're a narcissist". Well, actually, if you think you're the best in the world (and you're delusional about that) and you're consistently an asshole (and it's directly tied to that reason, when people challenge you on it, you become an asshole), you are probably a narcissist.

It's so easy to argue against it because it's arguing against somebody who does not care about truth in this instance but their own ego. And even if he was somehow not an asshole and a saint through all this and people want to say it can't be a cult because everybody is having a good time, consider that being here wasting your time funneling your time and attention to entertain somebody's delusions like this, you're being exploited, treated like a joker at a clown show jigging for a self-proclaimed king for their leisure and pleasure. Consider a part of the reason why Leo has 65k posts on his own forum.

And as for "I took a self-assessment test and it showed I'm not a narcissist", laughable.

Edited 4 minutes ago by Carl-Richard

[Jirh]

@Leo Gura

Criticism is love.

I didn't participate in criticizing you here, but I think you can be confident and accept feedback. There's no contradiction.

Overall, just don't take anything said here the wrong way, even if said improperly. We love you. We believe in you. And we want you to be even better.

Holding someone accountable is one of the sincerest expressions of love. And you are getting it here. Please don't close yourself off to it. Allow love to play out and see what happens. We're with you in any case.

[Carl-Richard]

Quote

A Defining Characteristic

Narcissists are known for their habitual exaggeration and hyperbole. Why do they do it? For multiple reasons, all self-serving. But the main two reasons are self-aggrandizement and manipulation through impression management.

Exaggeration and hyperbole are ways the narcissist affirms their grandiose self-image. In some cases it can be a way to build him/herself up. But in most cases, it’s just posturing. Feeling superior and always right, it’s also the way they make others out to be the stupid, inferior, crazy one when they call them out. It’s actually quite a powerful way to manipulate and control others

A Major Misconception

Traditional psychology theories taught that all narcissists exaggerate to compensate for underlying, unconscious fears and insecurity. And while this can sometimes be true for some types of narcissists, it’s rarely the case for most. More often, any shaky sense of self (and reality!) the narcissistic character has (and reality!) results from their habitual exaggeration of their their abilities, their worth, and their understanding of things.

[...]

https://www.drgeorgesimon.com/exaggeration-and-hyperbole-in-narcissists/

Edited 1 hour ago by Carl-Richard

[zurew]

1 hour ago, Carl-Richard said:

@zurew You know it's not a substantial engagement and just more persuasion when like with cult, he refuses to engage or go more into definitions than one layer. And in that post, he didn't even define narcissism. Because if he did, he could not sincerely have made that post.

And that's why I predict and why you should expect that he will never go into detail on what narcissism is because that proves he is one. And if he does, he will say "I care about other people", and then he will not engage with the examples brought up that argue against that fact.

And then perhaps he will try to wriggle himself out by saying "being an asshole doesn't mean you're a narcissist". Well, actually, if you think you're the best in the world (and you're delusional about that) and you're consistently an asshole (and it's directly tied to that reason, when people challenge you on it, you become an asshole), you are probably a narcissist.

It's so easy to argue against it because it's arguing against somebody who is not cared about truth in this instance but their own ego. And even if he was somehow not an asshole and a saint through all this and people want to say it can't be a cult because everybody is having a good time, consider that being here wasting your time funneling your time and attention to entertain somebody's delusions like this, you're being exploited, treated like a joker at a clown show jigging for a self-proclaimed king for their leisure and pleasure. Consider a part of the reason why Leo has 65k posts on his own forum.

And as for "I took a self-assessment test and it showed I'm not a narcissist", laughable.

The tier 2 inference  "Btw I did an objective 5 minute internet psych test that proved that im not a narcissist "

The dismissive "Let me only focus on definitions and let me label all disagreers as inexperienced people and as  internet trolls.  Let me also not address literally any single fucking thing about my posts and about my behavior that were directly outlined in a structured way with a bunch of links".

"let me ignore the fact that literally half of my moderators think that my behavior is problematic and let me continue engaging in the exact same dismissive, nonresponsive, and undermining behavior that I've been consistently exhibiting for the past decade or so.  ".

 

This is the easy, lazy, coward move. "Let me negatively frame and undermine the cognition and or the morals of all the disagreers so that I dont need to subsantively engage with literally anything".

This move might work against a random youtuber who literally doesnt know anything about you and your work, but this wont work against your own moderators.

Edited 58 minutes ago by zurew