If genetics determines us so much, why self-help?

[StaraX]

9 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

It takes a lot of work to make the most of your genetics.

@Leo Gura

If I have shitty genetics, what's the point of making most of my genetics?

 I'm just showing my frustrations. I've read close to 100 self-help books on growth mindset, positive psychology, and the inner game over the past 5–6 years, but they mean very little when reality hits you hard.

For instance, there are a shitload of books that tell you how to ace high school and college and get good grades. Despite working extremely hard and working on my mindset and all that, the results of that effort weren't even close to those of my friends. This is just one example out of many. In pickup and dating this is very visible as well. 

If 80–90% of your health is determined by your genetics, why do so-called nutrition scientists rarely mention this?

Why doesn't society just tell us the truth? Is it only because it's so painful? That's ridiculous. It ain't gonna solve anything.

 

Edited 13 hours ago by StaraX

[Carl-Richard]

@StaraX But have you tried brain training?

[Natasha Tori Maru]

23 minutes ago, StaraX said:

@Natasha Tori Maru You just proved my point 

But how do you determine those constants and know them for sure? 

[oOo]

Genetics is a means to an end, and the end is personal growth. 

The competition describes the context, which changes from life style to lifestyle. 

If your personal growth is around increasing peace in your life, this question wouldn't plague you.

Thus your personal growth is likely centred in another area at present.

To me, this is actually an exciting opportunity for you@StaraX, as it means you're about to make a personal leap in distinguishing self-worth, where your personal growth centres around your own unique path, from societal conditioning where your self-worth is tied up in comparisons and performance metrics; very stage orange like - spiral dynamics.

Every stage in life has its own unique challenges and opportunities, and this is just a small bump in the road for you; in a weeks time or so you'll be able to look back at the emotional lessons you took from this enquiry and apply it to other life areas, helping you solve them more than you otherwise could have. 

Embrace this challenge honestly, appraise your emotions and other experiences with integrity, there's no need to deny what you're experiencing as its a learning experience like any other. My recommendation is not to make convincing yourself of a black/white judgement on this issue, but instead use it as an opportunity to trust your own unique learning curve. This same trust will be the very self-trust that makes the very query itself, redundant unless otherwise genuinely supportive of your life path. Best wishes.

[Lucasxp64]

On 08/08/2026 at 0:35 PM, StaraX said:

 "it's-all-genetics"

• It's all about the physical constraints of the universe
• It's all about the conditions of this planet, it's cosmic and geologically lucky history and our moment in time (A few billion years too early and you get eaten by a dino, too late the sun has destroyed the atmosphere)
• It's all about not being in chains as a slave
• It's all about not having a debilitating illness
• It's all about a nuclear weapon not dematerializing our body
• It's all about not having a car accident and not having brain damage
• It's all about not being abandoned as a child in a literal dumpster
• It's all about having the genetics of a functionally viable human, not of a fruit fly, a dog, or any other animal or living being of this planet, having physical, legal and monetary freedom.

Edited 6 hours ago by Lucasxp64

[Lucasxp64]

7 hours ago, StaraX said:

@Leo Gura

If I have shitty genetics, what's the point of making most of my genetics? [...] the results of that effort weren't even close to those of my friends. [...] Why doesn't society just tell us the truth? Is it only because it's so painful?

Bro, you're alive in the in the 21st century, you are functionally enough to be able to read and  write in english, you have access to the internet, you're not a slave in literal chains.

You're ahead of literally over 99.9% of all humans that ever existed, and you are comparing yourself to "your friends"?

Why don't we all compare ourselves with Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk?

Most of mankind died as a child, if they survived, they were raised as illiterate peasants and would die of Infectious diseases like malaria. 

Edited 6 hours ago by Lucasxp64

[Lucasxp64]

My point is that this a very finicky perspective from an epistemological perspective, you can slice up this problem in so many ways, if you slice it just at the wrong angle you make yourself feel miserable... If you slice it just a bit to the side, you will be dancing naked on the beach with overflowing joy. This is a losing game.

Even specifically what you're saying about "your friends getting more". Why are you so bothered? There are people outside of your circle that literally just turn on a camera and shake their butt to a camera and they get paid millions, why are you not comparing with them instead and being jealous of their butt?

YOUR FRIENDS ARE "LOSERS" COMPARED TO JEFF BEZOS. THE CHANCES THEY CAN BEAT JEFF ARE WORSE THAN WINNING THE LOTTERY. (I might be wrong with this, if I'm wrong, you're actually lucky to have such friends, network with them)

I'm saying this because those are questions that I asked myself as well, again, this is a losing game those comparisons and this is defeatism.

EVERY SINGLE DEFEASTIST IDEOLOGY OUT THERE USES THE SAME TALKING POINTS.

They take something that you can't change easily and they project that as the only source of all of your problems, just to distract you from actually minding your own business.

---

JUST ASK MORE SPECIFIC QUESTIONS. IF YOU ARE NOT SPECIFIC ENOUGH WITH YOUR QUESTIONS AND YOU USE BROAD GENERALIZATIONS LIKE THAT, THAT WILL DESTROY WITH YOUR ABILITY OF DISCERNMENT.

What specifically do you even know about your friends? Do you even care about what they care? Don't use the same measurement stick to compare bananas with oranges.

Edited 6 hours ago by Lucasxp64

[StaraX]

8 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

But how do you determine those constants and know them for sure? 

How did you arrive to that conclusion? 

[StaraX]

1 hour ago, Lucasxp64 said:

Bro, you're alive in the in the 21st century, you are functionally enough to be able to read and  write in english, you have access to the internet, you're not a slave in literal chains.

You're ahead of literally over 99.9% of all humans that ever existed, and you are comparing yourself to "your friends"?

Why don't we all compare ourselves with Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk?

Most of mankind died as a child, if they survived, they were raised as illiterate peasants and would die of Infectious diseases like malaria. 

That’s how humans generally behave. A poor person from a Third World country isn’t going to compare himself to a middle-class person from the West. He’s more likely to compare himself to another person from his own area. This is very obvious.

It ain’t gonna help even a tiny bit if you tell a 5'8" Dutch guy something like, “Look, bro, you’d be tall in Malaysia, India and Indonesia. Don’t be depressed about your height!”

Edited 4 hours ago by StaraX

[StaraX]

@oOo The thing is, I’m mostly frustrated with the equation I thought was true for so long: “You’re gonna get from life what you put into it.” This is something that Leo also said in his videos back in 2020–2021. Now, of course, I’m responsible for my own life and all that, but that equation is very limiting, a quarter-truth at best.

[AION]

Genetics is just the hardware. And with good software you can actually activate good genes. That is why thinking is the master key.  

[Lucasxp64]

1 hour ago, StaraX said:

That’s how humans generally behave. A poor person from a Third World country isn’t going to compare himself to a middle-class person from the West. He’s more likely to compare himself to another person from his own area. This is very obvious.

It ain’t gonna help even a tiny bit if you tell a 5'8" Dutch guy something like, “Look, bro, you’d be tall in Malaysia, India and Indonesia. Don’t be depressed about your height!”

Yes that's right, most people are very short-sightened.

That's because of a mix of greed and short-sightedness.

In fact, I'd say that their comparisons are pretty self-limiting, because when I compare myself, I compare to what is possible for me going forward.

I'm that poor person from a third world. But I'm not starving poor living at a slum neither or in a war zone.

(Brazil, which let's be frank, it's not North Korea, Ukraine, or Sudan facing a civil war),

I do compare myself to international standards, I don't feel that much envy at all for local highly paid local workers (i.e. if I got myself a degree in the area that I have affinity which is programming) because I know they are making at best what is considered minimum wage in the USA, even though with corrected local prices it puts them at middle-class lifestyle similar to an American (excluding international travel and their cars are slightly worse).

Even if I got a job at a top tech company in the USA/Europe, that payment is not good related to the local living costs AND in building enough wealth fast enough to be able to keep that same lifestyle for decades without accepting that it's a given that I'll have to whore out my time to what seems to be an eternity of my healthy years of life.

Although a lot of people can, and do all the time work at high-paying economies, live very below their standards, save on money and move to a cheaper economy/region (maybe even in their own countries. i.e. moving from New York to a smaller city)

Personally, there are certain countries that I wouldn't move just to save on taxes/living costs because I don't like them.

In fact, as someone aiming online business, living in what is so called "more prestigious wealthy FIRST WORLD" is actually damaging to that goal due to higher living costs not allowing me to reinvest as much money as I could.

(Although, I do wanna visit Europe, north America, New Zealand. I'm just talking about the costs of living in my specific plans and my specific stage)

But taking in account international standards of all the pricing arbitrage that they could be doing it will not lead them into having full economic sovereignty of their paid monthly expenses taken from let's say for the sake of simplification:

A principal lump sum with an investment portfolio of let's say a realistic 4-12% of annualized returns (above inflation) with some drawdown limited for the next decades of their life until their death, that would allow them to live off from that money without having to stress out about anything, so that they can dedicate their times to anything they want regardless of financial returns.

Even expecting returns with regards to several decades is dubious due to black swan / unknown future events and market drawdowns.

Comparing myself to people that don't even have the same goals, personality and risk profile is bad.

I used to have a chick once that liked me she would do comparisons all the time with peers and was strategically handicap and would be extremely sad and had extremely weird internal calibration for risk, like in some moments she would be extremely risk averse, in others she would be extremely greedy and risky, would blow up money on eating out when her online store made more money, and would get depressed ant not work on it when the returns would go low.

People shot themselves in the feet like that, that's the reason for personal development, it's not to guarantee returns, it's to make sure you act according to good principles no matter if you think you are above or below a certain arbitrary threshold, it has to actually be based on a coherent strategy for yourself. It's not a guarantee of returns, it's a guarantee that you won't fuck up your behavior if you're doing great (overspending) or when you're doing bad (being short-sighted only thinking of now).

---

This is my whole point, those comparisons people make most of the times are actively making them strategically blind to basic economic facts about their strengths and true weaknesses, at least when it comes to this specific point.

I think our comparisons needs to be realistic about what we can do looking forwards, that's a healthy form of greed.

Status anxiety / comparison with others nearby is one of the biggest psych-ops that keeps people from getting dirty rich. It keeps wealthier people spending like pigs, and poor people mentally overwhelmed and with learned helplessness. Again, there are no results garante, we can only reap the benefits that our resources and environment can give us related to our actions obviously. Our economies are actually setup pretty unfairly.

Not sure how bad that is about a Dutch guy that is roughly my height living there, vs me with that height, which is considered average in my country, which obviously is above the height of most woman.

Edited 2 hours ago by Lucasxp64

[Carl-Richard]

2 hours ago, StaraX said:

@oOo The thing is, I’m mostly frustrated with the equation I thought was true for so long: “You’re gonna get from life what you put into it.” This is something that Leo also said in his videos back in 2020–2021. Now, of course, I’m responsible for my own life and all that, but that equation is very limiting, a quarter-truth at best.

You're just learning that it's a relative statement, not absolute. Will you do maths at the level of Terrence Tao if you just try hard enough? Probably not. But if you try hard enough, you'll do the best you can. That's the only point. Doing the best you can.

Edited 1 hour ago by Carl-Richard