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 yesterday at 06:10 AM 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 17 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 17 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 17 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 15 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 13 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 12 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Natasha Tori Maru]

9 hours ago, StaraX said:

 “You’re gonna get from life what you put into it.” 

Interesting. This contains a useful principal but if taken literally it is false. 

Yes, inputs strongly influence outputs.

But it smuggles in some bullshit - you can put in the same effort and get radically different outputs. Could be because of luck, timing, socioeconomic circumstances, illness/disability, genetics (this is your main point), random shit, starting conditions etc

Your "inputs" influence outcomes for sure, but they do not fully determine them. You wont necessarily get what you put into life, however, what you repeatedly put into life has the propensity to shape what you become and the opportunities that may arise... universe does not guarantee fairness. 

Edited 6 hours ago by Natasha Tori Maru

[oOo]

10 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.” I’m responsible for my own life and all that, but that equation is very limiting, a quarter-truth at best.

I totally get where you're coming from @StaraX. And we always take a hit when one of our beliefs, especially the harder we hold, takes a hit from reality. The "you usually get what you deserve", "work more to earn more", were truths that at least 100,000,000 of us around the world were programmed in the world to believe from a young age, and that "the bad guy will get there's!". You'd already be aware of how probably at least 50 million people around the world would not only hold these understandings to still be true right now, if just a hundred thousand of them got together they'd believe that the whole world therefore believes it to be true as well; causing even more inner conflict for the one person in that group that individually starts to notice differences incongruent with that belief. As a drastic underestimation, that leaves at least a million of us around the world at any one time not only feeling that inner conflict with these beliefs but at least a billion of us at any one time experiencing that inner conflict right now for many other beliefs, religious, societal, about the people around us and just ourselves in general. And a whole lot more for those presently sleeping and they're having dreams that are in part designed to help us process these very difficulties with outcomes generally surfacing as the intuition for better or for worse we have for navigating the world and these very situations. 

I say all that so you realise that no matter how much you may feel it, you're not alone in whatever inner difficulty or inner conflict you have at any one point time, or at least, there's a very low statistical likelihood. One of the biggest, or arguably the greatest sticking point when it comes to changing beliefs is our perception of authority on those very beliefs, meaning like, who decides their truth; you'd of course would have already have heard of the authority bias given how many books you said you've read. And that's super difficult for us as humans because even if we're told that we are the authority over our beliefs, we don't feel that its that way because our life experiences have informed us that we're not. At least a billion people right now are struggling with this very issue and at least 80% percent of the human population are if not struggling, either accepting or just becoming aware of the struggle they need to have to become more independently discerning in their lives. 

One of the things I've learned when it comes to belief changes then, is this conversation of authority from not just simply the outside to ourselves, because we need other people to rely on, but thinking a bit more strategically over how our mind funnels information to forge a perception of authority itself. By becoming more and more aware of the world around me, and then thinking about my thoughts in the context of everything happening around the planet at any one time, my mind tends to make a shift from rigidly relying on external reference frames for authority, and instead analyses the patterns behind any one belief I hold or another holds, including taking into consideration the trustworthiness of a person relative to a belief and the patterns they've relied on for their own belief. 

For me, I had to consciously make this shift rather than it just happening automatically, shifting to the understanding that it always depends on the reference frames behind that belief and understanding that the only person at any one time that can be in control of those reference frames is myself. Because its my mind, and only I am capable therefore of making a decision based on those reference frames, as I am the only person that is fully inside my own mind. For me, if someone is able to do that consciously, they no longer become just a follower, but if they are a follower as that's just say the right thing to do I wouldn't overanalyse that part myself or be too rigid about, that choice is based on the best information they have available to them at that time until they fully experience all of the experiences relating to the beliefs of another they're relying on to forge their own authority. For example let's take a good friend of mine that's a pretty smart guy is saying that the world is flat and he genuinely believes that. I wouldn't immediately dismiss him nor would I blindly believe him. However I trust his judgement in other areas because I have analysed how he formed those beliefs or at least an important part of them, therefore I view him as one of the people that contributes to my reference frame for how reality is based on his shared perspectives. So in this case of the world being flat, I consider the positive judgements he's made in other areas combined with everything else I know not just about him, but the perspectives that other people have made to my beliefs, and institutions, on the subject of the shape of the earth. 

So the pattern here isn't that I try to become the absolute authority on all of my beliefs, its totally impractical and is a belief that isn't in line with reality itself because it simply isn't possible for me to have experienced everything that other people have experienced for me to validate that belief as true, including even about myself, even with respect to my physical appearance as I have only ever viewed myself in photographs and mirror, and all things being equal a mirror isn't reliable as the image we see through the mirror is inverted, we never actually get a completely accurate reflection of ourselves using a mirror, this is why we always look different in our faces through front on photos. What I do have complete authority on however are my reference frames and analysing the information that comes through them. Once I understand those two things, reference frames + self-discernment, that's precisely all I will ever need when it comes to forging a belief about reality. And these are precisely as well the kind of people that are useful to listen to, in this case my smart friend, about what reality is, while at the same time because I am following those two ingredients for my own authority, reference frames + self-discernment, I am not following my friend blindly nor am I blindly negating him, I am simply following the balance of what is true versus not based on that process, which includes any beliefs I hold and any beliefs I need to update based on the results of that process.

This brings us to an important point about how beliefs are not really "our own" as they are a reference frame for how our attention should engage with reality about what we take to be true and therefore emotionally and cognitively invest into. Once we take back our reference frame + self discernment, then we can take back our choices on what to invest in, and that value judgement, is effectively what we are taking to be true at any point in time, and therefore what we are choosing to believe in.

This flexibility turns belief into not this rigid thing because we don't understand the background noise of what's creating it, but instead something that can update within a few seconds rather than months to even years doing therapy with someone simply because we've internalised the process of how beliefs form in the first place and we've practiced those three ingredients so our own process is on autopilot. 

By mastering how a belief forms in this way, we master where authority forms outside those three ingredients that preserves the most important things to forge our own authority. When we gradually learn to become an authority in this way, then we can learn to have healthy debate on subjects with people where we are both updating our beliefs simultaneously based on the mutual understanding at any one point in time, usually intuitively, of the role that beliefs hold in our discussion, and our ability to update them at any one point in time. 

Concerning those three ingredients, when it comes to analysing any one belief we hold, it works precisely in the exact same way. So we form a reference frame over our reference frame, self-discernment and our investment, we then perform self-discernment on our reference frame, self-discernment and our investment, we then discern our investment over our reference frame, self-discernment and investment itself. That's literally it, that's how we can learn to flexibility move between and update beliefs with greater and greater ease overtime, and for any difficulties we have along the way, that's perfectly okay too. It takes time to learn, and we need to be accepting and loving towards ourselves in that process because its our unique personal path, and its our authority over life that we are learning to have, to grow further overtime, while understanding its not the denial of external authority, but learning the right beliefs to have about the authority we actually always have, and can never be taken away from us and will always remain a core aspect of learning to deepen our personal sovereignty in this life and our understanding of the world around us and ourselves. 

So when it comes to these particular beliefs you're presenlty working through, I encourage you to invest some time in forging your own personal understanding of what your own reference frame is for why they exist. Point to the people, the organisations and the society in which we live. Point as well, as you already have pointed out, the arc of time and change that have followed from this subject over hundreds of years into the past and into the future. Think about the relationships that you've had and or presently have, even if its a person that's just an aquientance or even perhaps someone that's treated you badly or perhaps its related even to a person you've treated badly, and how they've impacted any one of those three stages; etc etc.

A recommendation I would like to make is when it comes to reference frames you may like to create your own rule of thumb for how you process all beliefs, for example: historical period, people and context. Further, context itself as I reflected back to you is often a massively underestimated anchor that can lead to unhealthy emotional and or cognitive investments we make into beliefs without realising, such as the first belief you brought up today, which entirely depends on say the lifestyle that a person wishes to live and the personal life path they have decided to follow. It has some truth to it if you're LeBron James and it has a lot less weight to it if you're say a Buddhist monk or a person that just needs some help on the street because they're in need of food or water; there's simply too many contexts that don't matter when it comes to genetics unless you say have something analogous to depending on your age a genetically irreparable disease that takes your life while you're in your mother's womb.

Moreover, I would also think about the kind of world that you would like to contribute to on this subject, say one in which is solely driven by competitive self-interest or one that is moving towards an increasingly more equitable society while keeping a healthy understanding of competition, from an NBA game to healthy debate with a friend that's unusually productively competitive because of how well we both understand the dynamics of belief and authority while conversing during and the impacts it has on us thereafter. 

Irrespectively, regardless as to who I am talking to, none of us have our beliefs completely worked out, we all have sticking points in some regard because they have had their emotional imprinting from a young age and certain hidden beliefs, including beliefs behind beliefs, may only spring up later in life, moreover sometimes the best remedy must in certain cases at least partially involve emotional releases more than cognitive analysis especially if someones nervous system is particularly stressed. Some people are completely oblivious as well just to how stressed they are until they've gone through release exercises. So I've learned now that its generally always prudent to lead with the weighted belief that regardless as to the debate or person, at least some leeway is needed. 

Best wishes sir.