If you self-identify with any upper SD stage, you're CRINGE

[something_else]

17 hours ago, LordFall said:

I appreciate the clarification.

And hey, nothing passive about it—purely aggressive, but I'm working on transmuting my inner Stage Red demon energy into productivity.

It is a worthwhile issue to dissect though. @Zenterus makes a valid point but I think it lacks nuance and I'm right that a lot of people without a growth mindset see anybody that actually has a superior development to them as delusional or arrogant even if that's not accurate. 

I think in most cases people are pretty willing to accept someone is more developed when they feel the person has earned it in whatever hierarchies they value. 

If they instead feel like someone is trying to bluff, manipulate or dominate their way into higher status than they deserve, there’s a natural urge to knock them back down.

In short, arrogance triggers people because it often feels like an attempt to impose dominance and status instead of earning it. It violates the “show don’t tell” principle.

I think this can actually serve as an indicator of how developed you really are. If you find people are constantly trying to drag you back down it may indicate your opinion of yourself is higher than those around you think it ought to be from the evidence they’ve seen. If you were really as good as you say you are, they’d call you confident instead of arrogant.

There are obviously people who simply cannot stand anybody being better than them, but that’s a different phenomenon. People generally seem quite willing to grant status to people who earn their respect.

As an example pertinent to this thread, I think Leo could refer to himself as stage yellow without anybody really interpreting that as arrogance or ego, there’s just plenty of evidence for it and so it would read like more of an honest self-assessment.

[Schizophonia]

Me I'm on the Coral stage you bunch of losers.

[Joshe]

2 hours ago, something_else said:

In short, arrogance triggers people because it often feels like an attempt to impose dominance and status instead of earning it. It violates the “show don’t tell” principle.

I think this can actually serve as an indicator of how developed you really are. If you find people are constantly trying to drag you back down it may indicate your opinion of yourself is higher than those around you think it ought to be from the evidence they’ve seen. If you were really as good as you say you are, they’d call you confident instead of arrogant.

Good points. 

[oOo]

On 25/09/2026 at 8:36 PM, something_else said:

Here are like 20 for you 

 

 

There's an absence of stating any argument pertaining, so that doesn't much help your case thus far, however I will reply with the obvious more or less for what little time I have, but only up to and including link 5.

For the rest, I will not read, but will await any actual argument relevant to the thread in as much as there is sincerity in the endeavour.

It helps make my own arguments clear in replying, and that's the sole design of my own purpose in replying, to encourage deeper thinking in these interpretive realms, please keep that in mind and feel free to provide a rebuttal on any of my own perspectives below, I am open minded of course.

To begin, it's important to empathise with the inner-world of the individual, otherwise its impossible to separate their real world from the culture that you project onto them.

In the case of someone reflecting a perspective like, "I am transitioning from X stage to y stage", whether its spiral dynamics, if you're choosing to engage with the person it's more valuable to learn from their experiences more than just judge them with an overly simplified mirror as has been the major projection in this thread.

Lastly, most of your examples are pre-2026. That's a very relevant point, and reveals how unhinged the original commentary is where what was instead required in any relevant thread that provoked this one's beginning, further reflection was needed in that engagement to provoke a greater expansion of peoples views more than contractive opinion; this would have at the very least reduced the need for beginning this thread.

Let me run through every example from one to five now quickly:

Link 1. How is this done inappropriately?
Is it because they haven't gone into the in's and out's of their personal reasons? But you haven't engaged with the world they're creating with those positions. Pure engagement alone is going to modify their perspective and the more you're engaged earnestly if they're reciprocating you both have the potential to co-create a mini expansion on your worlds.

Link 2. How is the way they have communicated about stages here inappropriate?
The pattern I've seen so far with both responses is that they're leveraging spiral dynamics as a meta-frame to reconceptualise their world and the choices they will make within it, which is precisely what we all do unconsciously relative to our own personal influences. The difference is that they're doing it more consciously, which can be done with less or more consciousness and subsequent less or more healthy outcomes depending on alternatives relative to their inner environment. 

The second pattern I notice by comparison to the thread is that the first two examples are of people leveraging spiral dynamics with a general sense of self-awareness, not overly dogmatically, they're just casual in their descriptions. To the contrary, this thread is a clear example of the level of unconsciousness that is present in many peoples perception of both spiral dynamics and the way people that use spiral dynamics relative to the first two examples; and that unconsciousness is now not only reflecting prejudiced filtering its bordering on full blown collective neurosis.

Link 3. Have you ever considered the possibility that Spiral Dynamics stage correlations potentially overlap with brain activation patterns analogous to Dario Nardi's work with MBTI? I am not saying that I agree with Dario Nardi's work nor endorsing its accuracy especially when further work would need to be done on any related hypothesis outside of MBTI like with Spiral Dynamics for any supposed credibility to reach its worth, but are you open minded enough to consider the possibility that perhaps as someone goes through a deep transition from one stage to the next that sometimes what goes along with that are indeed hormonal pattern changes, is that too far fetched for you? As for everything else they stated I point to my responses to 1 and 2 to fill in the gaps. 

Link 4. If someone is caucasian or someone is black, is there a clear difference? Of course. Is there any difference to their inherent value? Of course not. However the model itself is used to categorise people and people are invariably going to more probabilistically fall into category Y more than category X. Does this mean that the model itself is proven? No. Does this mean that the model itself is sufficient? Also no. However I point to responses 1-3 to fill the gaps in my response here, but that said to further add, as a social mapping and subsequent navigation tool, if you both had an equal understanding of spiral dynamics that was sufficient, do you believe you would be able to better discriminate between people that were more stage green or stage yellow analogous to one chemical property over another?

The question should be on the qualifications one is making on the capacity to categorise a person, because analogous to a personal disorder it requires relative to how the average person categorises another person, at least a degree of expertise, or where those qualifications being made also include prefacing their statements with some kind of cautionary measures, "Even though I don't know everything about...", "I notice the pattern of X but...", "based on the best of my knowledge despite my weaknesses in X and y..." etc.

All in all however, in this particular instance there does seem some potential spiral dynamics prejudice in terms of how people are being categorised and mentally ostracised by the person. But does that mean they're doing it because of the model, or that they're needing the model to help them map their present dissonances relating to the experience of separation and realignment in their life? This moves us back to point 1 as it concerns becoming genuinely curious about how the person is constructing their inner world about any phenomenon or model important to the conversation, with spiral dynamics just being one example.

Link 5. Now this is more to the point of the actual purpose of the thread, but has the thread approached the subject with enough integrity or does it mirror the very behaviour they're trying to criticise? Vilifying people with integrity who socially categorise using spiral dynamics in a cynical way is very different from cynically villifying people that socially categorise people using spiral dynamics with integrity. 

This is the 8th pattern that is probably most pertinent to this discussion that separates what has utility to personal expansion versus what contracts and stalls genuinely positive learning from the interaction and greater discussion. It reveals precisely where the more nuanced discussion should be, how models themselves and those like spiral dynamics need to be used and discussed with integrity. By broaching the subject with that frame instead of a cynical one, you may not get as much "clicks" because people are like moths to flame when it comes to negatvitiy often due to their underlying broader negative states needing expression on average, now you also get to teach and learn simultaneously from the subject and how to do this for every other subject that needs to be engaged with realness, purpose and intelligence.

Do you have anything to add to increase the credibility of your stance @something_else ?

Edited Sunday at 12:17 AM by oOo

[MuadDib]

Training hard to be a purple wounded healer.

 

[something_else]

14 hours ago, oOo said:

Do you have anything to add to increase the credibility of your stance @something_else ?

Only the opposite, I’m not reading all of that lol. 

It was every example ChatGPT could find of  people self-identifying as yellow, I could have explained that better in the post however I did explain that in a response a few comments later.

Some of them are relatively reasonable, some of them are pretty obviously people pumping up their own tires and building an ego around being Tier 2.

Edited Sunday at 01:23 PM by something_else

[oOo]

8 hours ago, something_else said:

Some of them are relatively reasonable, some of them are pretty obviously people pumping up their own tires and building an ego around being Tier 2.

These are assumptions.

There's a clear distinction between a judgement upon another and an analysis of behaviour indistinguishable from fact.

My observation is that making a judgement about someone on this forum generally carries less epistemic credibility than the level of inquiry required into an individual's behaviour for meaningful validity in any statement. 

In your examples above, can you find anyone you've already predicted is 'obviously people pumping their own tires' and 'building an ego around being Tier 2' that does so repeatedly here and perhaps in other ways on the forum to justify the pattern you've observed? 

What methodology are you following to distinguish assumptions from patterns you've established that would all things being equal reliably predict the future without responsible intervention?

Personally, my prediction is that because the complaints are so general from the forum, there is literally no one that anyone would be able to find that would satisfy the criteria that justifies the forum response, much less a wealth of individuals. It's just a prediction however, even after the above requirements are not met because I don't have enough facts in the situation, I too am making some assumptions.

That said, my prediction is also based on other forum patterns, so I have more data than yourself whereas I am guessing there is very little data if any on any one single person using spiral dynamics as irresponsible as the emotional response generated suggests. As stated, this is the core of the long-standing systemic issue, including how to facilitate critical thinking around it at the individual to forum level.

Overall, we can categorise what's happened here with spiral dynamics at the 'cringe' level is merely something like toxic memetics, or falls into the category somewhere there; it happens all the time but as the kicker goes, we gotta cringe against the lack of critical thinking that leads to it @something_else .

[TheBG]

Proud stage purple here

[Joseph Maynor]

There are a lot of fake people online, unless you sort out who is who.  

[something_else]

10 hours ago, oOo said:

These are assumptions.

There's a clear distinction between a judgement upon another and an analysis of behaviour indistinguishable from fact.

My observation is that making a judgement about someone on this forum generally carries less epistemic credibility than the level of inquiry required into an individual's behaviour for meaningful validity in any statement. 

In your examples above, can you find anyone you've already predicted is 'obviously people pumping their own tires' and 'building an ego around being Tier 2' that does so repeatedly here and perhaps in other ways on the forum to justify the pattern you've observed? 

What methodology are you following to distinguish assumptions from patterns you've established that would all things being equal reliably predict the future without responsible intervention?

Personally, my prediction is that because the complaints are so general from the forum, there is literally no one that anyone would be able to find that would satisfy the criteria that justifies the forum response, much less a wealth of individuals. It's just a prediction however, even after the above requirements are not met because I don't have enough facts in the situation, I too am making some assumptions.

That said, my prediction is also based on other forum patterns, so I have more data than yourself whereas I am guessing there is very little data if any on any one single person using spiral dynamics as irresponsible as the emotional response generated suggests. As stated, this is the core of the long-standing systemic issue, including how to facilitate critical thinking around it at the individual to forum level.

Overall, we can categorise what's happened here with spiral dynamics at the 'cringe' level is merely something like toxic memetics, or falls into the category somewhere there; it happens all the time but as the kicker goes, we gotta cringe against the lack of critical thinking that leads to it @something_else .

Your standard of evidence is both far too high, and shifting substantially between comments. This is especially egregious because you’re also making broad psychological judgments about the forum without providing the same breadth of evidence you are demanding from others to make similar judgements.

Nobody needs a longitudinal predictively validated behavioural model to reasonably say “this post looks ego-inflated.” That’s an interpretation of the language being used, not a scientific diagnosis of the person.

And once concrete examples were actually provided, the claim shifted from “show me even one example” to “show me a repeated pattern across time that can reliably predict future behaviour.” That’s just moving the goalposts.

I think the fairest interpretation of this issue is that self-identifying as Yellow/Turquoise does not automatically imply ego inflation, but there are examples which plainly contain hierarchical self-aggrandisement. You can dispute the interpretation, but demanding near-scientific proof before any social inference is allowed just makes your own argument completely unfalsifiable.

[Olaf]

@TheBG the fact that you are proud makes you not be stage purple, keep kidding yourself. 

[oOo]

10 hours ago, something_else said:

Your standard of evidence is both far too high, and shifting substantially between comments. 

I am open minded.

Provide an example of the shift and we can work from there.

10 hours ago, something_else said:

This is especially egregious because you’re also making broad psychological judgments about the forum without providing the same breadth of evidence you are demanding from others to make similar judgements.

Would you like me to provide clear examples for you? 

 

10 hours ago, something_else said:

Nobody needs a longitudinal predictively validated behavioural model to reasonably say “this post looks ego-inflated.” That’s an interpretation of the language being used, not a scientific diagnosis of the person.

Everyone of my friends do. It's especially important for the workplace, someone may just be having a bad day, and hey, you gotta remember here many people take psychedelics which are going to momentary alter judgement; interpretation is vital.

Thus far, you're making many more claims than me, while being uncomfortable about providing supportive evidence that clearly substantiates.

Instead of broaching my actual interpretations of the Links you provided, you've instead decided to change the topic. 

Please state why.

 

10 hours ago, something_else said:

And once concrete examples were actually provided, the claim shifted from “show me even one example” to “show me a repeated pattern across time that can reliably predict future behaviour.” That’s just moving the goalposts.

Actually its the natural code of conduct for basic scientific reasoning.

We seek out examples, then we seek out further examples to substantiate hypotheses.
 

10 hours ago, something_else said:

I think the fairest interpretation of this issue is that self-identifying as Yellow/Turquoise does not automatically imply ego inflation, but there are examples which plainly contain hierarchical self-aggrandisement.

Yes, but go into one specifically please. I don't have time to review every one, I only went into the first five. 

As I stated as well, most of your examples are pre-2026.

10 hours ago, something_else said:

You can dispute the interpretation, but demanding near-scientific proof before any social inference is allowed just makes your own argument completely unfalsifiable.

No its not, I am not asking for a scientific paper, data analysis, or repeated experimentations; I am asking for the bare minimum of work to substantiate your claims. 

Which examples specifically do you want to focus on?

You mentioned that you yourself didn't even read all of the examples you provided.

 

[TheBG]

@Olaf I can't tell if you are serious 

[something_else]

@oOo The shift is pretty straightforward. Initially you claimed no one had provided a single example who would satisfy the criticism. Once examples were provided, the standard became repeated behaviour across time that can reliably predict future behaviour.

I don’t think that standard is remotely necessary to say a given comment displays ego inflation, or that people will use a hierarchy like spiral dynamics to inflate their own ego. People are drawn to status, hierarchy and ego inflation like moths to a flame.

Take the following list:

------------------

“I'm pretty sure I'm the only person on the planet who could help you with this, as no one else understands enough about spiral dynamics...”
https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/17011-2017-in-review-or-why-i-no-longer-need-actualizedorg/?comment=172825&do=findComment

“Everything changed for me when I moved from Turquoise to Coral... When Turquoise people talk, it's not long before my mind starts screaming, Ego!”
https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/26536-is-enlightenment-awareness-of-awareness/?comment=300651&do=findComment

“Tier2 is pretty low of a devleopment imo, it's not that hard anymore.”
https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/86897-hurdles-of-being-sd-tier-2/?comment=1228577&do=findComment

“Some people tell me I'm more turquoise than coral, but that's because those people are either green or turquoise themselves...”
https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/29944-typology-discussions/?comment=364548&do=findComment

“You sound Green. Wait till ur Turquoise, Coral, or Teal.”
https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/47437-spiral-dynamics-turquoise-blue-relationship-and-interaction/?comment=602241&do=findComment

“Perhaps your dogma and ideology is blinding you? I'm stage yellow and I have transcended that stuff.”
https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/62455-what-do-you-guys-think-about-this-vegan-timelapse-video/?comment=855147&do=findComment

“Everybody is blue or orange, while I am green and yellow.”
https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/4266-finding-yellow-friends-a-yellow-job-yellow-resources/?comment=37602&do=findComment

“So our communication and things we do together is mostly me helping him grow to my level.”
https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/47437-spiral-dynamics-turquoise-blue-relationship-and-interaction/?comment=600883&do=findComment

“I have this problem of communicating with people below my stage... I don't know if I should even talk to them at all...”
https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/45910-how-to-communicate-with-people-below-or-above-the-spiral/?comment=577373&do=findComment

“Clearly he's coming at it from a tier 2 yellow perspective... you're coming at it yourself through a stage green pseudo intellectual perspective.”
https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/111754-tier-2-debates-tier-1-bryan-johnson-on-jubilee/?comment=1703992&do=findComment

“Talking to yellow and below is like talking to children.”
https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/74536-i-bet-game-is-broken-at-stage-coral/?comment=1028203&do=findComment

“I consider myself stage yellow, going to turquoise, so you can imagine that women that are stage orange and bellow don't interest me at all.”
https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/54879-lack-of-attraction-related-to-spiritual-work/?comment=724731&do=findComment

“Girls tend not to be high conscious anyway in SD yellow way which is my development level.”
https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/90680-i’m-not-attracted-to-females-of-my-own-age/?comment=1287297&do=findComment

“Personally I identify best with stage yellow... only people in Tier 2 would be able to really understand it.”
https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/7495-spiral-dynamics-yellow-to-turquoise/?comment=157163&do=findComment

“I am a stage yellow muslim... If u are honest and innocent and study self improvement for 10 years, u will go back to islam.”
https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/88267-leo-gura’s-false-assessment-about-muhammad/?comment=1249849&do=findComment

“as yellow, I don't think beliefs can be ‘right’, only ‘effective and ineffective’... Maybe none of you see this yet perhaps.”
https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/34741-the-loneliness-of-yellow-spiral-thinking/?comment=421726&do=findComment

------------------

In all of these examples, people are using their self-assigned Spiral Dynamics stage to elevate themselves over others, dismiss people beneath them, or give their own perspective additional status. You can call that an interpretation rather than a fact, but if none of these qualify as examples of the behaviour being discussed, I'm not sure what possibly could.

More importantly, my argument technically only requires one example. “Some people use hierarchical developmental models to inflate their ego or claim status” is an existential claim, not a claim about prevalence. One genuine case establishes that it happens.

That's really all I'm arguing. I'm not making some grand claim about this forum specifically. I'm saying people will turn hierarchical systems like Spiral Dynamics into status games because that's a very ordinary human tendency. This forum just happens to provide a convenient dataset because people talk about Spiral Dynamics constantly.

[blackchair]

I haven't read all of this topic, but for me personally biggest mindfuck was a realization that population of this forum are early to mid 20' people who haven't had a proper job or yet a real career or even out of college or someone who claims to be turquoise in one topic and in sex topic/Forum is incel talking about game with women.

[oOo]

12 hours ago, something_else said:

@oOo The shift is pretty straightforward. Initially you claimed no one had provided a single example who would satisfy the criticism. Once examples were provided, the standard became repeated behaviour across time that can reliably predict future behaviour.

Both conditions are logically congruent, there is no incompatibility there.

 

Quote

I don’t think that standard is remotely necessary to say a given comment displays ego inflation, or that people will use a hierarchy like spiral dynamics to inflate their own ego. People are drawn to status, hierarchy and ego inflation like moths to a flame.

People can have different standards, that's fine, when you're a part of an ecosystem I will only endorse rigour in those standards so that healthier discussions are more likely than not. 

 

Quote

Take the following list:

------------------

Have you even read all of these below within the context provided or like before just AI?
AI is terrible at social nuances, and mapping unknown territory to any high standard just in general based on my experimentations, especially when it comes to social and cultural context.

 

Quote

“I'm pretty sure I'm the only person on the planet who could help you with this, as no one else understands enough about spiral dynamics...”
https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/17011-2017-in-review-or-why-i-no-longer-need-actualizedorg/?comment=172825&do=findComment

“Everything changed for me when I moved from Turquoise to Coral... When Turquoise people talk, it's not long before my mind starts screaming, Ego!”
https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/26536-is-enlightenment-awareness-of-awareness/?comment=300651&do=findComment

“Tier2 is pretty low of a devleopment imo, it's not that hard anymore.”
https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/86897-hurdles-of-being-sd-tier-2/?comment=1228577&do=findComment

“Some people tell me I'm more turquoise than coral, but that's because those people are either green or turquoise themselves...”
https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/29944-typology-discussions/?comment=364548&do=findComment

“You sound Green. Wait till ur Turquoise, Coral, or Teal.”
https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/47437-spiral-dynamics-turquoise-blue-relationship-and-interaction/?comment=602241&do=findComment

“Perhaps your dogma and ideology is blinding you? I'm stage yellow and I have transcended that stuff.”
https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/62455-what-do-you-guys-think-about-this-vegan-timelapse-video/?comment=855147&do=findComment

“Everybody is blue or orange, while I am green and yellow.”
https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/4266-finding-yellow-friends-a-yellow-job-yellow-resources/?comment=37602&do=findComment

“So our communication and things we do together is mostly me helping him grow to my level.”
https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/47437-spiral-dynamics-turquoise-blue-relationship-and-interaction/?comment=600883&do=findComment

“I have this problem of communicating with people below my stage... I don't know if I should even talk to them at all...”
https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/45910-how-to-communicate-with-people-below-or-above-the-spiral/?comment=577373&do=findComment

“Clearly he's coming at it from a tier 2 yellow perspective... you're coming at it yourself through a stage green pseudo intellectual perspective.”
https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/111754-tier-2-debates-tier-1-bryan-johnson-on-jubilee/?comment=1703992&do=findComment

“Talking to yellow and below is like talking to children.”
https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/74536-i-bet-game-is-broken-at-stage-coral/?comment=1028203&do=findComment

“I consider myself stage yellow, going to turquoise, so you can imagine that women that are stage orange and bellow don't interest me at all.”
https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/54879-lack-of-attraction-related-to-spiritual-work/?comment=724731&do=findComment

“Girls tend not to be high conscious anyway in SD yellow way which is my development level.”
https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/90680-i’m-not-attracted-to-females-of-my-own-age/?comment=1287297&do=findComment

“Personally I identify best with stage yellow... only people in Tier 2 would be able to really understand it.”
https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/7495-spiral-dynamics-yellow-to-turquoise/?comment=157163&do=findComment

“I am a stage yellow muslim... If u are honest and innocent and study self improvement for 10 years, u will go back to islam.”
https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/88267-leo-gura’s-false-assessment-about-muhammad/?comment=1249849&do=findComment

“as yellow, I don't think beliefs can be ‘right’, only ‘effective and ineffective’... Maybe none of you see this yet perhaps.”
https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/34741-the-loneliness-of-yellow-spiral-thinking/?comment=421726&do=findComment

------------------

 

 

Quote

In all of these examples, people are using their self-assigned Spiral Dynamics stage to elevate themselves over others, dismiss people beneath them, or give their own perspective additional status.

And that's verifiable based on one comment they made? 

 

Quote

You can call that an interpretation rather than a fact, but if none of these qualify as examples of the behaviour being discussed, I'm not sure what possibly could.

 

Verification of a claimed pattern.
 

Quote

More importantly, my argument technically only requires one example. “Some people use hierarchical developmental models to inflate their ego or claim status” is an existential claim, not a claim about prevalence. One genuine case establishes that it happens.

What qualifies if its genuine, your interpretation? 
What do you weigh your interpretation against, group consensus? Or individual standards that are impacted by your environmental influences and personality characteristics unique to you? This is why qualification through repeated verification is just a more stable motive, it gives time to separate intrinsic influences and personal characteristics from what we're analysing.

 

Quote

That's really all I'm arguing. I'm not making some grand claim about this forum specifically. I'm saying people will turn hierarchical systems like Spiral Dynamics into status games because that's a very ordinary human tendency. This forum just happens to provide a convenient dataset because people talk about Spiral Dynamics constantly.

I'll take a look at your examples later. 
 

 

 

Edited 35 minutes ago by oOo