Leaderboard

This is terribly distressing. I don't know if most of you on the forums know me, but those who do will know I've been quite the denizen of the chatroom for nearly the past four years. I was real zoo of characters. Mostly amicable, sometimes not - but it was all fun! I'm saddened to see it apparently go, because I feel like I really got to know and learn a great deal from you people. So will it be coming back, if this is this some kind of transitionary measure the forum upgrades? Or will I be needing to go some place else?

Hi all. I've been listening to FDR for about a year and my personal growth journey has really taken off since then. Thanks Mike & Stef for all you do. I recently got a flurry of recommendations for the Landmark Forum from people in a 12-step meeting I've been attending. Looking over their website I'm not sure if it's a gimmick or if it's worth the $625. Changing your life in a weekend sounds a little too good to be true (and reminds me of Mike Cernovich's admonition that mindset is life-long work; there's no shortcut). I'm wondering if anyone here is familiar with Landmark and can recommend for or against it?

In a recent video, Stef was speaking to a listener about pollution and brought up the issue of sedentary living and its negative effects. First, let me be clear, I am not disputing the negative effects of remaining sedentary for long periods, or the importance of exercise. But Stef, like many others, is vastly inflating the importance of exercise relative to other factors, namely diet. It's a common misconception (70% of people believe) that exercise and diet are both equally important to weight management and weight loss (International Food Information Council Foundation, 2011). This is simply untrue (Flatt, 2011). To quote Dr. Greger: 'What we put in our mouths is most important'. Regarding cancer, literally 5000 hours in the gym can't compete with a plant-based diet. Barnard et al. (2003) compared a group of participants eating a plant-based diet who did moderate exercise (i.e. walking) to another group who did daily, strenuous, hour-long exercise and ate a standard American diet, with a control group. After 14 years, the exercise group were still overweight whereas the diet and exercise group were a healthy weight. More importantly, the participants in the diet and exercise group were roughly twice as effective at fighting cancer growth compared to the exercise group. Another study by Jenkins et al. (2012) showed that consuming a cup a day of beans, chickpeas, or lentils for three months may reduce one's resting heart rate by as much as 250 hours on a treadmill. I strongly urge FDR to shine a light on the importance of diet. I have already posted about nutrition, twice. My first post didn't get much traction but my more recent post seems to have been well-received. References Barnard RJ, Ngo TH, Leung PS, Aronson WJ, Golding LA. Prostate. A low-fat diet and/or strenuous exercise alters the IGF axis in vivo and reduces prostate tumor cell growth in vitro. 2003 Aug 1;56(3):201-6. Flatt JP. Issues and misconceptions about obesity. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2011 Apr;19(4):676-86. International Food Information Council Foundation. 2011. Food & Health Survey: Consumer Attitudes Toward Food Safety, Nutrition & Health. D J Jenkins, C W Kendall, L S Augustin, S Mitchell, S Sahye-Pudaruth, S Blanco Mejia, L Chiavaroli, A Mirrahimi, C Ireland, B Bashyam, E Vidgen, R J de Souza, J L Sievenpiper, J Coveney, L A Leiter, R G Josse. Effect of legumes as part of a low glycemic index diet on glycemic control and cardiovascular risk factors in type 2 diabetes mellitus: a randomized controlled trial. Arch Intern Med. 2012 Nov 26;172(21):1653-60.

The root of all evil? Thinking that there is evil in the world. Allow me to explain: Now, likely enough, none of you above are particularly religious, but the perspective I would like to introduce here, from Buddhist origin, is not a theistic one, so despite the "ism", bear with me here for a moment. There is a parable in Buddhism that goes as follows... There was once a farmer whose horse ran away. His neighbour came to see him, and, upon hearing about the horse, he said to the farmer that he was sorry, and how bad his luck had been. The farmer answered, "Who knows what is good or bad?" On the following day, the farmer's horse returned, leading behind it a group of fine stallions. The farmer's neighbour congratulated him on his good fortune, but again the farmer said, "Who knows what is good or bad?" When the farmer's son saw the new stallions come to the farm, he attempted to ride the finest of all of them, and fell off its back, breaking his leg. When the farmer's neighbour heard the news of the son's injury, he comforted the farmer with such condolences as emphasized the farmer's bad luck, but once again, the farmer answered him, "Who knows what is good or bad?" Later that week, the army came looking for young men to fight for them, and the farmer's son was passed over due to his injury. Hearing the good news, the farmer's neighbour congratulated him that his son would be spared, but the wise farmer answered, "Who knows what is good or bad?" From the above parable, we learn that good and evil are constants in the world, but are arbitrary assigned a positive or negative association based on perspective. What we perceive will dictate the entirety of our world to us and for us, and therefore, if we perceive all things as being part of a flow of the forces of Yin (black, feminine, pulling, taking, healing, moon) and Yang (white, masculine, pushing, giving, destroying, sun), then we see that both are meant to exist together, and that neither can exist without the other. To understand up, you have to have down. To understand left, you have to have right, and so forth. Evil is merely a perception, and the discerning mind is aware of this. That, by the way, is where Buddhism and Daoism come together in the most beautiful form. You'll notice, too, that in the Daoist Yin Yang symbol, each contains a bit of its opposite, thereby bonding them more strongly, but also weakening the divide between perceived "good" and perceived "evil". Neither "religion", in their original form, were meant to be religions, but rather philosophies. The Theravada Buddhists, who, though not being the original school of Buddhism, are as close as we can get to the original form and they do not worship the Buddha as a deity. Likewise, there is a divide between philosophical and religious Daoism. In the former, one seeks merely to live by Wu Wei, or the way of nature, while in the later, Lao Tzu is held up as a divine entity, but neither in Buddhism or Daoism is this strictly necessary. If Atheists wish to know the real essence of any religion beyond the worship of God or Gods, look past those aspects and into the culture milieu that surrounds each various tradition, looking at the philosophy rather than the bondage to a particular deity, which is really just another name for the person at the top who controls the minds of all those who are, in station or intelligence, inferior. I don't give a damn if that person is male or female but if they take advantage and distort that which is good about religion, they're flat out wrong. And that's all I have to say about that.

Hi Coleman. I've had some friends do the Landmark Forum who say that it's improved their lives immensely, but I'm torn about it for the following reasons. Firstly, what I've heard from my friends and what I've read suggests that it's about enforcing personal responsibility, stopping your history from determining your future, and not projecting your past onto your relationships. All of that sounds damn good. In fact, it sounds like the call-ins to Stef about relationship or self-knowledge questions. Back when I first started listening to FDR Stef would go in in deep with these callers for an hour or more. Stef's approach is to question the caller thoroughly about their question, situation, personal history and childhood, draw parallels between the past and the decisions the caller is making today, and discuss how to overcome those patterns of behavior. Importantly, Stef insists on absolute personal responsibility and honesty. He unhesitatingly calls out lies, contradictions, evasions, minimizations, and any attempt to avoid answering questions. Through this, the caller comes to realizations they may not have otherwise. The Forum's method includes something of this, so that appeals to me. On the other hand, Stef counters the caller's resistance with reason and evidence (usually by pointing out something the caller said but then tried to gloss over). Some reading I've done suggests that when Forum participants make excuses, and especially if they criticize Landmark's methods, they are met with abuse, mockery, and public shaming in front of a group that has been primed to police your and each other's behavior. Less correcting factual errors via logic and more silencing dissent via emotion. The other reason I don't like the Forum is also the reason I didn't join; the ferocious, manipulative, borderline-abusive hard-sell. I attended a home introduction to Landmark, and went through one of these for two hours, and it was miserable. I almost caved but thankfully another friend who was there (and didn't sign up) gave me the social backing I needed to refuse. My memory of that event has kept me away ever since. On top of that, my reading suggests you get called on throughout the Forum to sign up for the advanced course, and are required to bring a friend or family member to the "graduation ceremony". There, your guest is surrounded by Landmark sales reps and pressured to sign up for the Forum. This is exactly what happened when my sister attended the graduation of a Forum-going friend. I don't want that again; not for me, sure as hell not for anyone I care about. So that's a big and enduring turn-off. And just to put the cherry on it, the friends who did the course seem to have cut me off, and I think it's because of my persistent refusal to follow them. Here are the sources I've been referring to. Have a look and see what you think. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/karin-badt/inside-the-landmark-forum_b_90028.html https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/dec/14/ameliahill.theobserver http://www.xojane.com/newagey/landmark-forum-cult http://www.gq.com/story/landmark-forum-get-confident-stupid-gq-may-2005 http://www.philosophyforlife.org/category/landmark-forum/ http://www.mypracticalphilosophy.com/shelp/landmarkforum.htm EDIT: Mentioned the personal experience of Landmark's hard-sell to one of my siblings.

No, the joke was we always talk about "reason and evidence" that I bet if Stefan said "reason" and paused on a podcast we'd all say "and evidence" to fill in the blank. Reason is not enough on its own, or all of answers about everything would spring unbidden from thinking about them. We have to go out and experience the world, systematically, identifying and correcting sources of error. By the way, "phishing" is putting out something that looks official in an attempt to steal critical personal information. "Fishing" is the process of asking a leading question to elicit a desired response.

Different bodies are different. `

I think the right fats mixed in with Low carbs is the answer and has been known in the Reasearch field for long time. Its just that its made needless complicated due to actually being RELATIVELY simple: Human diet has not evolved nor optimised for Grains nor high carb diets. Rather for animal meat, certain fats, berries, fruits nuts and Vegedables. And Before anyone points to the "well humans didnt eat X back in the day and its healthy now" Thats because the properties of some moderm foods are close enough to those we evolved to eat with. More Great videos here: https://www.youtube.com/user/lowcarbdownunder/videos?sort=p&flow=grid&view=0

I presume you are referring to the Tillerson comment that everyone is fussing about. I don't think anything will come of North Korea anytime soon. On another note... Best movie about North Korea ever:

You're confusing anecdotes with empirical evidence. They're not the same thing. I have no idea why a community that ostensibly values empirical evidence is upvoting this comment. Evidence suggests Paleo diets negate benefits of exercise The problem with the Paleo diet argument

If a plant-based diet is best, why do so many people that I know feel like crap on that diet and feel great on a paleo diet? The science is supposed to match the empirical evidence, which it doesnt.

These attitudes justifying inaction have been bugging me: "Most research is wrong." "Nutritional science is spotty because it doesn't control for the individual's genes." What you're saying is "It's too complicated for us to get the right answer for everyone's circumstance, therefore I won't make any changes to what I'm putting in my body." That's like asking an anarchist "Who'll build the roads? What will happen to this one niche industry?" It's just an annoying series of questions used to shut down the conversation and paralyze people from making better choices based on the current available evidence. The hypocrisy in those justifications is when your doctor prescribes you something to cure an ailment and you take it without asking about the studies or whether took into account your specific genetics. He/she will also disclose possible side effects to be aware of in case they present. You are comfortable taking the drug knowing some study showed it is safe, the active ingredient does what it's supposed to (as required by the FDA) and those studies reported on the side effects. (They used large samples to help mitigate for individual circumstances like genetic predisposition.) But when the W.H.O. says red meats are carcinogenic, you hesitate? Overweight? Obese? Type II Diabetic? Other cardiovascular-related issues (like E.D.)? Remove the animal products, the processed foods, the added sugar, salt and oil. See what happens. It's cancerous anyway, right?

??? We talking about the same diets? I've totally dropped my hunger cravings removing carbs and sugar.