I had thought exactly the same
@Miguel Thank you for spearheading this on behalf of others. Note that no one from Zulip has emailed me yet. Also, judging from the vibe here it looks like no one strongly cares about the old archives from Zulip anyway? It looks like everyone has moved on completely to Discourse, so I suppose it doesn’t matter in the end … although I don’t see people who advocated for private forums (like Craig) engaging here.
I was waiting in case anyone else wanted to give their opinion here. Two days ago I contacted Mateusz Mandera telling him our preferences/alternatives and if they were feasible. Surely he will contact you when they are resolved.
@srid you’ve come back on the forum after causing considerable disruption when you last left. Instead of explaining yourself or apologising, you’ve decided to simply jump back in and offer advice. A lot of people were upset and inconvenienced by your behaviour. Rather than taking that onboard or simply stepping down as owner/mod at the time, you became aggressive. Eventually you abruptly shut down Zulip, leaving everyone confused and in the dark. Fortunately we did manage to find each other and rebuild, moving later to this forum.
If you do want to rejoin this forum, we’ll need to see some acknowledgement about what happened in the past by way of explanation. And obviously you’ll need to abide by the forum rules. If you want to DM me directly to discuss this first, I’m open to that.
I’ve discussed this with the other mods, so this is a joint decision. We all know that you have had a long engagement and commitment to actualism. You’ve worked hard to help build resources to propagate actualism in the past. You were very active on this forum and it was your community of sorts and I’ve often wondered if you were doing okay - especially given the terms on which you left. So we’ve decided to let you stay for now as long as the criteria mentioned above are fulfilled. Over to you.
I think that everything should be discussed in the open; I believe it is important that any testimony related to this remains available to others in the future as well.
@Srinath I have no plans to rejoin this unofficial Actualism group, especially as my stance regarding moderation has not changed. I am still of the opinion that the censorious (‘censorious’ as in ‘censorious instinct’) moderation practices that you champion here are unlikely to do any good in the long run (as in maximally benefiting everyone as much as possible in regards to their actual happiness). So far, I don’t see any tangible fruits of your attempts; everyone that has become free, while having engaged in a forum, so far did so with those forums being unmoderated. The quality of the discussion too, aside from verbosity which Discourse enables, hasn’t changed much in regards to theory vs practice, as far as I can tell from perusing a number of posts here.
That said, I’m briefly writing to the “Oops i forgot to feel good first again” thread only because I felt this is such a foundational aspect of actualism that it bears clarifying what is conveyed in the Actual Freedom Trust website, such that it benefits the onlookers here (not just the vocal few, but the non-vocal many that may or may not be a member here). I don’t write much about actualism these days; by and large, the conversations I have tend to be 1-on-1 and in voice; and occasionally with Vineeto asking for clarification.
In regards to your request for an ‘explanation’, I’ll say this much: If I had known better, what I should have instead done is to limit the moderation of Zulip to myself and others who recognize the perils of censorious practices, and then take a short break from participating to let the ‘dust settle’ (and focus more on actualism practice than the distractive #random talk).
As for the “will of many of [you]” (as Miguel put it) who are presumably still harmed by my prior actions (“harming so many”) – and I say “presumably” because this is simply an impression based on the cold vibe of reception here, but with no direct verbal confirmation of the same – the only advice I can give is this: actualism is all about changing yourself radically; therefore, channel all that energy behind that “will” (be it hurt, resentment, or whatever) into feeling good 24x7, and thereon to happy/harmless, then perfect … all the way to becoming actually free. Also, I highly recommend reading what Vineeto wrote in regards to harmlessness, specifically:
I have learnt to judge harmlessness by the amount of parity and consideration I apply to others whom I come in contact with, both at work and at play, and not by merely feeling myself to be harmless. Vineeto SC Harmless
(It is impossible to be happy without also being harmless; also, it feels nice to be nice).
PS: How are you doing in regards to achieving full freedom? Might I suggest looking at what Richard wrote in regards to the ‘good of the whole’?
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Haha, hilarious. Srid, stubbornly true to form as always. Okay I’ve gone ahead and suspended his account as we had agreed. I’ll comment more later as it’s late here.
My man. Let me be open about my feelings in this case. I wanted to respond yesterday asking why, just now, have you popped up offering your expert analysis after going nuclear and trashing the way a community keeps in touch? I’ve often been curious over the months if you’ve seen how your actions were driven by righteousness and malice - - or so it appears from the outside. I wondered how a practicing actualist of so many years could be so unreasonable and incapable of negotiating with some of the most level-headed people I’ve ever met.
And I also wondered why this person, who freely admits to not having PCE’s, will often land himself in discussions where he’s acting as if he knows what he’s doing. No doubt we are all like this to an extent, but in your case it was suffocating. It sucked having you swoop in.
But I’d love to hear about what you’ve been up to and how you’ve been processing things.
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Well, @Srinath, not much to add to your words or to his…
In my opinion, of course, his words continue to reveal, as his behavior for a long time in Zulip revealed, that he is not really interested in AF but in continuing to cultivate his personality/self, in being someone for others, in standing out; using AF and discussing about AF as he did about politics or anything else…
As always he has his lights pointed outward instead of inward, and probably feels as lonely as at the time he closed Zulip in anger, needing now again a community that listens to him and appreciates him… (it would have been interesting for all -also for him- to talk about this as a feeling being, but his modality does not tend to be practicing what he preaches).
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I’ve always thought it was just a matter of time before he’d pop up and once again try to make himself the centre of everybodys attention.
The grandiousity experienced by this sort personality type - always touches me in a bad way. Srid has me think of the book Claudiu is reading: Confessions of a Sociopath. This sort of person would correspond fine with the actualist term: an actualist asshole. 
It’s never too late to turn around but I usually found that pride would get in the way. A younger me had to lose friends, but it doesn’t have to be like that.
Perhaps people are disposable to Srid. I don’t know. But methinks he could stand to do some socializing in real life and not on the wonderful wide world of the web. I really get the sense that he’s scared of / dislikes most people he meets. I truly wonder if there’s anyone one on these forums that he actually looks up to and appreciates. Anyone at all?
I’m writing this expecting him to still be hovering around reading what we write. He got mad about the censorship thing and he got mad about dating women or something in the time I’ve been here. Both times people were engaging him on the subject in respectful ways (and to an identity you have to be beyond respectful ). Both times he spazed out and left without considering what others had to say. He’s not ‘unfazed’ he’s a button’d up actualist who is using the technique of repression instead of E&A. It doesn’t get anymore serious than that.
The last blow up is when people kindly asked him to chill with the political discussion. It’s mind boggling to me how someone could read the AF site for so many years and meanwhile be so invested in what’s going on in the world of USA politics - - while living in Canada and claiming citizenship in India? I don’t know the deets but you literally can’t make this up. It’s truly hilarious and could be a character in a comedy except the guy would be more likeable and liking. In real life it’s just dark and sad. It’s the plague currently affecting half of the human race and there’s nothing redeemable about it.
He totally misses the point that while we’re not trying to create a safe space with this forum, we are trying to create an environment where feeling beings are encouraged to share their feelings as well as enjoy reading and interacting in a happy and harmless way. A place where a feeling being can come out and expose themself instead of hiding behind whatever tactics they typically hide behind. A place where intelligence and reason can flourish. Catering to the lowest common denominator only brings everyone else down.
I didn’t remember why Srid left until now and it was over political discourse. Political discourse is absolutely useless in terms of furthering that sort of environment mentioned above. It just throws a feeling-being into an arena that is dominated by identity and bereft of intelligence. Srid masked his bad behavior by hiding behind the excuse that if someone can’t discuss something, then they have a trigger and as an actualist they need to deal with it. Anyone can push someone’s buttons and hide behind the excuse, ‘I helped ya. There’s your trigger now go fix it.’ And it’s fucking lame when that happens and the person doing it is still completely asleep with both eyes shut. The very fact that he storms off in a wake of destruction is more than enough evidence that he doesn’t practice what he preaches. He’s the sensitive little snowflake he’s scared all this ‘censorship’ will produce.I’m literally scared for him because the moment he recognizes this he may cringe so hard I’m not sure he’ll recover. Who knows, maybe he will become the first actually free person to have gotten there by cringing theirself to immolation. Why not???
People can play on hard mode out there in the real world but on here we somehow have to strike a balance between sensitivity and directness. If someone disagrees I’d be happy to discuss why because I think it’s a worthy topic to talk about. We know what it’s like to be a feeling being. We know we don’t do anyone any favors by being unnecessarily obtuse but we also don’t do any favors by coddling them.
This situation w/ Srid is beyond absurd and deserves to be spoken about bluntly. It’s dysfunctional and he should consider taking a close look at this to better function in society for his own well-being. He also was an admin. And that’s fucking lame too. The dude has people’s info and he clearly exhibits volatile behavior. And it was comically painful to have someone like him be the figurehead of this community - - which he was by virtue of how he posts and his seniority. If people thought that’s what 8yrs or so of actualism leads to they would turn around.
The point is to enjoy and appreciate and feel happy and harmless. I’d rather not play on hard mode watching a bunch of people discuss something they have so few facts on like politics. I don’t think it’s conducive to encouraging relevant actualist discourse. The place had more political posts than posts about Actual Freedom. And they were all coming from one person.
I cannot stress how humorous it all was. Maybe when you feel sad you should lean into how funny that sadness is. Because this kind of behavior truly is sad and should give you the nudge to continue to further distance yourself from the human condition - - it’s retarded.
This cannot be a coincidence or can it?
I’ve “met” a certain person on a certain us gaming forum that left me bewildered. He was using actualism-lingo all the time (very well informed). I was somewhat cautious at first and did not interact with him. Then I probed him a little bit. Nah, this guy was far to political, far to right wing and not harmless at all. This guy was not an actualist for sure. He was just to malicious, but in a delicate passive manner (impressive feat). Then he left, because of too “tight moderation”. He felt betrayed by the moderators who were already leaning right.
Until this day I had the impression that actualism can’t go wrong. But it obviously can. I must admit that this outcome blew my mind back then. I wonder how many people are affected by this phenomenon (turning actualism into cunning verbiage). An interesting topic for sure.
However, I think this place has the right “spirit” if I may say so. I find valuable information every day. I appreciate it very much.
P.S. There is a slight chance that I wasn’t referring to srid, but to someone in this community I haven’t interacted with yet.
If that’s the case: Chapeau! 
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Clearly the human condition can undermine anything. This makes me really question the idea that we need to ‘spread the word.’ I sense that the word is spreading just fine and to push might be to invite a bunch of trouble we’re not ready to handle. Might be good to get a few more AF people so we can have a reliable consensus. Or we could lean into the ones we already have…Who knows???
I agree. I largely see that but we all have our blindspots. I just wonder if there’s a different way to approach this in the future. Srid was literally the guy @ work standing by the watercooler baiting people into political discussion so everyone started to bring their own water. I think the unusual circumstances with his seniority made things a bit sticky.
Just my 2c. I get excited about a lot of the stuff the new people have been bringing. I think the discussion has improved here. It seems more thoughtful and consistently about Actualism…which is why I uh…come here…I’m not trying to have another place to belong to, which is already the direction I instinctually want to head. I think in general people tend to “get it” across the board.
I don’t really think anyone could have seen this coming because it’s so ridiculous. Comically so. I was literally hoping the dude would open up and let us know what was going on. And whenever he’s ready to do that I’m down to change my tune, no grudges. All this fuss would be worth it because it’d be the first indication of progress in however many years and that’d be cool. He could see it’s safe to come out and play, but I doubt he currently feels that way. I can relate 
P.S. As an aside, I have to imagine that if one never really socializes in real life, trying to ‘fit in’ or ‘belong,’ then one never gets the opportunity to consider why other people think and feel the way they do about them. On the internet you just get to move on and never reflect…
P.P.S. One last thing and I’ll stop the circle jerk. If he wanted to ever get laid in this lifetime he should really consider changing ‘who’ he is. As I understand he is very talented and his field is lucrative. He’s already half-way to getting laid. Instead of talking to us, he should spend the next year doing an about face reading GQ magazine and Cosmopolitan, because this direction is headed straight to incel territory and as an American I am literally scared for what that means for my own life. Others in society may feel the same way, they like to use the term ‘creepy.’
So shower, shave, hit the gym. Get buff and hot, summer is around the corner. But most of all you should try being a good person before being an actualist. You clearly skipped that step. It might be the breakthrough your intelligence needs.
P.P.P.S. I used to be a ‘sincere’ spiritualist so let’s just say I wanked with the best of them. You’re only pretending to do actualism at best. When the student is ready the guru appears my son. This is my zen to you. Go forth and become all that you can be. The rest of the universe is eagerly waiting for that to happen.
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One thing is for sure: I didn’t have any luck with “spreading the word.” It wasn’t really a problem with K or even Osho stuff. But actualism is a huge pill to swallow. What I learned was to never, ever use the word self-immolation. I describe it as self-deletion
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Having been a K follower myself (until I read UGK), the same thing happened to me…
Indeed, a much more difficult pill to swallow 
Are you saying you jumped from K → UGK → Actualism? If so, it’s as if you became more athiestic as you went along. I sometimes wonder if there are pockets of spiritualism that are actually aimed at augmenting an individual’s belief about god until there is nothing left. A way of tricking someone into exchanging one belief for another until they’re at a point where they’re finally willing to confront it. It’s easier to question an all loving god, than the god of the old testament. The former is much more forgiving ← my favorite face. It also acts as a way to point to an example of the power of belief.
I loved UGK - - he’s really funny. Such a crabby funny guy seemingly pissed off for having to be the smartest person in the room. It makes me want to make a best-of UGK video of him just saying off-the-wall things to people.
It’s so interesting to watch this without all the affective shocks I had when I originally watched it. How about you @Miguel ???
Yes. As a matter of fact, I found the AF site by searching for “UGK” in Google. I was in a huge crisis because neither K nor UGK actually provided ANYTHING TO DO to get “that”, to get “something”.
But UGK was to my knowledge the only one who had experienced anything resembling what I referred to as “the week” (a PCE I experienced for about a week -albeit with EE moments and probably other ASCs-). Until I found Alan’s Diary (in 2000 it was hosted on the AF site) which led me to Richard’s writings.
Absolutely. I still remember in particular a bus station in a small town in a province of Argentina. I had gone as I did every month to maintain one of my computer systems and while waiting for the bus to return to Buenos Aires I literally did not know how I was going to make it through the next few hours… I felt existentially trapped, with very severe panic attacks, medication, etc. To the absence of practical solutions from K, now I had added the blow that UGK had given me saying that there was no God but that there was NOTHING to do to return to what I had lived (because of a Star Trek movie, I used to say that I was trying to “return to the Nexus”); that those states only happened by chance…
Now I find it amazing to see UGK and be where I am, with that self that made me suffer comparatively so minimized… living such a happy life and having returned several times to the Nexus 
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This is a good example of the false confidence that ASCs provide… was it really so hard for him to say, “there is no way back to the perfection/PCE/nexus that he was aware of?” But of course the pride of being “the guy that gets it” wouldn’t allow that
I speak from experience as someone that’s so wanted to be “the guy that gets it”
And constantly reaching beyond my experiential knowledge :0
It’s the same false confidence that has kept the actual world out of reach for these thousand+ generations, all the “wise people” knew better than to think it was possible, and everyone else lacked the self-confidence to try
Naïveté!!!
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I must admit, that i’m still the guy who wants to get it. I’m still ridden by this “hero-hamster” fantasy of me going out in a blaze of glory. I want to be the hero of my own fantasy, though I know I won’t be around to savor the fruits. Sometimes it stands in my way, but sometimes it gives me the neccesary energy to do something about it. It has resulted in a few very sparkling PCEs, but was also the culprit for frustrations when it didn’t work out. For the moment I keep this spirit alive, but also in check. It doesn’t bother me in every day life. Sometimes when going to sleep the “hero-hamster” comes out and huiiiii…
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