Ali Abdaal

[hollowcrown]

10% is double than Musk's time spent on Neuralink. Should be enough for a girlfriend /s



Okay, I skimmed those pages in the past but I missed those posts.

You know, when you are completely clueless on how dating works and you search online, you find two kinds of resources: Hussey's and Renecello's type, wanting you to grow into a nice person and yada yada... or "red pill" stuff. The latter is the one that do provide you with a scheme for relationships, something you can apply analytical reasoning to, and I can totally see why Ali is drawn to them.

I would not call him incel, still, maybe red-pilled. As Ravenclawboi replied to one of your posts, I too hope he will realize the dangers intrinsic to those theories and part from them.
He is much egotistic and has little-to-none emotional intelligence, but he's not a bad person.

I think it's very easy when you are having a bad time meeting girls to fall into the red pill hole so-to-speak. And if you have low opinions of women anyway that's doubly so. Some of the stuff that Ali says like "sexual market value" is very pick up artist esque because normal people do not think in that way (and people do not want to have sex with you because you can do card tricks, Ali) so it's stuff from weird theory books.

I think he's surrounded by enough sensible and progressive people for him to go into full on pick up artist / red pill territory but given the amount of people he must come into contact with on the internet (especially probably right wing Americans) then if he didn't have those people he could easily fall into that rabbit hole.

 

[Machtc99]

He is much egotistic and has little-to-none emotional intelligence, but he's not a bad person.

LOL, so being egotistic ("being centered in or preoccupied with oneself and the gratification of one's own desires; self-centered") and having no emotional intelligence ("the capacity to be aware of, control, and express one's emotions, and to handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically") doesn't mean he is a bad guy? Yes, he is merciful like a Jesus.

Call it red-pilled or incell or whatever you want to call it, this is not a standard man, and definitely has some issues which can create a lot of pain for another person - man or woman, no matter who he's going to date.

When I met the love of my life I didn't think about "sexual market value", and although I am constantly increasing professional qualifications and my carrier I would never EVER make judgments like him, like "I am going to spend for my girlfriend 10% of my daytime". He talks a lot (i.e. in the last video) about being husband and dad, and states these are his long-term goals, but with his current attitude he will not be a good husband and dad - he will sociopathic / self-obsessed. And dear god, please forbid his wife from being smarter than him, he will not survive it! If she outshines him, he will leave her.

 

[ravenclawboi11]

LOL, so being egotistic ("being centered in or preoccupied with oneself and the gratification of one's own desires; self-centered") and having no emotional intelligence ("the capacity to be aware of, control, and express one's emotions, and to handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically") doesn't mean he is a bad guy? Yes, he is merciful like a Jesus.

Call it red-pilled or incell or whatever you want to call it, this is not a standard man, and definitely has some issues which can create a lot of pain for another person - man or woman, no matter who he's going to date.

When I met the love of my life I didn't think about "sexual market value", and although I am constantly increasing professional qualifications and my carrier I would never EVER make judgments like him, like "I am going to spend for my girlfriend 10% of my daytime". He talks a lot (i.e. in the last video) about being husband and dad, and states these are his long-term goals, but with his current attitude he will not be a good husband and dad - he will sociopathic / self-obsessed. And dear god, please forbid his wife from being smarter than him, he will not survive it! If she outshines him, he will leave her.

No, I don't think being self centred and struggling emotional intelligence makes you a bad person. I think treating others badly and callously makes someone a bad person, which as far as I know he doesn't. As someone with an autistic family member it annoys me quite a bit when people equate struggling with empathy as being a nasty person and I actually quite admire Ali for being open and honest about it, acknowledging it's a problem and working on it.
Most of the straight people I know who went to same-sex schools struggle with relationships and communicating with the opposite sex, especially the boys, so whilst I'd agree it's not ideal it's not something he can't work on to fix. I think the sexual market value thing is heavily ironic and self-deprecating on his part and although he's been reading some worrying material I find it hard to see how he can actually believe it surrounded by women like Sheen and Molly, although maybe that's the lack of empathy I struggle with showing.
The whole 10% of time thing people get so annoyed over I don't really think is that bad? It obviously wouldn't work for you but different people want different things out of a relationship, and that's fine and normal. I suspect when he finds himself in a relationship he might find that he actually prefers spending more time with them than he anticipated, especially if they share interests like gaming, amine etc. Thinking about it I probably only spend 10-20% of my time with my girlfriend, although that'll change once we move in together. Sociopathic is a bit strong lmao and he's mildly self-obsessed but not full blown egotistic yet. I don't really think he'd leave someone for being smarter than him? He seems to push his friends to take on new opportunities etc and is good friends with Sheen, who I'd say is smarter than him academically and emotionally.

 

[mindlessness]

Yeah look, I think he's very lucky to have very sensible friends and family. In the long run hopefully they will keep him grounded.

 

[Machtc99]

No, I don't think being self centred and struggling emotional intelligence makes you a bad person. I think treating others badly and callously makes someone a bad person, which as far as I know he doesn't. As someone with an autistic family member it annoys me quite a bit when people equate struggling with empathy as being a nasty person and I actually quite admire Ali for being open and honest about it, acknowledging it's a problem and working on it.
Most of the straight people I know who went to same-sex schools struggle with relationships and communicating with the opposite sex, especially the boys, so whilst I'd agree it's not ideal it's not something he can't work on to fix. I think the sexual market value thing is heavily ironic and self-deprecating on his part and although he's been reading some worrying material I find it hard to see how he can actually believe it surrounded by women like Sheen and Molly, although maybe that's the lack of empathy I struggle with showing.
The whole 10% of time thing people get so annoyed over I don't really think is that bad? It obviously wouldn't work for you but different people want different things out of a relationship, and that's fine and normal. I suspect when he finds himself in a relationship he might find that he actually prefers spending more time with them than he anticipated, especially if they share interests like gaming, amine etc. Thinking about it I probably only spend 10-20% of my time with my girlfriend, although that'll change once we move in together. Sociopathic is a bit strong lmao and he's mildly self-obsessed but not full blown egotistic yet. I don't really think he'd leave someone for being smarter than him? He seems to push his friends to take on new opportunities etc and is good friends with Sheen, who I'd say is smarter than him academically and emotionally.

I have a friend with Asperger syndrome - if he doesn't use it as an excuses for his rudeness and insensitive in some situations i don't mind, but yes, I think if you are a self-centered. egoistic grown man without emotional intelligence, and you value your work with how many lifes can you save you are a bad person.

 

[ravenclawboi11]

I have a friend with Asperger syndrome - if he doesn't use it as an excuses for his rudeness and insensitive in some situations i don't mind, but yes, I think if you are a self-centered. egoistic grown man without emotional intelligence, and you value your work with how many lifes can you save you are a bad person.

Autism isn't something that's "used as an excuse". Having a condition where you can struggle with reading someone else's emotions is a legitimate reason for coming across as insensitive/rude and causes lots of hardship for those with autism.
I guess where you lie on the number of lives thing and whether he's a good/bad person all comes down to where you are on the consequentialism-deontology spectrum of morality. I'm utilitarian in my approach to things and quite interested in effective altruism so I'm more sympathetic to his point of view on the number of lives saved thing. The points I would disagree with him on that is that it's quite hard to quantify his 'life-saving' impact as a youtuber compared to being a doctor. I also don't think he'd make less money through working as a doctor+youtuber compared to just being a youtuber (his channel would probably do better and have more content as a doctor) so he could donate the same amount of money. Also the 8 lives thing is averaged over lots of different types of specialisms so working in emergency medicine the number would probably be higher. Obviously he isn't perfect and has stuff to work on but I do think he's a decent person whose actions generally have positive outcomes. His intentions may not be purely selfless but I think that's true of most people, including myself, and he's just more honest about it.

 

[hollowcrown]

Autism isn't something that's "used as an excuse". Having a condition where you can struggle with reading someone else's emotions is a legitimate reason for coming across as insensitive/rude and causes lots of hardship for those with autism.
I guess where you lie on the number of lives thing and whether he's a good/bad person all comes down to where you are on the consequentialism-deontology spectrum of morality. I'm utilitarian in my approach to things and quite interested in effective altruism so I'm more sympathetic to his point of view on the number of lives saved thing. The points I would disagree with him on that is that it's quite hard to quantify his 'life-saving' impact as a youtuber compared to being a doctor. I also don't think he'd make less money through working as a doctor+youtuber compared to just being a youtuber (his channel would probably do better and have more content as a doctor) so he could donate the same amount of money. Also the 8 lives thing is averaged over lots of different types of specialisms so working in emergency medicine the number would probably be higher. Obviously he isn't perfect and has stuff to work on but I do think he's a decent person whose actions generally have positive outcomes. His intentions may not be purely selfless but I think that's true of most people, including myself, and he's just more honest about it.

The 8 lives thing is weird because it's a very absolutist way of looking at the profession. Most nurses or doctors or radiologists or whatever that I know aren't just there to save a net amount of lives. They're there to improve the quality of life overall for their patients. There are so many different branches of medicine and medical fields which don't save lives but so improve peoples qualities of lives. If you're only seeing value in the number of lives you have saved, idk it is just a bit weird. In fact that way to thinking is why the NHS in the UK is so bleeping backlogged right now because only life saving things are considered important.

At best it's a way for him to explain why he only wants to do medicine part time and at worst it's just low-key insulting millions of healthcare workers worldwide.

The whole 10% of time thing people get so annoyed over I don't really think is that bad? It obviously wouldn't work for you but different people want different things out of a relationship, and that's fine and normal. I suspect when he finds himself in a relationship he might find that he actually prefers spending more time with them than he anticipated, especially if they share interests like gaming, amine etc. Thinking about it I probably only spend 10-20% of my time with my girlfriend, although that'll change once we move in together. Sociopathic is a bit strong lmao and he's mildly self-obsessed but not full blown egotistic yet. I don't really think he'd leave someone for being smarter than him? He seems to push his friends to take on new opportunities etc and is good friends with Sheen, who I'd say is smarter than him academically and emotionally.

The 10% thing is weird not because of the actual time you spend with your partner, but the way he wears it like a badge of honour.

I personally think it is very important in your twenties to learn how to be happy spending time with yourself. When you're a teen in a relationship it can be possible to spend almost every waking hour together so people find it adjust to adult relationships when you have working, distance, other social engagements etc. taking up time. Only spending 10-20% of your time with your partner is a fairly realistic expectation. When you live together that time goes up of course but you're usually in fairly close proximity, doing different things like someone reading in the same room as someone else watching TV.

But like who the duck advertises that you want to only spend 10% of your time with the person you love and consider an equal? It might be pragmatic or realistic but it is not IDEAL at all and I can't see very many people who want to have a loving relationship willingly sign up to that when that's the thing they proudly brag about.

Yes, date me, I only can give you 10% of my time a day.

Mmm yes very appealing.

 

[Machtc99]

Autism isn't something that's "used as an excuse". Having a condition where you can struggle with reading someone else's emotions is a legitimate reason for coming across as insensitive/rude and causes lots of hardship for those with autism.
I guess where you lie on the number of lives thing and whether he's a good/bad person all comes down to where you are on the consequentialism-deontology spectrum of morality. I'm utilitarian in my approach to things and quite interested in effective altruism so I'm more sympathetic to his point of view on the number of lives saved thing. The points I would disagree with him on that is that it's quite hard to quantify his 'life-saving' impact as a youtuber compared to being a doctor. I also don't think he'd make less money through working as a doctor+youtuber compared to just being a youtuber (his channel would probably do better and have more content as a doctor) so he could donate the same amount of money. Also the 8 lives thing is averaged over lots of different types of specialisms so working in emergency medicine the number would probably be higher. Obviously he isn't perfect and has stuff to work on but I do think he's a decent person whose actions generally have positive outcomes. His intentions may not be purely selfless but I think that's true of most people, including myself, and he's just more honest about it.

You can hurt people through your social maladjustment. So if you are socially-awkward or you have some disorders which affect your behaviour you can make poeple feel bad - for me it is a sign of a bad person. I don't care if you hurt people intentionally or not. It's the same with a person with psychic disease who kills someone - people are HURT. Period. Stop making excuses for someone's bad character.


For the record - my friend with asperger, he has made fun of me when I was describing the situation with covid vaccines in my country. I was desperately looking for an appointment for a vaccine and sharing thought how badly it is organized in my country. He has laugh at me, because he couldn't understand why I was on "surviving mode". I've lost 5 friends due to covid during last year, my mum is a nurse and she's been working so hard with elderly people seeing and being surrounded by death. That is why I don't allow for excuses, and I DON'T CARE if someone is socially-awkward and why it is caused. There are no excuses for hurting anyone. Period. Words DO matter. You wouldn't be defending Ali if he had said something against LGBT+ or racially-offensive.


There are no excuses. Instead of looking for them, work on you compasion, empathy etc


Cheers.

 

[ravenclawboi11]

You can hurt people through your social maladjustment. So if you are socially-awkward or you have some disorders which affect your behaviour you can make poeple feel bad - for me it is a sign of a bad person. I don't care if you hurt people intentionally or not. It's the same with a person with psychic disease who kills someone - people are HURT. Period. Stop making excuses for someone's bad character.


For the record - my friend with asperger, he has made fun of me when I was describing the situation with covid vaccines in my country. I was desperately looking for an appointment for a vaccine and sharing thought how badly it is organized in my country. He has laugh at me, because he couldn't understand why I was on "surviving mode". I've lost 5 friends due to covid during last year, my mum is a nurse and she's been working so hard with elderly people seeing and being surrounded by death. That is why I don't allow for excuses, and I DON'T CARE if someone is socially-awkward and why it is caused. There are no excuses for hurting anyone. Period. Words DO matter. You wouldn't be defending Ali if he had said something against LGBT+ or racially-offensive.


There are no excuses. Instead of looking for them, work on you compasion, empathy etc


Cheers.

I'm really sorry you had that experience with your friend but there's no need to paint all people with autism or poor social skills with the same brush because of one person. I definitely don't agree with you that unintentionally hurting someone through misunderstanding a situation means that you are a bad person, particularly if you have a condition that makes it harder for you to read that situation. It seems to me from your description that he wasn't unintentionally hurting you, and even if he was he would have realised after the fact when you explained it to him and should have apologised. My brother is fairly high functioning (think kinda sheldon cooper but less self-confident) and once he becomes aware that he's upset someone he apologises and asks exactly what he did wrong so he can avoid doing it next time. He even keeps flashcards to help him remember. Him unintentionally hurting someone because he does not intuitively understand social situations due to his condition does not make him a bad person.
Idk what evidence anyone else has but I haven't really seen anything that shows Ali is a fool to others anyway? Just overcharging for YouTube courses, which if people are going to spend money on anyways fine, and having awkward interactions. You're assuming that he's not a decent person from him being awkward and admitting he struggles with emotional intelligence. There are much worst productivity/studytubers out there (ahem, unjaded jade) who say they have high levels of empathy whilst travelling around spreading covid to the masses without any real consideration for others.
You're right, if he said something racist or homophobic I wouldn't be defending him because I know he knows that is hurtful. That's the different in the situation, the awareness.

The 8 lives thing is weird because it's a very absolutist way of looking at the profession. Most nurses or doctors or radiologists or whatever that I know aren't just there to save a net amount of lives. They're there to improve the quality of life overall for their patients. There are so many different branches of medicine and medical fields which don't save lives but so improve peoples qualities of lives. If you're only seeing value in the number of lives you have saved, idk it is just a bit weird. In fact that way to thinking is why the NHS in the UK is so bleeping backlogged right now because only life saving things are considered important.

Yeah I guess, I made my career choice based on the net number of lives thing (climate research over going down a medicine-y route) but I have been told I have quite an absolutist mindset about stuff, which I guess is why I understand his perspective on it.

Yes, date me, I only can give you 10% of my time a day.

Mmm yes very appealing.

Lol yeah, didn't think of it like that. Like I said I think he'll probably change his mind on it when he's actually in a relationship but I can see it's not a very appealing thing to the majority of people to have on your tinder/hinge/whatever profile.

 

[NotAnArtist]

There are much worst productivity/studytubers out there (ahem, unjaded jade) who say they have high levels of empathy whilst travelling around spreading covid to the masses without any real consideration for others.

I think you make an important point - my experience is that those saying they struggle with emotional intelligence aren't necessarily the 'worst' in that delartment at all. Conversely, I've met my fair share if self-proclaimed 'empaths' who seemed to 'feel to deeply what those around them felt' because they just assumed everyone else felt the way they did.

'Emotional intelligence' is also used quite broadly... I perceive myself as struggling with (and working on) it, but it's very tied to general anxieties to me. Like, I'm really worried that I'll say something others might find hurtful or intrusive or inappropriate, so I'm extremely reluctant about small-talk, follow-up questions, asking people how they are doing or what their previous jobs were etc. Nothing bad has happened in such conversations in the past - but I still worry about it almost constantly. In my experience, this can come across as though I'm disinterested... which I'm not, I'm just scared I'll come across as being too familiar.

Which is to say - people can struggle with emotional intelligence in a breadth of ways, but what we're worried about might not always be the same as what's at the core of our issues.

[also, i just want to briefly acknowledge that Jade does not seem to have spread covid to anyone, but definitely exploited a position of extreme privilege at a time when leaa selfish behavior would have been called for]

 

[hollowcrown]

I think you make an important point - my experience is that those saying they struggle with emotional intelligence aren't necessarily the 'worst' in that delartment at all. Conversely, I've met my fair share if self-proclaimed 'empaths' who seemed to 'feel to deeply what those around them felt' because they just assumed everyone else felt the way they did.

'Emotional intelligence' is also used quite broadly... I perceive myself as struggling with (and working on) it, but it's very tied to general anxieties to me. Like, I'm really worried that I'll say something others might find hurtful or intrusive or inappropriate, so I'm extremely reluctant about small-talk, follow-up questions, asking people how they are doing or what their previous jobs were etc. Nothing bad has happened in such conversations in the past - but I still worry about it almost constantly. In my experience, this can come across as though I'm disinterested... which I'm not, I'm just scared I'll come across as being too familiar.

Which is to say - people can struggle with emotional intelligence in a breadth of ways, but what we're worried about might not always be the same as what's at the core of our issues.

[also, i just want to briefly acknowledge that Jade does not seem to have spread covid to anyone, but definitely exploited a position of extreme privilege at a time when leaa selfish behavior would have been called for]

Ali has also not done anything wrong (to our knowledge) yet, just expressed some views that some people don't like or are a bit problematic. None of his actual actions have caused harm to others directly

I think the worst things he's done is:
- Follow some dodgy redpill people on Twitter
- Scummy FOMO tactics on his YouTube course
- The buying the Tesla at half price video
- Decided to move to America to be a Doctor there (which he quickly went back on)

 

[Lola123]

Ali has also not done anything wrong (to our knowledge) yet, just expressed some views that some people don't like or are a bit problematic. None of his actual actions have caused harm to others directly

I think the worst things he's done is:
- Follow some dodgy redpill people on Twitter
- Scummy FOMO tactics on his YouTube course
- The buying the Tesla at half price video
- Decided to move to America to be a Doctor there (which he quickly went back on)

He’s deffo broken covid guidelines at some point….

 

[ravenclawboi11]

I think the worst things he's done is:
- Follow some dodgy redpill people on Twitter
- Scummy FOMO tactics on his YouTube course
- The buying the Tesla at half price video
- Decided to move to America to be a Doctor there (which he quickly went back on)

Redpill people is definitely the worst for me, followed by YouTube course (But people are going to spend money on stuff like that anyways so I'm a bit meh over it). Buying the tesla at half price I found fairly interesting and I liked that he gave a balanced review on it. Moving to America to be a doctor I think was more for the adventure of it rather than thinking that the healthcare system is in anyway better than the NHS. I know some people think that doctors trained here have an obligation to the NHS but in my opinion it's his career, so his choice.
I think he's not followed covid guidelines once or twice as well but not broken any explicit rules, and he is vaccinated so idk.

 

[hollowcrown]

Lockdown guidelines are so inscrutable at this point that I do not care if people have broken them any more. I know I certainly have in a few cases, UK government guidelines have been so changeable through the past year that you just have to do what you deem to be sensible. Ali is an well educated healthcare professional who knows the risks and precautions to take so if anyone is going to break guidelines safely then it will be him.

The Tesla stuff was annoying because it was just him giving tax avoidance advice disguised as click bait which just rubs me up the wrong way really. Plus it was not even useful advice at all because most people can’t write off their car expenses as part of their business, it was a totally useless video. It is something that tons and tons of Youtubers tend to do though nowadays so just more of a wider community problem.

 

[hollowcrown]

Another lovely down to earth video from Ali in the middle of one of the most difficult economic years for many very tasteful

 

[sergeantsantiago]

Another lovely down to earth video from Ali in the middle of one of the most difficult economic years for many very tasteful

Man, read the room...

 

[hollowcrown]

Not sure how you can even spend $28k on Apple products. Being "conservative" and speccing £2k for iMac, Macbook Pro, iPhone 12, iPad Pro and Mac Mini that's £10k. Then like £100 for Apple Pencil and £500 for Apple Watch and you're at like £10.6k ($19k) still nowhere near $28k. What a wanker.

 

[Lola123]

Not sure how you can even spend $28k on Apple products. Being "conservative" and speccing £2k for iMac, Macbook Pro, iPhone 12, iPad Pro and Mac Mini that's £10k. Then like £100 for Apple Pencil and £500 for Apple Watch and you're at like £10.6k ($19k) still nowhere near $28k. What a wanker.

He did buy multiples to review last year like every iPad and every iPhone, he did say he was returning them so I assume that’s what he’s also including, plus the accessories etc

 

[ravenclawboi11]

He did buy multiples to review last year like every iPad and every iPhone, he did say he was returning them so I assume that’s what he’s also including, plus the accessories etc

Just clickbait really then

 

[Lola123]

Just clickbait really then

That’s Ali all over, as soon as he started to get any traction he went click bait