Thread by @fortelabs

1/ Very serendipitous story

I knew a guy in high school named Leo Gura. While not exactly friends, we spent a lot of time arguing about truth and the nature of knowledge

2/ I was a super hardcore Christian at the time. Leader of the Christian club. Basically delivered mini sermons each week at lunchtime

Leo was a hardcore atheist and was baffled by my crazy beliefs, in God, Jesus, resurrection, young Earth Creationism, the afterlife, etc.

3/ I also had a scientific bent, and we’d spend hours and hours arguing about whether these things were real, or true. About how we could possibly know such things. Good fun all around. I liked debating

4/ I last saw Leo at the end of high school in 2003. Fast forward 16 years and he’s become a very successful YouTuber with nearly 1 million subscribers

youtube.com/user/Actualize…

5/ On his channel Leo talks about philosophy, epistemology, self-improvement, growth, emotional intelligence, learning, consciousness, etc.

He also blogs, records audio, and teaches online courses at his website actualized.org

6/ He even has a video advising people to create their own software-based commonplace book! Which he started doing in 2012, the same year that I officially started mine (he’s a OneNote fan though)

7/ Someone in his discussion forum posted about me and he responded saying that our discussions inspired his search for knowledge on the nature of truth. Mostly because he couldn’t fathom how smart people could believe such ridiculous things

8/ I’ve since completely reversed those beliefs, and somehow we ended up in a similar place. You never know how your chance interactions with people will affect them (and you)