Hey hocus:
Concerning "I think...",
a wise man once said:
Don't forget, gummy, this stuff may someday stand the world of conventional investing advice on its head. If that happens ...
I was being a little bit playful when I said that, Gummy.
Still, I stand behind the statement. It's a true statement. I really do believe that this stuff is going to stand the world of investing on its head. And I can present a lot of evidence backing up that assertion. Just look at the number of posts that my May 13, 2002, post generated. The count is in the tens of thousands. Does that not tell us that something is up? I am a reporter by trade, and, when I see an idea generate tens of thousands of posts, my spidey sense starts tingling like mad. This stuff gets to people. It gets to people because they sense that it matters so much. When people come to change their minds about something that matters as much as this does, the world is stood on its head. People have to completely reorient their thinking about how to invest as a result of the discoveries we have made at this board. That's pretty darn cool.
Now, there is someone out there who will have a heart attack when he reads that statement and said, "Oh, the arrogance!" Well, there's nothing arrogant about it. There never has been. I don't claim to be an investing expert because I am not. I am a guy who was putting together a Retire Early plan in the mid-90s, and I did some research into SWRs and I came up with an important discovery. That's all. It's nothing more than that, but it's nothing less than that either.
The way that people should have played this is, all sorts of people should have been contriibuting in a constructive way so that we could develop the insight together. There are all sorts of people who have valuable things to contribute. I'm asking for community input. That's not arrogant. The arrogance is with the guy who says "I alone in this world am incapable of ever getting a number wrong, I will kill anyone who asks any questions about my methodology or who checks the historical data to see if what I insist is so actually is so." That's big-time arrogance. And that guy's response has been the entire problem for 34 months now.
We didn't have death threats on the day this started, Gummy. We had discussions. And we didn't have people telling me that I was arrogant or dogmatic or any other such nonsense when this started. We had people coming forward saying "Thanks, hocus, this is the most exciting discussion we ever had here!" Why were they saying that, do you think? Because I was so off-putting in the way that I came forward with this finding? No. They said that because they appreciated they help I was providing the community by sharing my insight with the community free of charge. I was doing what you are supposed to do on a discussion board. I was contributing. I wasn't threatening people. I wasn't deceiving people. I wasn't wasting people's time. That was the other guy.
The ertire problem that we have experienced with this is that there are a number of community members who are too afraid of the guy to tell him where he can go with his threats and his deceptions and his nonsense. He has built up a reputation over a long period of time of being absilutely ruthless with anyone who crosses him, and to him the phrase "crosses him" means anyone who posts in an honest and informed manner on any of the issues on which he has put forward one of his nonsense gibberish dogmas.
I ain't gonna go cry in a corner because I came up with an insight that changed the history of this movement forever. That's what I aim to do with all the effort I put into this. My goal is not to put up any old nonsense that happens to come into my head. I do my homework. When I put something forward, it's something I have checked out before I go shooting my mouth off. I think it is fair to say that the other guy doesn't play it that way. Too bad for him. I am not going to apologize for getting the number right when he is unable to apologize for getting it wrong.
Why is it that so few challenge him, Gummy? Why is it that we don't have people asking that he come clean? There are lots of people on all different sorts of boards who have advice to offer me on a daily basis. How about him? Why do they have nothing to say to him? It's because, when you say it to me, you are going to get a polite and respectful response. It might be a more frank response that you would like. But it is always polite and respectful. Not so with the other guy, right? So people keep real quiet around the other guy.
That needs to change. I devoted thousands of hours into building this movement in the early days. The Motley Fool board was the first board, and all of the others are essentially spin-offs of it. All that we have learned is in an important respect the result of work done by the pioneers that posted once upon a time at the Motley Fool board. Those people who worked beside me are my friends. And just about all of them have been driven off of that board because of the other indivdual's posting tactics. Should I not care what has happened to them? What sort of person would I be if I did not care?
You can feel free to take shots at me here if you like, Gummy. It's within the rules. But you hang around these boards long enough, there is going to come a day when either interest or one of his stooges is going to tear into you because you made some sort of reasonable comment that contradicts one of the Sacred Nonsense Dogmas. When that happens, you check out who comes to your defense first. Odds are good it's going to be good old dogamtic hocus.
I am not dogamtic on the question of how people should invest for early retirement. On that one I say "Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom." I am dogmatic on the question of how posters are going to treat the friends I work beside in developing the insights put forwrd at these boards. There's only one post that I have ever deleted at this board. It was put up by SalaryGuru. But when TH was slamming him and slamming him good the other day at the Early Retirement Forum, there was no one in the community with the guts to stand up to TH but good old dogmatic hocus. SalaryGuru made a mistake with the word game post he put up here. But he has made useful contributions to this community in the past, and for that he deserves our respect. Respect isn't words. Respect is actions. Respect is when you stick up for the guy when some galoot like TH is trying to drive him out of the community because of a diference of opinion on some nonsense real estate question.
I am dogmatic on that one issue--how we treat our fellow posters, whether we stand up for them when an intercst or a TH sticks their dirty claws into them. That stuff I will not stand for. That stuff I will not permit. Good for me. That stuff does not belong.
There are some things that do not belong. Gummy. There are some things that are over the line. Death threats do not belong. People who use death threats to limit the scope of debate need to make other plans. How many people do you think dared to speak up agains the threats of physical violence endorced by our old friend intercst? FoolMeOnce did it. He was the only one. There were about 60 people who gave a recommendation to his post. But no one else stood up and said words in their own name. There should have been more than one.
There was only one because for so long we have applied a different standard to this individual that people cannot accept that he can be held to any standards whatsoeveer. They are wrong. I am holding him o a standard. It's not a tough one, it's pretty darn mimimal. But it is a standard. And that standard is going to prevail. The individual is going to need to make other plans.
We stand the world on its head on all sorts of questions at these boards. Do we not save more effectively than many people do in the outside world? Should we be ashamed of that? I sure don't think so. I think we should be sharing with the world what we have learned that many others have not. I'm going to do all that I can to get the word out. And I believe that that will stand the world of money management on its head. I sure am not ashamed of the role that I have played in making that happen. The world of money management needs to be stood on its head.
And then we are going to stand the world of investing on its head. It too needs to be stood on its head. I am not the only one who says so. Read the comments of Peter Bernstein posted elsewhere at this board. He says much the same thing. Read the comments of Rob Arnot. He also says the same. Read the comments of Andrew Smithers. He says that we are about to see a "revolution" in thinking about what works in investing strategies.
The ideas put forward at this board are new ideas. That is why we generate so much controversy with the work we do here. That is good. We want controversy. Controversy helps us learn. It causes us to question old ideas and get back to the basics and find out where we went off track. The stuff we are doing here to set the world of investing on its head is all good stuff.
There is an element of this that is not good. There is an element that is pure poison. That is the personal attack stuff and the deception stuff and the intimidation stuff. That stuff has no place here. I need some help shutting that stuff down. How many have offered to help? When I have 10 people willing to post at the Motley Fool board willing to insist that the rules of the site be administered in a reaonable way and that intercst's posting privileges be revoked, he will be taken down. How many are willing to do that today? Why so few? What is taking people so long to come around?
These are the questions that we need to be looking at as a community. No one likes this ugliness. No one wants more of this poison, But how do we put a stop to it? Should all of us who want to post in an honest and informed way walk away from the boards because doing so makes an individual who got a number wrong in a study feel bad? Give me a break. That cannot be the thing to do. When there are hundreds of people trying to learn what they need to learn to win financial freedom early in life and one who feels bad because he got a number wrong in a study, it is the one who got the number wrong who must go, not the hundreds who are trying to learn about the subject matter.
If there is some flaw in my logic on that one, then someone is going to have to tell me what it is. Until I hear otherwise, I am going with what my mind tells me is the right thing to do. The right thing to do is not to put forward deceptions. We have heard enough deceptions to make us all sick. My aim is to tell it like it is, to the best of my ability. And I really do believe that this stuff is going to stand the world of investing on its head in days to come. I want people to know that because I want them to know that the work done at this board is important and can save them lots of money and can get them to financial freedom a lot sooner than the nonsense gibberish approach advocated by some others.
There are many acceptable viewpoints on how to invest for early retirement. I want them all to be given voice in our community. I do not want deception to be given voice. Deception destoys us. Deception is poison. I think it is fair to say at this point that no one has been able to find a way to defend the REHP study except through deception. Given that reality, I think it would be a good idea to take that particular approach off the table. If the author of the study is not capable of defending it without resorting to deception, who the heck can?
I think we should put that study in the dustbin of history. I think we should move on. I think the conventional SWR methodology is the SWR methodology of the past. I think the data-based SWR methodology is the SWR methodology of the future.
I think these things because every sliver of data and reasoned argument we have seen put forward for 32 months points in the same direction and the other side has offered up nothing but word games and deception and intimidation in support of their case. There comes a time when we need to make the shift from saying "we think that intercst got the number wrong in the study" to saying that "we know that intercst got the number wrong in the study." The time to do that is when we see that failing to do that has caused us to lose scores of fine community members who had to leave because they could stand no more of the ugliness that are all that intercst and the other DCMs have to offer anymore. The time to do that is now. I think.