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"Hocus Is Loved"

Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2005 2:31 am
by hocus2004
Here's a link to a post that Ariechert put to the Motley Fool board last night.

http://boards.fool.com/Message.asp?mid= ... t=postdate

Ariechert: "Every human endeavor soon "splits" into "factions" and then there is "conflict". It's part of human nature. In this sense, hocus is loved. He is needed to provide the "duality" that keeps this board interesting. If there wasn't an antagonist one would have to be invented. Every country needs a common enemy in order to keep it from tearing itself apart from within."

I think that Ariechert is hitting on an important truth with this comment. Ask someone from the Motley Fool board why there is so little on-topic posting at that board, and the answer you will get is: "It's all been said, discussions of early retirement have become boring to us." Yet you see exciting new threads on early retirement at the Early Retirement Forum on a daily basis. Why is it that one community can still find new things to say on a topic and another cannot?

The reason is that, at the Motley Fool board, the phrase "Retire Early" has a special meaning. What it means to people who populate that board community today is "Retire Early the Intercst Way." That topic has indeed been talked to death at the Motley Fool board and it would indeed be boring as heck to revisit it over and over and over again. But there are hundreds of exciting strategies for early retirement that have never seen a single mention there. If the board were open to the consideration of alternative approaches, as the Early Retirement Forum generally (not but entirely) is, there would be exciting new threads at the Motley Fool board too.

We have experienced a lot of friction at all of our boards over the course of the past 33 months. It's called "growing pains." Intercst is the guy who started the first board, and there are lots of people who love our movement and, having learning about it from going to his web site, got the idea in their heads that it was all about intercst. That was never really so, but in the early days we were able to fool ourselves into thinking that it was more or less so because there were still people with an active interest in discussing intercst's ideas. After those ideas had been picked over too many times for them to be able to provide any further nourishment, we were faced with a dilemma--let on-topic discussions die or permit some new voices to take the spotlight away from intercst.

I voted for hearing new voices. That's what all the noise is about. I made clear that, while I learned a good bit from the intercst web site (one of those 40 black binders is devoted to print-outs I made of every article posted at the REHP site), I wanted to hear from other people with other sorts of strategies. I wanted to hear from Wanderer, I wanted to hear from FoolMeOnce, I wanted to head from Raddr, I wanted to hear from JWR1945, I wanted to hear from JammerH, and on and on. That's the conflict. I wanted to hear from those people, intercst didn't want people to hear from those people, and the community was left facing the dilemma of which leader to follow.

There's a sense in which the community has elected to follow intercst and there is a sense in which the community has elected to follow me. When you look at the board bannings and the tolerance for abusive disruptive posting and stuff like that, you could say "the community has elected to follow intercst." It's not so simple, however. We have the counter phenomenon of the community never getting enough of this, of the community showing its support for having the discussions go on and on and on (for over 33 months now). People know how not to post, and when they don't like a discussion, that's just what they do. You never see that happen re the SWR matter.

I don't think you ever will. I think the community is torn. It feels bad about the intercst aspect of all this, that much is clear. But the community does not want on-topic posting to die at our boards. The community is seeking some middle ground, some place where intercst can remain with us and yet we can have on-topic posting continue at our boards too. I personally don't think that's possible, but I also think that sometimes communities are smarter than individuals and that eventually the community might work out some way of getting most of what it wants.

Ariechert is right that we sooner or later had to split. Any movement that wants to live for an extended period of time needs to permit the expression of more than a single viewpoint. We had our intercst era, and my guess is that there will always be members of our community who will support the REHP study approach to investing for early retirement. Never again, though, will that view be the only view considered acceptable. I think those days are over for good. I think we are in the process of growing up. It's hard, but the alternative to growing up is dying. That sounds even worse to me than enduring the rough patch we are going through now.

Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2005 4:28 am
by JWR1945
hocus2004 wrote:Ariechert is right that we sooner or later had to split. Any movement that wants to live for an extended period of time needs to permit the expression of more than a single viewpoint. We had our intercst era, and my guess is that there will always be members of our community who will support the REHP study approach to investing for early retirement. Never again, though, will that view be the only view considered acceptable. I think those days are over for good. I think we are in the process of growing up. It's hard, but the alternative to growing up is dying. That sounds even worse to me than enduring the rough patch we are going through now.
In fact, we can easily support additional viewpoints.

For example, if someone wishes to start a board with a different point of view, I am sure that ES would allow him to start his own moderated board here, at the NFB. The individual would have to follow the rules of the website. I think that ES would allow restricted discussions provided that the moderator made clear what topics, not board members, were restricted and how.

Have fun.

John R.

Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2005 4:45 am
by ElSupremo
Greetings John :)
For example, if someone wishes to start a board with a different point of view, I am sure that ES would allow him to start his own moderated board here, at the NFB. The individual would have to follow the rules of the website. I think that ES would allow restricted discussions provided that the moderator made clear what topics, not board members, were restricted and how.
Very true. It's one thing to stay on topic or keep folks on topic, it's another to ban people because you don't like what they are saying or don't agree with their point of view. I would be happy to add the type of boards you mention here anytime. And they won't have to pay a cent for it. Cool

Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2005 4:49 am
by hocus2004
I think you are making a great point, JWR1945.

You may remember that there was an incident in which ES said that he had some good news that he was not going to reveal for a few days. A few of us took guesses as to what the secret was. My guess was that Ataloss was going to start a new board community here.

That's one of the appropriate ways in which community members who do not have confidence in your research could proceed. There's no law that says that this is the only board that can have the words "Safe Withdrawal Rate" in the title. If there are people who have genuine doubts about the work being done here, the constructive thing tfor them to do is to present an alternative viewpoint in a dignified way.

Another proposal along these lines was my proposal that posters to the Early Retiremetn Forum begin noting in the titles of their thread-starters whether they want input from both DCMS and Advocates of the Data-Based SWR Tool or just from one of those groups or the other. That's another way in which different segments of the community with different viewpoints can work together to find alternatives to unending friction.

Our problem has never been that there are various viewpoints on the SWR question. The problem is the tactics that DCMs have used to "make their case." They don't even make a case in any real sense. All they do is use smashmouth tactcis to make it impossible for any other case to be made in an effective manner.

Board communities have rules to take care of such abusive strategies. Enforcing the rules does not kill debate--it brings it to life. It is only by reining in the smashmouth tactics that we can open up the possibility for reasoned discussion on all sides of the SWR question.

There should be no segment of the community opposed to reasoned and civil discussion. Support for that should be a given. The expression of a variety of viewpoints should be encouraged. The use of ugly stuff as a tactic to poison the waters should be rejected out of hand as a tactic beneath the dignity of all community members with a sincere interest in learning about how to win financial freedom early in life.

Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2005 12:53 pm
by hocus2004
What Ariechert Says:

Ariechert: "When a movement splits, there are now two different groups, one doesn't "go away." The Catholic Church still exists, even though Martin Luther started the Protestant Reformation. Intercst is still the "Pope" of the Retire Early "Catholic" (Universal) Church, and as long as he is alive he will continue to be. Intercst is "Peter", the rock, upon which the retire early movement was built and the forces of Hocus will not overpower it. You can think of yourself as "Martin Luther" the leader of the reformation, which is a pretty good gig too if you can get it."