Historical Returns with Dollar Cost Averaging

Research on Safe Withdrawal Rates

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hocus2004
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Post by hocus2004 »

"Is that your book Hocus!? "

Two of my three posts from early this morning were long ones. I would like not to have to spend time putting together such posts. The other side of the story is that the time it took to put them together is a drop of water in the Atlantic Ocean compared to the time that has been spent by DCMs trying to distract us from our proper agenda of exchaging honest and informed posts about how to win financil freedom early in life. If those two posts can help us reach a consensus to shut down the DCMs, they will have saved us a lot of time in the long run., I hope that is how it works out.
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Post by ben »

Hi Hocus, :D
There should be no controversy over a numerical calculation whatsoever
I agree. There is no controversy about the HSWR. It is the FSWR that creates the controversy. But that is only normal (just watch the talking heads on CNBC trying to predict the future with fancy graphs Etc.).

Cheers!
Normal; to put on clothes bought for work, go to work in car bought to get to work needed to pay for the clothes, the car and the home left empty all day in order to afford to live in it...
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Post by hocus2004 »

I think this thread went off track because you demanded recognition from ES. "

I don't recall demanding anything. What I think I did was express surprise that ES is so effusive in his praise of JWR1945 and so less than effusive in his praise of me. Do you not think that there is something odd going on there,. Ben? Do you not think that that is the sort of thing that is causing us problems in communication?

ES thinks highly of JWR1945's work. That much is clear. JWR1945 thinks highly of my work. That much is also clear. Why then doesn't ES think highly of my work? I do not get it.

JWR1945 says that I am the one who turned him on to the SWR issue. He says that intercst is "pathetic" and has been involved from the early days in a "Big Lie" strategy of smear and abuse. I have been the lead person saying that intercst and other abusive posters should be shut down. JWR1945 says that "the SWR Debate is Over and hocus has won," that there have been all sorts of claims that I made some sort of "mistake" at some time or other and that all of those claims have been proven false. JWR1945 says that intercst got the number wrong. I am the poster who first revealed to the community that intercst got the number wrong.

Was it not a pretty darn important development in the history of our movement that I revealed to the community that intercst got the number wrong? Put aside the word games for a moment. We didn't set up the board so that people could be mislead about what the SWR is, did we? We all know that Bernstein and raddr and JWR1945 came to numbers nowhere even remotely in the same ballpark as the intercst number. What do you think are the chances that we would have learned these things had I not put forward the May 13, 2002, post? Do you know of anyone who had said that the REHP study was analytically invalid prior to May 13, 2002? I don't

You look at what has gone on here and you are led inevitably to the conclusion that my May 13, 2002, post was the most important post in the history of the movement. Everyone thought that the intercst number was more or less right before that. No informed person thinks that it is even remotely right today (few are willing to say so publicly, to be sure). Can there be any argument that the May 13, 2002, post was not of great significance?

So why the reluctance on ES's part to recognize my contribution? And why the reluctance on the part of many others to do the same? This is one of the issues that we should be speaking frankly about in an effort to bring this DMC stuff to a close. It would seem to me that if we could put all this personal stuff behind us we could move forward to a lot more subtantive stuff, stuff that it a lot more financially profitable and stuff that is also a lot more fun to discuss.
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Post by hocus2004 »

"No comments... "

You of course have a right to refrain from commenting on issues you do not care to comment on. That said, I very much wish that you would comment on precisely the point that I made that you referred to here when you responded "no comments." I think we need to hear comments either from you or from some others on the point I was making with those words.

The point I made is that I believe that I have a right to reveal to the community that intercst got the number wrong in the study and that he has a long record of dishonest and venomous posting. This is really the whole ball of wax, in my assessment of things.

Our problem does not have to do with SWRs. We obviously are not all going to agree on all questions relating to SWRs, but we do not need to agree to be able to discuss these issues meaningfully. So that is not a problem.

The problem is that Smear Campaigns that are pursued against me or any other poster who posts honestly on either the SWR question or the intercst question. I want to bring those Smear Campaigns to an end. To do that, I need to achieve a consensus in the community that the Smear Campagins are not apprpriate.

It is clear that the Smear Campaigns are the result of my claims that intercst got the number wrong in the study and that intercst has a long record of dishonest and venomous posting. If people have a problem we that, why not tell me what the problem is instead of putting forward all this nonsense gibberish?

We could cut to the chase if you would comment on the words you elected not to comment on, Ben. It is entirely your choice. My view is that it would help things if you would say whether you have a problem with me saying these sorts of things and, in the event that you do, why you do.
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Post by hocus2004 »

"What literature? If the REHP studies, then the disclaimer clearly clarifies that it is an HSWR. "

You are wrong about this, Ben. There were hundreds and hundreds of posts in the files prior to May 13, 2002, the day that I kicked off the Great SWR Debate. Those posts reveal to us what intercst meant by the disclaimer that the result applies only "if the future is not worse than the past." Those hundreds of posts make absolutely clear that he did not intend for the disclaimer to render the study a tautology. What he meant was to cover the possibility that there could be something like nuclear war or a case of hyperinflation like that experienced by Germany in the 1920s. He offered these sorts of examples over and over again. This pont is crystal clear. It was perfectly reasonable for intercst to include such a disclaimer as SWR analysis just cannot work without such a disclaimer. I believe that most SWR studies contain such a disclaimer, and properly so.

The sort of disclaimer that you are arguing for would turn all SWR research into nonsense. If the disclaimer means what you are saying it means, then the whole thing is a big joke. Someone could put out a study saying "a 42 percent withdrawal rate will work in 100 percent of all cases except for those cases in which it doesn't work, and in those cases it will not work." This is nonsense gibberish. It is an insult to intercst to say that this is what he intended with the disclaimer in his study. If that is what he intended, he was engaging in trickery from the first day that he published the study. There is no evidence in the record to support this whatsoever.

He meant by the disclaimer just what he said he meant by it in the hundreds of posts in which he described it or responded to questions about it. Do you want to know when he started engaging in deception re the meaning of the diclaimer? He started engaging in deception on this point shortly after I put forward the "What Bernstein Says" post. He had been found out. When I pointed out that his SWR findings did not jive with what I had seen in the historical data, the claim was put forward that I was mentally ill. When it became known that Bernstein too had found that informed examination of the historical data yields a number nowhere remotely in the neighborhood of the number that intercst had assured us was "100 percent safe" we started hearing all these new-fangled and nonsense definitions of the caveat to the study.

The purpose of these new definitions was not to help us learn what the SWR is. The purpose was to cover up the errors that intercst made in his study. This sort of trickery is unacceptable on boards where people are seeking advice on what to dob with their money. It is unacceptable. The trickery should stop. You should join me in asking that it stop, Ben.
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Post by hocus2004 »

I don't expect that intercst is going to be with us all that much longer.
Is he sick?
He has engaged in multiple acts of deliberate deception on questions that affect the ability of aspiring early retirees to achieve safe retirements. When people are seeking advice on money questions, one thing they very much want to know is whether the people putting forward the advice are ethical or not. Intercst has revealed in hundreds of publicly available posts that he is ethically challenged. There is no legitimate place for him in any board community addressing questions relating to how to win financial freedom early in life.
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Post by hocus2004 »

"As for:
Quote:
(1) William Bernstein; (2) Peter Bernstein; (3) Ed Easterling; (4) JWR1945; (5) raddr; (6) Robert Shiller; (7) Rob Arnott; and ( Andrew Smithers
I believe they all question whether the FSWR will be the same as the HSWR due to current valuations, but only future will tell - not mathematical calculations I think. "


All of these people say that changes in valuation levels affect long-term returns. William Bernstein says this is so as a matter of "mathematical certainty."

Given that changes affect long-term returns, and given that long-term returns determine what withdrawal rate is safe, do you think a methodology which makes zero adjustment for changes in valuation levels is analytically valid? I say no.

Intercst says that his number is "100 percent safe." Raddr says his claims are "bogus." Bernstein says they are "highly misleading." JWR1945 says that they are analytically invalid."

Do you think it would be a good idea if intercst included language in his study letting readers know that the assumptions on which all the calculations are based are far-fetched in the extreme? Raddr did a standard deviation analysis showing that the chances of the REHP study's assumptions coming true in the real world are 1 in 740. Do you think that intercst might save some retirements from going bust by including language in the study letting people know that the "100 percent safe" claim applies only if stocks perform in the future in ways in which they have never behaved in the past? I say yes. I say it would be a big plus if there were language in the study letting people know how big a risk they are taking to place any credibility in its findings.

This is the sort of change that I would like to see us all working together to achieve. It would be a lot more constructive for us to work to have warning language included in the study than to spend more time engaged in pretzel logic word games.

What matters is the safety of our retirements. It's clear that the strategies presented in the REHP study as "100 percent safe" are high risk stratagies according to the historical data. Shouldn't we all be working together to get word out on this?
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Post by hocus2004 »

"There is no controversy about the HSWR."

There is no controversy about the thing that you refer to as HSWR because that number provides no help in putting together a retirement plan. For a number to have some usefulness to aspiring early retirees, it has to provide information that is useful in putting together a plan today or in the future. This the intercst study does not do. That is why intercst has never gone along with this crazy claim you have put foward that intercst says that his study was not intended to report the SWR.

He has said many times that he intneded to report the SWR. The words "safe withdrawal rate" are right there in the study. There is no HSWR anywhere in the study. You made that up.

The reason why you do not want to acknowledge that the intercst study purports to reveal the SWR is that every informed analyst who has looked at the question has come up with a number nowhere even remotely in the neighborhood of the number reported in the intercst study. The plain English way of stating things is to say that intercst got the number wrong.

Another way is to say it the way that raddr did, that his claims are "bogus." Yet another is to say it the way that Bernstein did, that his claims are "highly misleading." Yet another way is to say it the way that JWR1945 said it, that his methodology is "Analytically invalid."

The bottom line is that we want to get the word out to all aspiring early retirees that, if they are thinking of using the REHP study to guide their investment decisions, they would be wise to take Bernstein's advice and just "Fuggetaboutit."
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Post by hocus2004 »

"Your post well noted but I can obviously not speak on ES behalf. "

I certainly do not want you to speak for ES. But I think it is fair to say that the same general phenomenon that applies with ES also applies with you, Ben. You said yesterday that you like a lot of my non-SWR stuff. You said you don't like the SWR stuff so much. Yet I have pointed out that my May 13, 2002, post changed the history of all of the boards,. Prior to that post, most people thought that the REHP study was generally on the mark. Today, there is no informed person who thinks this (to be sure, there are many who do not acknowledge this publicly). Do you not appreciate the significance of this?

If you just prefer non-SWR discussions, that's of course just a matter of taste. But my sense is that you were saying something more than that. You almost seem to be saying that you do not think that my reporting to the board community that intercst got the number wrong in the study is not that big a deal. I think it is a very big deal indeed. I think it is likely to save a bunch of retirements from going bust. If you can provide any insight as to how it could be less than a big deal to discover that a study on SWRs got the number wrong, I would appreciate it if you could share with me your reasoning process on this.
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Post by ElSupremo »

Greetings hocus :)
Why then doesn't ES think highly of my work?
Never said that. :?
So why the reluctance on ES's part to recognize my contribution?
I officially, and for the record, recognize your contribution. Feel better?
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Post by hocus2004 »

"I officially, and for the record, recognize your contribution. Feel better?"

I appreciate the statement, ES. It is certaintly a help. I would be grateful, though, if you would spell it out a bit more.

I want the Smear Campaigns to come to an end. The point that I was trying to get across in my post from early this morning is that the internet discussion board is a personal medium. We know the names of the various people that put forward the comments, we know their histories, and we respond to the posts based on what we know about the names and their histories.

I have been placed in a difficult position. I happened to do research on SWRs in the mid-90s that revealed to me that the conventional methodology was analytically invalid. I held back from saying so for the first three years of my posting career because each time I even hinted that there were flaws in the intercst SWR claims the message was delivered that there would be hell to pay for coming forward with any clear statements re any of the flaws in the study.

Things reached a point on the board where something had to be done to save it. There was a great lack of on-topic debate and people were turning on each other. I determined that the time had come to tell the board community what I knew about SWRs. The majority of the board community loved it! We all pulled together and enjoyed a brief second Golden Age.

Then intercst decided that the thing had to be shut down and he intiated the first Smear Campaign. Subsequently, the Smear Campaign approach of shutting down SWR discussions was taken to this site and then to the Early Retirement Forum. I view the Smear Campaign thing as an inappropriate posting strategy, If a poster is not able to come up with any reasoned argument, I think that he should refrain from participating in a discussion rather than resort to the ugliness that comes with a Smear Campaign. My experience is that smears do great harm to the board at which they appear. They drive good posters away, for one thing. They make reasoned discussion extremely difficult, for another.

I think that this board is suffering from the effects of the Smear Campaigns. We discuss wonderful stuff at this board, stuff that has ignited several boards in the past. I think that the problem that we have attracting posters to the SWR board is that the atmostpherics are all wrong. There is a sense that there is something "controversial" about acknolwedging that intercst got the number wrong. There is a feeling that this board is ugly in some way, that there may be a price to pay for participating here or for participating in too frank a way.

I want all that to end. This is what I mean when I refer to "normalization" of SWR discussions. I don't want to have to go into long discussions as to why we know that intercst got the number wrong each time I try to make a point on some SWR question. The "What Bernstein Says " post was put up on August 27, 2002. Intercst has never put forward a reasoned response to it. That should tell us what we need to know on the most important question. If intercst hadn't gotten the number wrong, he would have put forward some response to the Bernstein claims by now. The fact that he has not tells us that no reasoned defense of the REHP study is possible.

So I would like to put all the word game stuff and smear stuff behind us. I would like to see us begin talking in reasoned and informed terms again, not just about SWRs but about all sorts of things. I don't really need you to say anything about whether you like my stuff or not. I just see the difference in how you refer to JWR1945's work and how you refer to mine as being suggestive of the problem. When people see you respond differenly, they can't help but wonder if there is some reason for it. if there is some reason for it, I would like to know what it is. If it is not intentional, then there is nothing to say. But, again, it is not just you that I am talking about here. I get the feeling that a lot of people respond to me differently since the Smear Campaigns began than they did before. I would like to know why so that I can respond to any concerns that people have and put any uneasiness that people have behind us.

My sense is that the problem is the thing that I made reference to in a response to Ben that I put up a little earlier. I think it comes down to two things: (1) That I am the one who reported that intercst got the number wrong in the study; and (2) that I often point out that intercst is a deceptive and venomous poster. If one of those two things, or both, really is the problem, I would like to know why people find those things to be a problem. Because I just don't see how I have any choice but to do those things. The SWR thing is pure board business. We all have an obligation to report numbers accurately. And people need to know whether other posters are engaging in deliberate deception on money questions. Again, that seems basic to me.

My sense of things is that there would be no problem if it had been some other poster who had gotten the number wrong. If JWR1945 got a number wrong, everyone would expect him to correct it and properly so. With intercst, different rules seem to apply. There seems to be a feeling that, since he started the first board, the usual obligations to post accurately and honestly do not apply. I think this is just nuts. I think that a board founder has greater responsibilities than other posters, not fewer.

Anyway, there is no one statement that I am trying to get out of you. I am not seeking compliments. What I want to do is to banish the ugliness,m the attacks, the smears. I think this stuff does us great damage. I think it makes it hard for us to attract fresh posting blood. This sort of thing certainly was not part of the posting atmostpherics in earlier days, so I don't think I am being unreasonable in thinking that we could get back to a place where it would not be the norm once again. I am looking for suggestions on how we can work together to create an environment here where people feel more free to express their honest views and not be worried that they are going to get their heads handed to them if they do.

If there is something that I can do in that regard, I am certainly open to suggestions. One thing I don't want to be told, however, is to stop posting honestly on the SWR question. I believe that we simply must post honestly on this question, all of us. So on that one I don't have much give. I think that it may be that we need a discussion of why I felt that it was so important to come out with the truth on what the historical data says. My sense is that a lot of people have a very hard time accepting that intercst has done what he has done, and, because I am the poster who put things in play, there is hostility being directed at me because they are unhappy at the situation that has come to pass. Do you think I am on the mark with that one? If that is what it is, I wish that we could just come to accept that things are what they are. There is no one who worked harder than me to advise intercst to take a different path. He did what he did because that is what he wanted to do.

If there is a feeling that I did not give intercst enough chances or something like that, I can point people to the Post Archives showing how long and how hard I worked that side of things. Basically, I wish that people would talk striaght with me rather than doing things in passive aggressive ways.

My sense is that we all want the same basic things from the board. I think that Normalization is a virtually universal desire. Can we all begin putting our heads together trying to come up with ways of getting from where we are today to where we would prefer to be tomorrow?
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Post by ben »

Hi Hocus, :D
Ok, I will comment: I believe Intercst with his disclaimer clearly stipulates that the study covers the HSWR. You do not think so. We do not have to agree.

I fully agree that the HSWR can not be translated into the FSWR. One reason being valuations - other reasons being all the other stuff that can happen in the future.

I also want to again add that I appreciate a lot of your stuff. Your energy directed towards some of those areas(old TMF posts, passion saving, lifestyle in FIRE, freedom feeling Etc.) would be a great move forward for the FIRE-community. :D

Cheers!
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Post by hocus2004 »

"Ok, I will comment: I believe Intercst with his disclaimer clearly stipulates that the study covers the HSWR. You do not think so. We do not have to agree. "

That's a good statement. That gives me something to work with, Ben. Thanks.

You are right that we do not agree. You are also right that there is no law of the universe that says we must. So the reality we face is that I say that intercst got the number wrong, and you say no. That's where things stand. My guess is that you and I could talk about it from now until doomsday and that reality would not change.

Your other comments in this most recent post are also constructive. What you are doing here is making note of some things about me that you like even though you don't happen to agree with me on the intercst getting the number wrong thing. That is exactly what I am trying to urge when I talk about the need for Normalization.

We don't agree. That doesn't mean that we have to hate each other or destroy each other or smear each other or anything along those lines. We need to co-exist in the same discussion board communities while continuing to disagree on whatever questions we disagree on. My sense is that you get the concept of Normalization, Ben. This is precisely the sort of place where I have been trying to take things.

I would like to see intercst removed from the various boards. I would like to think that that is going to happen quickly, but I have to acknowledge that it may be that it is not going to. If it doesn't happen, then we all need to find some reasonable way to get along, do we not? There are going to be some of us who want to see intercst go and some of us who don't and we all need to get along at least to a reasonable extent.

My hope is that what will happen down the road is that I will be able to bring some new people into the community with my web site and publicity efforts for the book, and that perhaps some of those people will take a fresh look at things and at some point we will be able to develop a consensus to remove intercst. That's what I hope will happen and that is what I think will happen. But I can't see into the future. And even if I knew for sure the final result, I certainly cannot say when this is going to happen. It might take me some time to attract publicity for the book. It might be a year or so before things really get going. So this could be a long involved process.

We can't have this craziness going on indefinitely. We need to accept that some of us believe with all of our hearts that intercst got the number wrong and then engaged in trickery to cover it up and that others do not, and work together on board business despite that reality.

I will give some specifics so you know what I am driving at. Me and JWR1945 are not the same person, OK? There are people saying that and it is an embarassment to the entire community that when people say crazy things like that they are not corrected. That is so absurb that anyone on the pro-intercst side should want to shut that sort of thing down because it makes your side look stupid. I think it would be a good thing if people on the pro-intercst side tried to shut crazy talk down.

Another thing that I think is bad is the move we saw on the REHP board and on the Early Retirement Forum to block me from posting non-SWR stuff. You say in your post that you like my non-SWR stuff, Ben, so I hope that you are with me on this one. I think it would be healthy for me to repost some non-SWR stuff that I first posted during the Golden Age of the REHP board. It would help people who are new to the communities to come to know the sort of poster I was when I was not tied up trying to respond to a million attacks re what I have put forward on the REHP study. So, again, I think that Normalization entails pro-intercst posters permitting anti-intercst posters to post their views, both on SWR issues and on non-SWR issues, but especially on non-SWR issues.

I have never had anything but the long-term success of the various board communities in mind as my goal in posting. I put up the May 13, 2002, post because I believed that the community needed to know what the historical data says re SWRs, I put up the post asking that intercst's posting privileges be revoked because I believed that they needed to be revoked for the good of the community, and I put up the posts I put up this morning because I believed they were needed to steer us in the direction of Normalization. I am a community guy through and through. I love this new communications medium because of the possibilities it opens up to explore financial freedom issues with a community of people sharing an interest in these questions. We need to preserve and protect the community. I like to think that both the anti-intercst group and the pro-intercst group share that desire.So we should all keep it in mind each time we post.

It is not reasonable to expect that people who believe that intercst got the number wrong will not say so in their posts. The days when everyone in the community was willing to take the intercst SWR claims on faith are over. We all just have to accept that and then move forward on whatever business it is we need to transact. I believe with all my heart that they guy got the number wrong. That does not make me anyone's enemy. it just makes me a fellow community member who looked at the historical data and came to a conclusion very much in line with William Bernstein's conclusion that the conventional methodology studies are "highly misleading."

If we are not enemies, there is no call for smears. If there are no smears, I believe that we will begin to win some new posters to this place over time. If we win new posters, we will explore more new ideas and all benefit from the learning experience that follows.

Does all of that make sense to everyone?
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Post by ben »

Hi Hocus, :D
A lot of what you wrote makes very good sense.

As for posting rights on other boards I presume they had a vote or something(?) but I have not followed that in detail.

I do also not believe that you and JWR are the same person.
Your other comments in this most recent post are also constructive.
Thanks!

Cheers!
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Post by ElSupremo »

Greetings Ben :)
I do also not believe that you and JWR are the same person.
I can tell you from experience that they are not the same person. I can see how some folks would like to believe that. :roll:
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Post by Bookm »

ES wrote:"I officially, and for the record, recognize your contribution. Feel better?"
then Hocus responded:
I appreciate the statement, ES. It is certaintly a help. I would be grateful, though, if you would spell it out a bit more.
:idea: Ok. I have solution so the desired level of appreciation is satisfactory, and we can get off this mole hill and onto the next mountain; Hocus can type how he wants the 'thank you' to be worded, and ES can just sign his name to it.

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Post by ElSupremo »

Greetings Bookm :)
Hocus can type how he wants the 'thank you' to be worded, and ES can just sign his name to it.
Will an electronic signature do?
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Post by hocus2004 »

"A lot of what you wrote makes very good sense. "

Just including some words like that in your post helps, Ben. So thanks again.

What ES had said at earlier times is that we need to learn to agree to disagree. That's exactly what you are doing when you include words like that in your posts. You are not agreeing with me on a good number of questions. But you are not demonizing me either.

This is not a small thing. It is a big thing. The reason it is such a big deal is that what makes a discussion board go is civil disagreement. Boards on which everyone says the same thing are boring. So we need to encourage people with a variety of perspectives to participate. But many good people will not participate on boards that are not civil in tone.

We need to find that middle ground. If we all made it a practice to try to include some positive words in posts in which we are expressing disagreement, and to try to avoid demonization and sarcasm and things like that, I think it would go a long way toward getting us to where we want to be.
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Post by hocus2004 »

"I can tell you from experience that they are not the same person. I can see how some folks would like to believe that."

It's incredible that things have reached a point where we need to have posts put forward saying that me and JWR1945 are not the same person. But we have indeed reached that point. This claim has been put forward not at one board, but at several. Not on one occasion, but on several.

It helps no one for such claims to be put forward. We need to try to turn down the temperature setting on this thing by about 500 degrees. The world is not going to come to an end tomorrow one way or the other. We need to come to a recogniton that middle-class workers will be pursuing financial freedom for many years to come, and try to pace ourselves for the long-term.
hocus2004
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Joined: Thu Jun 10, 2004 7:33 am

Post by hocus2004 »

"Hocus can type how he wants the 'thank you' to be worded, and ES can just sign his name to it. "

There is no one set of words that ES could put forward that would solve the problem once and for all. What we need is a change of atmostpherics, a change in tone.

It doesn't need to be something addressed to me. What we want is a perception that it is OK here to offer disagreement with the In Crowd, that you can say something new and different and not have your head handed to you. One way to do that is to say that you appreciate the work that hocus has done is making the case that intercst got the number wrong in the REHP study. But that's certainly not the only way. There are other posters who say things that most were not expecting to hear. When they do so, and when someone in the majority responds by taking offense, it helps if some other poster steps forward and expresses appreciation for the poster who gave us something new to think about and to talk over.

It doesn't really even matter that much if the poster ends up being right in what he said. Say for purposes of discussion that an angel came from the sky this afternoon and told us "intercst was right all along about the SWR, it is hocus that got it wrong." Would that mean that it was a bad thing that I challenged what intercst said in the study? I say no. I say that, even if I am ultimately proven wrong, I did a good thing by generating so much discussion and by getting people to question their assumptions and so forth. That is how we learn.

We don't learn by saying "boy, isn't that intercst guy somthing special, he did all the work for us and now we never need to ask another question about early retirement, we just turn to him for all the answers." No! That's not the way we want to go. We want to talk things over, and that means questioning everything, including The Study.

My May 13, 2002, post generated tens of thousands of responses. There is no way that that can be a bad thing for a discussion board. It is a wonderful thing. There would not have been so many responses unless there were a lot of people with questions about SWRs at the time I put forward the post. Well, those people have now had a chance to have their questions explored. That is what we want to see happen. That is what we are here for.

We should all congratulate ourselves for the good work we have done, and move forward confidently and optimistically into the future. It would be just great if we could all agree to do that and to leave any animosity behind us starting here and starting now.

Shall we try it?
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