FMO Gets Hocomania!

Research on Safe Withdrawal Rates

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unclemick
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Post by unclemick »

Perhaps at a deeper level - the emotion generated relates to the fear of outliving your resources. I was ok with making mistakes during working years with a job as a back stopper. The intensity/worry quotient can be higher in ER.

In my case a small defined pension/to be SS provide a small windward anchor. Along with my dividend bias.

And then there's good old common sense applied to your own individual situation.

Numbers count. Even today Bogle isn't invited to certain mutual fund gala's - let alone been asked to crown the sweetheart of the rodeo.
hocus2004
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Post by hocus2004 »

"The intensity/worry quotient can be higher in ER. "

I agree. I turned in a resignation from a job paying a six-figure salary at age 43. I was giving up something that many people struggle for years to get. You don't want to make a decision like that in the dark. I worked it and worked it and worked it before feeling confident enough in what I was doing to take that step. And I still made mistakes.

That said, our core problem is not on the substance side. We clearly are not all in agreement on the substance side. Just as clearly, we do not need to be. Disagreements about important issues provoke edifying discussions. So the disagreements on substance are an opportunity, not a problem.

The problem is the intercst matter. People see it as too sad that this guy would need to leave a discussion board community after being the one who started the first board and after having put up a web site that pulled a good percentage of the posters in and after contributing on an almost daily basis for almost six years now. I SHARE THESE FEELINGS OF SADNESS RE THIS ASPECT OF THINGS.

In the end, it doesn't matter, however. In the end, the community has to come first. There are thousands of people out in the world who want to learn about how to retire early. We cannot allow the fact that one guy got a number wrong in a study he posted to the internet in 1996 to delay our work indefinitely.

We are a community dedicated to learning about financial freedom. We are not a community dedicated to preserving intercst's absurd view that he alone among us is incapable of making a mistake. That's the bottom line.

In the end, the community of people with an interest in learning about early retirement prevails. If that is so, then in the end intercst has to go. Given that he has to go, it is better that it be done quickly. There is no charity in stretching things out. We need to get over our sentimentality and begin working out realistic and practical and constructive end-game strategies.

We are a creative people and we can probably work out something for intercst better than what he has now. But we can't get to square one until we begin talking frankly about the real problem. The real problem is intercst, that he was once the rightful leader of our movement and is so no more. Can we all please stop pretending that we think it is something else?
hocus2004
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Post by hocus2004 »

FoolMeOnce is telling it straight on the issue that matters.

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

FoolMeOnce: "You mean there are folks here that disagree with me? I thought they just didn't like me. If they disagreed with me, I would expect to receive a position, argument, debate or discussion. In response to most anything substantive that I post, what I usually receive is an insult, or some stupid or smart-a$$ remark. There are a few folks whose primary debating technique is to associate me with hocus. Others like to assign positions to me which I have never taken, making it much easier to score debate points. Others like to make up cute or derogatory names. It's been awhile since I have felt it necessary to defend a position, for what would I defend it against?

"No doubt some may feel that they are degrading me with such tactics, but they are mistaken, for they are only degrading themselves. Some may note that in fact, I rarely post anything substantive these days anyhow. What would be the point?"
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ben
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Post by ben »

Hi Hocus :D !
He,he - your constant comments on over turning Intercst is as usual cracking me up! :D :D
On the fool boards every 10th thread is about Hocomania!
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...
hocus2004
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Post by hocus2004 »

"On the fool boards every 10th thread is about Hocomania!"

That ain't healthy, Ben.

FoolMeOnce says that those who make abusive comments about him are only degrading themselves by doing so. I of course understand where he is coming from with this comment, and there is an important sense in which it is so. However, there is also an important sense in which it is not so.

Say that you and me and FoolMeOnce and intercst were a group of people who met for lunch each day to discuss our plans for early retirement. Say that you and me were interested in hearing what FoolMeOnce had to say, but that, each time he opened his mouth, intercst cut in with an abusive comment that disrupted the conversation. What would you and me and FoolMeOnce do? We would move our discussions to a different restaurant and not tell intercst where we were meeting up, would we not?

Intercst is what is referred to in the self-help literature as a "toxic personality." The usual advice as to how to deal with a toxic personality is to ignore him. Get involved trying to show such a person the error of his ways and you end up in the mud along with him. It is a losing proposition.

When FoolMeOnce says that intercst's abusive comments only degrade intercst, he is making a comment that makes a good bit of sense when applied in a non-discussion board context. If you have a problem with an intercst-type poster in the outside world, you just avoid the guy. Eventually, the guy is left with no one to talk to. It is true that intercst types tend to degrade only themselves so long as people have reasonable means of taking their leave of them.

It does not work that way on a discussion board. On a discussion board, an intercst type degrades not just himself. He degrades the quality of the conversation taking place at the board. He thereby degrades every community member who continues to participate at the board. YOU CANNOT WALK AWAY FROM AN INTERCST-TYPE POSTER ON A DISCUSSION BOARD WITHOUT DOING HARM TO THE BOARD ITSELF.

FoolMeOnce left the Motley Fool board at an earlier time, when there were threats of physical violence made against anyone who posted in an honest and informed way on SWRs. He came back. His comments above show that he doesn't think that the board experience has improved much. So why is he back? It's because he wants to connect with that community, which is by far the largest of the various FIRE communities.

Is there some reason why he shouldn't want to do this? FoolMeOnce BUILT the darn community! Is there some reason why he should not make use of the thing he built for the purpose for which he built it? Wanderer built that community too. PeteyPerson too. Raddr too. JWR1945 too. Hocus too.BenSolar too. Lots and lots of others too.

Can someone please explain to me why we are so timid in asserting our rights to make use of this wonderful thing we built? You were not around during the Golden Age, Ben, so you don't know what is possible. You can check out the Post Archives if you want to find out. I can promise you this. In the Golden Age, you did not see 10 percent of the threads over there being focused on some hoco-mania nonsense. You did not see people talking about reality TV shows. You did not see people competing to see who could get their name on the next post with two zeros on the end. You did not see endless threads that said "Bush is dumb!' "Is Not!" "Is So!" "Is Not! and so on and on.

Give me a break, Ben. I have seen your posts. There is nothing that you can say that would persuade me that you are not capable of seeing what the problem is with that board. It may be so that you like intercst, as you say. That's possible. But can you give me a reason why he has to engage in this nonsense on one of the few discussion boards on Planet Internet that deals with the wonderful topic of how to win financial freedom early in life?

Tell me how it would hurt intercst to move his shocl-jock act to a board with the name "Intercst's House of Political Chat?" He gets annoyed every time some newcomer asks in all innocence: "Why is there so little discussion of early retirement at this early retirement board?" Would it not solve this problem to just move the intercst shock-jock act somewhere else? Would that not be to the benefit of EVERY SINGLE COMMUNITY MEMBER CONCERNED?

Would not ES and Wanderer and PeteyPerson and BenSolar and intercst and hocus and JWR1945 and just every person who has ever participated at any one of our boards be better off if this individual just CHANGED VENUES? If you are going to say that this can never happen, can you please tell me WHY you think it can never happen?

FoolMeOnce is not degraded by the words that appear under his screen-name any more than hocus is degraded by the words that appear under his screen-name. But there is a sense in which he is degraded by his participation at the Motley Fool board. When a serious person like FoolMeOnce participates there, it lends credibility to a board that does not merit it. We all are making unspoken statements about the boards at which we participate by our act of electing to participate at them. FoolMeOnce has strong words to say about the nonsense that dominates the REHP board discussions. But what does it say about FoolMeOnce that he is able to find time in his day to participate at a board community dominated by such nonsense? His association with that board community degrades him. When a person of FoolMeOnce stature associates with a person of intercst stature, intercst doesn't get bigger, FoolMeOnce gets smaller.

I am not saying that I want FoolMeOnce to take his leave of the Motley Fool board. We need 10 FoolMeOnces at that board. What we need is to have 10 FoolMeOnces (and we have 10 in our community) to show up at that board and demand that the rules that protect the FoolMeOnces of the world from the intercsts of the world be enforced. THEN FoolMeOnce could post there WITHOUT being degraded by the experience. That is what everyone with an interest in learning about early retirement should want to see happen.

I put up a post at the Motley Fool board on November 23, 2002 asking that intercst's posting privleges be revoked. That post received 25 recommendations. So it's not just me, Ben. If we had gotten 40 recs on that post, I believe that we would have solved the intercst problem a long time ago. If we had received 50 recs on that post, I am virtually sure of it.

We have rights, people. We contribute to these boards without cash compensation, but we are rewarded in a different way for our efforts. We are rewarded by the creation of wonderful learning resources that help us achieve our life goals for many years to come. We built a wonderful resource at the Motley Fool site. IT BELONGS TO US, NOT TO INTERCST. All we need to do to get it back is to ASK for it back. Motley Fool promises when it takes our money to take care of intercst-type posters for us when they become a problem. SO LET'S ALL GET ABOUT THE BUSINESS OF ASKING MOTLEY FOOL TO PROVIDE US FULL VALUE FOR OUR MONEY. We are a community that cares about getting value for our money,. are we not? So let's start demanding a better value proposition for the time we put into building up Motley Fool boards.

Motley Fool has no choice but to take action if enough of us insist on it. What do you realistically think they are going to say, Ben? The guy abuses the site rules ON A DAILY BASIS. If one out of 20 of the posters who have been the subject of abusive intercst posts speaks up, he is gone. We pay TMFBogey's salary. What the heck do you think he is going to do if we demand that he start earning it?

Intercst possesses no magical powers. He is not God. He makes mistakes like everyone else and he can be removed from discussion boards that he disrupts like anyone else. Are we under a spell? All we need to do to remove him is to act to remove him. That is really all it takes. I have demonstrated to everyone the way in which it is done. You do not engage in abusive posting of your own. You just point out the abusive posting practices of the other guy and request that action be taken.

Too many people have "solved" the intercst problem for themselves by leaving the board. I can see how that helps the poster who leaves. But it doesn't so much for the community as a whole, does it? It hurts us each time that happens. Intercst LOVES it when a JWR1945 leaves the community, or a Wanderer, or a FoolMeOnce, or whoever. Why the heck do you think he keeps baiting FoolMeOnce? He wants him gone. If the pattern that has so often applied in the past applies again, FoolMeOnce will someday soon give intercst exactly what he wants.

I say no. I say that FoolMeOnce should not leave that community. That community needs FoolMeOnce for his insights and FoolMeOnce needs that community for the feedback it is able to provide him. The community also needs JWR1945. The community also needs Wanderer. The community also needs PeteyPerson. The community also needs BenSolar. The community needs all sorts of people.

The community can do just fine without intercst, OK? He has lost interest in the subject matter. Even without the abusive posting, he would be dead weight. With it, he undermines everything that anyone trying to create a useful resource for those interested in early retirement is trying to achieve. Ditch intercst and you get so much back in return it's not funny.

Can someone tell me what they view as the potential downside to this idea?
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