Dealing with Greed

[Farm_or]

Thanks to everyone for sharing. I think we are all in the same boat.

Behavior Based Science, as I understand it, says you can do the wrong thing nine times out of ten without paying the consequences.

The luck factor is the only difference between no consequence and that real biggy "life is a bitch!" consequence.

Developing strategy to eliminate or at least minimize the luck factor takes study and discipline. A sound strategy works in good times and bad times.

Right now, it seems like everybody who's a risk taker is genius, but what did they look like in 2008?

[Sclass]

Thanks to everyone for sharing. I think we are all in the same boat.

oh no I hope not!

[Farm_or]

Thanks to everyone for sharing. I think we are all in the same boat.

oh no I hope not!

Ah c'mon! I've had a shower. Recently.

I think that everyone of us can come up with a story of how we could have done better?

[Jason]

At this very moment, we are approximately $700.00 away from $400K net worth not including the house. It's a big landmark to us, and its killing me to see that number.

There's a lot of ways to beat myself up over that "missing" $700.00 and as I do it, there's $100K's of "missing" money. But if I look at it as a pedagogical moment, it's easier to see the "missing" $700 as planning or savings/spending mistakes than investing mistakes which leads me to believe that it's easier to get to where you want to get through discipline than luck or hitting a home run.

[Farm_or]

That's a great milestone!

You are already 650% better than mainstream (according to recent data that I remember).

Sometimes we are so focused about looking up and ahead of ourselves, we don't look back and realize the altitude gained by slow consistent progress.

[fiby41]

Matrikas represent mental qualities which are counterintuitive when obsessed over. Each Matrika (matriarch) is a form of the Divine Feminine who has conquered Her corresponding mental quality. Contemplating Her form helps deal with that corresponding mental quality.

Accordingly, Yogesvari regulates kama or desire;



Vaishnavi, who has vanquished lobha or covetous gread;

if you long for bitcoin not because it could help you fi,
not because you treat cryptocurrency as an asset class; but others are making money off of it.



But Kaumari representing moha or illusion would be appropriate if you consider bitcoin to be a bubble and just want to cash in while the going is good.

[Jason]

That's a great milestone!

You are already 650% better than mainstream (according to recent data that I remember).

Sometimes we are so focused about looking up and ahead of ourselves, we don't look back and realize the altitude gained by slow consistent progress.

Thank you. The encouragement helps and I truly appreciate it.

I admit that I can be remiss on the gratitude. "Wealth" is such a relative thing. But, as one who lived on the financial precipice i.e. bill collectors, uncertain housing situations et al, I am motivated by never having to return to a certain past. And when it comes down to it, its really just a matter of discipline. You can win the lottery in certain ways, but making money and not being stupid with it is like 90% of the battle.

[Farm_or]

You could be very inspiring for a whole lot of other people that are hopeless because of a lack of good examples?

[Farm_or]

Or, you could be mugged?

Might want to play it safe?

[Jason]

There are many better examples on this board than me. But contextualizing it within the subject heading, I think there are classifications of "greed". One, and probably the worst, infers negative impact upon others. The extreme example would be slavery. But if you are merely speaking in terms of investment decisions, well, is Warren Buffet "greedy?" I think the answer is who the fuck cares. So if one is just looking to maximizing investment returns, well looking at instruments that can return high gains should be analyzed and considered within the parameters of one's risk tolerance. "Greed" frames the decision in somewhat negative connotations and it might be best to use another way of describing the decision like "Dealing with muses whispering in my ear to invest in risky things". I am sure Warren Buffet is looking at Bitcoin and is not making his decision as to whether he should invest in it in terms of naval gazing about being "greedy." The first thing he's going to do is try to understand what the fuck Bitcoin is. And usually, when he takes a major stake, its put out there for public consumption. He's just going to make an informed decision. Am I greedy? Again, who the fuck cares. All I know is I have been poor and it sucks. As John Bogel said, the goal is to get as far away from zero as possible. So if you think Bitcoin can help you create distance, go for it.

[SavingWithBabies]

@bryan Why don't you pursue those business opportunities now? What is holding you back? I'm pursuing one while working a day job. It's a fairly safe bet in some ways but I'm in a crowded market and it's going to take time to differentiate ourselves and grow (but there isn't a lot of churn -- it's some work to move into our product and then move out so it is fairly sticky). I can understand if the business costs are high to get started by my experience so far is that everything has been fairly easy and low cost for a Software as a Service business. It's mostly time.

(My apologies if I've asked you this already, seems familiar)

[bryan]

Mostly procrastination/inertia, my worst enemy. There's also the matter of having too many good ideas and not enough time or money. I'm sure I'll do one, then two, etc., eventually; but I'm sure others will pass me (early mover) by.

[Hankaroundtheworld]

Currently, I am considering putting in 500->1000 USD in the 2 main fiat cryptocurrencies in case they do end up being dominant forms of currency and skyrocketing in value. Enough to make a difference if they 100x but not enough for me to hurt if they go to 0. I remember seeing BTC at 200 something a while back and thinking, "no way, too expensive." Now, I'm on the flip side of buying much higher due to fear of missing out.

As currencies, they seem a pain in the ass to deal with at their current level of development compared to dollars based on my few hours of interacting with various wallets. Robbery seems common. A different currency that is not yet developed or still early and unknown may end up the dominant currency as the current main contenders get wiped out for various reasons. In spite of all these obstacles/risks, here I am, considering a purchase of something just because it went up so much in value relative to the dollar and may continue to do so.

Some of my personal views on this:
(1) The Blockchain technology is a real innovation and could influence many Industries.
(2) Although I agree that we are inflating a speculatieve bubble (short-term view), in general it is not a Pyramid scheme. There are a few Coins that are based on a Pyramid scheme, but that does not mean that this whole new Blockchain domain is a Pyramid scheme.
(3) Currently the world is truly awake with regards to this domain, and FOMO and Greed do kick in. This means that we will see further growth in 2018. I think we will see 1.5 Trillion overall valuation at the end of 2018. At the moment it is close to 0.5 Trillion. Conclusion: I think you can do 3x growth (overall), or higher or lower if you start picking certain coins.
(4) What not many people know, you can also create a "passive income" stream from this if you stake your coins as part of the Consensus network. This is possible with certain Coins and related Networks. Several are going alive in Q1-2018. The payout is in Coins, so you can exchange this into USD/EUR. More and more this is possible with Debit cards that are linked to Coins, see e.g. TenX

My personal opinion, despite the risk of being part of a short-term bubble, you should not ignore this Crypto asset. Please study this thoroughly before you start investing. You will see that you will be part of a global transformation to decentralized business models.

Good luck and I wish you all the wisdom in this

[bryan]

Yeah. Seems more akin to the dot-com bubble than anything like tulips, beanie babies, or PokeMon or some Ponzi scheme.

@Hank, your post does sound a bit scammy though..

[Hankaroundtheworld]

Yeah. Seems more akin to the dot-com bubble than anything like tulips, beanie babies, or PokeMon or some Ponzi scheme.

@Hank, your post does sound a bit scammy though..

Care to explain? This is the 1st time ever that somebody accuses me of being scammy..... I only described my honest personal opinion after following this domain over 2 years. Not saying that I am right, nobody knows for sure, but it is not a scam... Anyway, if you attack me, then please be clear why

[SavingWithBabies]

@Hankaroundtheworld The issue with #1 is that it is still very much theoretical after quite a few years. I remember someone connected me with a person interested in doing a startup around real estate and a key part of it was blockchain technology. I bowed out because it sounded like buzzwords without concrete ideas. It didn't go anywhere. I think there are lot of companies/ideas like that but nothing real yet. Am I wrong or do you know of a company that has done it and is surviving on real income (as opposed running on VC money)? I would say if it is some kind of exchange/bank/holding company, that is too meta to count in my book.

[Hankaroundtheworld]

@SavingWithBabies : As I mentioned, the real Business Value Creation will take longer (speculation comes first), it is still a young technology. However, the Technology is proven to work, and innovation goes really fast now (with all the money flowing in). There is already enough written on the possible implementations for the real world, but the actual Transformation will take time. I have seen this also with Cloud business, Data Analytics, etc... . To call this is a scam by Bryan is really below the belt and unnecessary. The only discussion is "not if" but "when", and we can differ in the opinion on this.

Anyway, do whatever you want to do with this. I will stop this now, will report end of 2018, and we will see who's right.

[bryan]

I wasn't calling it a scam, Hank. My 11th post ever on ERE forums was about being a big fan of Bitcoin, saying that I used to:
> dollar cost average until it didn't make sense anymore, for my PF.

A lot of what I was excited about still hasn't even come close to happening and remains on the horizon! Hence it being more like the dot-com bubble. However, I see it as a worse bet now than it was in 2013 (though the economic situation is now better for it). Actually that last sentence indicates to me that I might still own too much Bitcoin... Greed indeed? Or just stupidity?

On the whole it's still worthwhile to have a small amount of crypto-currencies in your portfolio.

What I was saying, is that the way you are writing about it makes it sound like a scam. You seem to be mostly mentioning possible future gains and spreading FOMO sentiment.

Bitcoin (and related things) has been discussed before on the forums here. It's actually pretty cool/amusing to go look back to some of those old conversations:
@Emanuel for the first person to bring it up in 2010
Next mention is a dedicated topic in 2011 by @JohnnyH
then another in 2012 from @noskich
then 2013 by @ffj
etc

I wish I had found ERE forums earlier.. as it was love at first sight for me and Bitcoin. I would have been happy to know about it in 2010, 2011, or 2012. I might have been able to retire at 26 instead of 29 (assuming I wouldn't have lost my wallet, sold everything, or lost everything in a hacked/scam exchange, etc).

[Sclass]

My personal opinion, despite the risk of being part of a short-term bubble, you should not ignore this Crypto asset. Please study this thoroughly before you start investing. You will see that you will be part of a global transformation to decentralized business models.

Good luck and I wish you all the wisdom in this

I agree. I’m no fan of this thing. But I cannot help notice how persistent it is. As I said I’ve been watching from the sidelines for many years waiting for it to fizzle out like other ad hoc currencies I’ve seen created (Ithaca dollars from Cornell comes to mind). But bitcoin just kept recovering from this crisis and that to become even bigger. I barely had time after the multiple debacles at Mt. Gox to say “see I told you so” and the ecosystem had recovered and continued to grow.

This time it’s different. maybe. Sounds like you guys are having fun. No harm in putting a small portion of your net worth in something speculative. Money is money at the end of the day.

[Hankaroundtheworld]

Okay, my last comment on this before I report back end of 2018. Problem is that people are trying to understand Bitcoin (and sometimes they only know Bitcoin and have no clue about other innovations in this space) by looking at it using existing concepts (e.g. how fiat money works, or how the economy works, basically their reference point). It is very difficult to step out of your existing understanding of the world, and try to imagine how the world would look like by using different concepts. The same happened with Internet in the early 90's. At that time I was a Consultant in a IT company, and we had brainstorm sessions on what Internet could mean for the "real" world, and I am proud to say, we were almost 100% correct in our predictions, even though not many companies or people took it seriously. I think we are facing the same thing with this "Blockchain" invention. What it really means is that we can create "decentralized trusted networks of value" without the need for an intermediate organization or government. These type of networks solve the problem that we might not trust each other, but we can trust the network and what it holds (which is not only Internet money, but can be anything that holds value in the Digital Economy). This is a powerful concept and will change the world, no matter how many Bryan's will call it scammy just because I predict the gains from it. Bottomline I do not care if people call it scammy, nor did I care when back in early 90's people were giggling about potential Internet value. Of course, I was hoping that this forum would not lower itself to this type of reasoning, but it is what it is. For those people that want to grasp a bit of the enthusiasm that I felt, see the video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXdv7UzPokg

Once again, I wish you all the wisdom in this, and if you feel it is not for you or you like to stick to your old beliefs and concepts, then at least respect each other. One day we might need each other in one of the many decentralized trusted networks.