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Re: A Jacob Mention

Posted: Fri Jun 11, 2021 10:17 am
by Alphaville
7Wannabe5 wrote:
Fri Jun 11, 2021 9:53 am
@Alphaville:

Don’t leave angry. Everybody can come off in a manner they don’t intend on the internet. For instance, I was flaming mad at you for a hot minute, because I initially “heard” your comments to me on ella’s thread as variety of slut-shaming, but then I realized that it was likely miscommunication or missed communication.
what? no, girl--we've had our differences, but we've always treated each other as persons, and i think we've always made attempts to understand and not dismiss each other. we're different, but speaking for myself, i accept and celebrate your difference and innumerable quirks. they're what make you you. we're good afaic.

but yes, of course i am angry. im not however acting in knee jerk or irrational fashion. in my eyes this is an abusive pattern, it's not a one-off, and my statements will continue to be dismissed as "levels".

i'll be your friend if you wanna hang, write, whatever. pm me your anonymous/non-doxing details. im not planning to visit your part of the country any time soon, but who knows? maybe some day.

much love,

-jesús orman

Re: A Jacob Mention

Posted: Fri Jun 11, 2021 10:22 am
by 7Wannabe5
@white belt:

True, but in other lower energy/relatively higher population situations, a lot of humans were the serfs and a few humans were the lords. The word “husband” is derived from the concept of having enough independence/assets to be bound only to your own house. The word “family” originally referred to all residents in a household, inclusive of domestic servants. It’s difficult to see beyond the structures to which we’ve become accustomed unless/until you do something semi-crackhead-like such as entering into an Islamic marriage contract as a 21st century middle-aged American woman. The odd thing is that doing something like that can make all religions, including the one you grew up in, seem completely bizarre and all forms of marriage, including modern egalitarian, as inherently tainted with remnant of chattel law.

Re: A Jacob Mention

Posted: Fri Jun 11, 2021 11:07 am
by 7Wannabe5
@Alphaville:

Happy that we are good buddies still. Maybe you don’t grok Jacob because you have never been in long term relationship or employment situation with extremely introverted dominant type? You have to give that type “the gift of silence.*” The good thing about forum format is that you can babble at length and nobody has to go to the trouble of reading or responding if they don’t want to (and vice-versa) UNLESS you make it clear that you want/demand a response. Since this forum is full of INTJ’s , I kind of got used to it being like playing tennis against a wall a lot of the time, or throwing stones into the ocean, which is actually kind of relaxing.

Anyways, when an introverted dominant type offers up a set of instructions, you have to try your best to follow all the instructions without arguing before you ask for further clarification ELSE ->Grouchy. This might be harder for you because you are more verbally extroverted dominant type rather than more verbally extroverted switch type like me. So, for instance, you might be quicker to perceive and/or be insulted by condescending manner. IOW, I accept the reality that Jacob has like maybe 20 IQ points on me, and recognize the fact that upon rereading, I have never found any fault with “ERE” the book, except for a couple minor items like strength-training for women and wearing underwear until shredded ( maybe that was in blog?) , and he has gone to the trouble of setting up and maintaining this forum, so this is a realm over which he is Lord, where I just hope to learn stuff. I am perfectly free to create my own realms over which to very imperfectly Lord on the internet or in meat space, and sometimes I do.

*extroverted dominant types don’t like it when you give them “the gift of silence”, because they demand a response/attention. Because I am pretty balanced in extroversion/introversion and dominance/submission, I can grok both uncomfortable feelings.

Re: A Jacob Mention

Posted: Fri Jun 11, 2021 11:58 am
by Alphaville
7Wannabe5 wrote:
Fri Jun 11, 2021 11:07 am
Happy that we are good buddies still. Maybe you don’t grok Jacob because you have never been in long term relationship or employment situation with extremely introverted dominant type?
my grad school advisor was a deep thinker/philosopher guy of the european tradition who had studied at the highest levels and made other people cry with his demands, but he was a good listener and never took me for an imbecile.

in other words he listened for comprehension before making enormous assumptions based on simplistic "levels," and so he heard fairly what i was saying. also he never got defensive about challenges to his ideas. in fact, the whole relationship started when i proved him wrong in class--he admitted his error, later took me aside, said what i was doing was a good thing, we started having coffee, etc. , i'd locate materials for him at the library, and so forth. yes he was higher on the hierachy but we ere equals as people.

anyway, i know i remind you of your little brother, but i'm not him, by which i mean, this isn't my first rodeo/i wasn't born yesterday/i know people/ i've been places (and your little brother has too, at this point, lol). at this age, i don't accept condescension in my social interactions, whether real or perceived.

in any case, yes, i appreciate all the work @jacob has done here, but he also must benefit from it or he would have discontinued, and i also can see that many others also contribute to his cause (me, i actively hunted spammers recently hahaha. oooh, big hunter, lmao. )

but really, a forum is a social thing, and while i like the book and some of the ideas and forum members etc, i am not happy with management at the personal/social level. which sometimes happens in spite of the best intentions: just not a match.

anyway i've made my case, it makes sense to me, i'm not trying to turn my back on a whole community of people--but this is not my community and i just need to bow out without dramas... however, people keep bringing up my name in public :lol:

happy to converse further with you, but let's please move this out of the forum... i don't want to be in the way of other interactions people need to have, and continue to generate friction. i gotta go... :D

Re: A Jacob Mention

Posted: Fri Jun 11, 2021 2:18 pm
by Dream of Freedom
Goodbye.

Re: A Jacob Mention

Posted: Sat Jun 12, 2021 6:05 am
by 7Wannabe5
“Seppia” wrote: Being an 85 and thinking you’re an 80 has more chance of success in anything in life (including understanding ere) than being a 150 and thinking you’re a 180.

The latter are the ones that always end up self destructing/shooting themselves in the foot
I think that there is some truth to this observation, but it’s less that 150 often thinks they are 180, and more that 150 doesn’t have the power to design an entire generalized set of Legos, but is also bored at the prospect of just following the instructions towards one of the more obvious models which could be constructed. It’s more fun to fail forward at attempt to construct less obvious model. OTOH, for 80-120 construction of one of the more obvious models from the generalized set is appropriately challenging.

OTOOH, it might be more to do with personality type than IQ. The tragi-comic novel “Lake Success” by Gary Shteyngart features a protagonist who has much in common with Jacob in terms of being brilliant, and highly interested in finance and watch repair, but (warning: plot reveal to follow)his life cycle is much more of a rollercoaster. He creates a highly successful hedge fund, but then crashes and burns so hard through the course of this novel, he at one point ends up performing sexual favors at a truck stop in order to survive, but he still possesses the brains/skills/experience to start another successful hedge fund, so eventually he does.

Somewhere in the book or blog, Jacob does recognize that there are humans who function more like this. The generalized set which is ERE almost certainly does contain that which is necessary for functional model(s)creation by even easily bored up/down personality type humans with IQ 150, but...???

Re: A Jacob Mention

Posted: Mon Jun 14, 2021 10:16 am
by chenda
Very disappointed as to how Alphaville has been treated on this thread @jacob your posts above really were very condescending in their tone. We have lost a good forum member whose contribution, I, for one, greatly valued.

Re: A Jacob Mention

Posted: Mon Jun 14, 2021 10:56 am
by macg
I would argue the opposite, actually. I believe Jacob has been amazingly patient, as he has had to explain the same thing to the same person over and over and over again in different threads. So I say thanks Jacob, I appreciate everything you do here in this forum.

Re: A Jacob Mention

Posted: Mon Jun 14, 2021 11:06 am
by ellarose24
I am sad to see alphaville go.

From my perspective, there is quite an ego within this community of “only the most intelligent and strongest beings on this planet will understand the full depth of such an amazing philosophy such as ours.”

I think the forum can do with some humility, however I know many will think I say that simply because I constantly fail, and maybe because I am not on the right “Wheaton level” to fully grasp the glorious nature of true ERE philosophy.

Ultimately, once a philosophy is digested and shit out the hundredth time, it comes across like most philosophies: self masturabatory ego disguised as intellect. This isn’t against Jacob. It’s an observation of the nature of the culture here. Dogma is never a good look.

I have seen previous posts of alphaville having the gall to question something as an equal and everyone feeling the need to drag him down out of fear of the questioning.

Who knows. I’m just a bipolar chic stuck at Wheaton level 2 so feel free to disregard every thing I say as unenlightened.

Re: A Jacob Mention

Posted: Mon Jun 14, 2021 11:33 am
by theanimal
Jacob certainly has more patience than most and has demonstrated time and again that if you are willing to put in the work and/or are making an effort to understand, he is willing to help guide you/answer your questions (he often does initially even if you're not!). If you continually ask the same questions, ignore the answers, and then complain about not getting any answers, you are going to eventually elicit frustration. This is not the first time this has happened and I doubt it will be the last.

Re: A Jacob Mention

Posted: Mon Jun 14, 2021 1:55 pm
by ffj
I went on Archive.org the other day and viewed some of the snapshots of the forum from a few years ago. This place is almost unrecognizable from those days. That is not a good thing.

I think ella has hit the nail on the head as I don't view this place nearly as inviting as it once was, and I am left scratching my head as to why the direction it is going is allowed to happen. It comes across as an academic circle jerk too much of the time, no offense to the academics, but there are other types of people that need to be included.

We have never had that many active members as compared to other sites, but it appears a self-selection process is underway, whether intentional or not. I hope it's not intentional but you have to wonder what a newbie would find interesting reading through a hundred pages of Wheaten levels. Or why he would feel included or welcomed if he managed that slog.

I also don't like the way alphaville was treated. It was very cold and uncaring. To an outsider it would appear the tribe has kicked out a person with challenging questions. Perceptions matter and I think his situation was handled poorly.

Anyway, something to think about if this movement is to survive.

Re: A Jacob Mention

Posted: Mon Jun 14, 2021 2:59 pm
by Ego
zero wrote:
Mon Jun 14, 2021 1:55 pm
I think ella has hit the nail on the head as I don't view this place nearly as inviting as it once was, and I am left scratching my head as to why the direction it is going is allowed to happen. It comes across as an academic circle jerk too much of the time, no offense to the academics, but there are other types of people that need to be included.
I really liked this advice.....
jacob wrote:
Sat Mar 16, 2019 3:18 am
Actionable advice: To change the atmosphere or lens of the forum, there´s strength in numbers. Retreating or lurking only serve to propagate the current situation. Effectively, every time you decide not to post, it's a vote that you approve of the current atmosphere. I realize that it takes more than one person to change the tone (this is also why I can´t do it on my own even as a moderator) and so it will require some spontaneous coordination in which several people consistently push the new lens or atmosphere for a while. It works. This is, after all, how the current atmosphere was "installed". And no, the atmosphere is not changed by attacking the old one. It's changed by replacing it.

TL;DR - To create the space that you prefer... you simply have to take it by which I mean develop it. Don´t take it from someone else. It´s much like converting land by throwing seeds. Complaining about the current crop or garden (that someone else planted) won´t change anything. Planting enough seeds will.

Re: A Jacob Mention

Posted: Mon Jun 14, 2021 3:38 pm
by white belt
This forum is actually much less dogmatic then virtually any other place I’ve found on the internet. Take a scroll through the threads in Permies, MMM forums, Bogleheads or the LeanFIRE Reddit if you want to be reminded of the dogmatic nature of virtually every other internet community space.

On the one hand, I can understand the criticism about the environment not seeming as open and welcoming due to the requirement for self-study and some 101 knowledge as a pre-requisite. On the other hand, I myself have commented in 2 threads over the past few weeks that were both by posters asking what could be perceived as “newbie” questions that still took a helpful and positive tone. I don’t perceive this as a hostile place to newbies. Just look at the new journals that pop up every month.

My contention is, if you want a more mainstream/beginner friendly place, there are many other places like that on the internet (like some of the forums I listed). I see this forum as a group of individuals that contribute to discussions much more holistically and less dogmatically than I can find elsewhere. Just like the fact that memes are banned here but can be found everywhere else on the internet.

Re: A Jacob Mention

Posted: Tue Jun 15, 2021 6:26 am
by IlliniDave
I think people tend to view discussions as dogmatic when they fundamentally disagree with the prevailing outlook and not so dogmatic when there's a good deal of core agreement. By way of example, since they were mentioned, I see Bogleheads being significantly non-dogmatic even though the whole reason for the group's existence is an investment philosophy centered around a few principles. I've learned more there about all manner of personal finance and investing than anywhere. Since I don't object to low cost index funds I don't see discussion of them as dogmatic and enjoy the many other topics. Just listing the active topics in the Investing thread over there this morning shows no topics in at least the first 30 or so that are explicitly index fund-related. It's a good place for beginners because there is a significant cohort of participants who are financially sophisticated and accomplished. Polyamory, well, not so much.

I always hate to see people leave, but in the years I've been around there's been a good bit of turnover, so I just accept it. One day we'll all make our last post here. I may be misremembering but it seems like journaling is much more prevalent than it was in the sense journal posts seem like a higher percent of the total recent active threads. Like many I'm increasingly reluctant to enter most discussions. That's an artifact of the wider world leaching into the forum rather than a pathogen that spontaneously evolved here, imo.

I'm among the subset here who scratch their head over the ereWL line of thinking. From time to time people have taken time to explain things to me which is appreciated, but at some point a guy's gotta tap out if he's not keeping up (my case) or if his ideas are unwelcome, or whatever the case may be. No right or wrong in that, generally speaking. It's like my job. That I'm drawn elsewhere doesn't make it a bad job or me a bad employee.

Re: A Jacob Mention

Posted: Tue Jun 15, 2021 2:21 pm
by jacob
"The more things change, the more they stay the same."

Every 6-18 months the forum has a crisis. This wasn't the first time this happened---more like the 5th or 6th---and it won't be the last: Some thread turns into a major argument that is (usually indirectly) ultimately about uncompromisable values. Usually 1-2 high-profile posters end up leaving. After it rains out, the forum atmosphere, which is set by who and what is posted, is changed due to the now changed mix of posting/posters. It's not surprising that those who decided to leave following a previous crisis appreciate the "new atmosphere" least of all.

It's worthwhile to keep in mind that "everything has a cost" and that cost is paid by someone.

The cost of anything can be expressed by the engineering triangle: (cheap, faster, better) [pick any two], where better ~ quality, complexity, depth, robustness, cheap ~ easy, simplistic, and faster ~ quick, speedy, instant.

There are three combinations available (cheap, faster), (cheap, better), and (faster, better) and there is demand for all 3 solution forms which are all quite different in form and (perhaps uncompromisable) values.

[More generally, cheap+faster+better=1, pick any combination but identify by the dominant variable... e.g. 0.4+0.4+0.2=1 is predominantly cheap+faster but not entirely maximized for those factors.]

When it comes to lifestyle design, how to live, or "embodied philosophy", if you will, the three forms look something like this:

Get rich quick schemes are the most popular and exemplify (cheap, faster) but that means they're not good or robust. They promise the moon but mainly benefit the seller of the product yet the have the highest popular appeal and demand. Indeed, in the aggregate they often leave people worse off. The health equivalent is 7 day diets, gimmicky equipment, 5 minute workouts, and various performance enhancing powders.

Steady conventional methods exemplify (cheap, better). That's your bogleheads, balanced fund, long-haul, "don't do anything radical"-approach. Valuewise, there's a recognition that you can't get something for nothing, so speed is sacrificed and "easy" is retained to avoid making huge changes. The health equivalent is 30 minutes of brisk walking and an apple a day. Long term steady does the job.

ERE is the (faster, better) type of product which means it's not cheap and as such it is the least popular combination. To "pay" you have to integrate years or even decades of knowledge making big changes in your life and so it requires a lot of effort. It is mainly appealing to "nerds" in the sense that paying the cost (not cheap) is driven by innate desire. The health equivalent is a comprehensive workout and diet plans involving continuing progression to become a full athlete over time. Like any hardcore gym, I think ERE is welcoming to newbies, but only those newbies who are willing to work hard. Those who come in expecting athlete-level results but who aren't willing to pay with sweat are a poor match for the culture or the system.

What's crucial to realize is that by definition YOU CANNOT HAVE cheap & faster & better at the same time. The reason is that the variables are all ratios, so desiring all three is like asking for an engine that's 150% efficient. No matter how many times you ask for 150%, it's not going to happen because it's asking for resource allocations that are physically impossible. There's only 100% available to improve any of the three variables.

So two important points here. First WRT ERE and second WRT me and my efforts here.

ERE)

This was the first time ERE itself was the subject of controversy. Previously, it was climate change, gender wars, Trump, Trump, and then Trump again, IIRC. So I count ERE (the concept but primarily the WL table) as the 6th forum crisis.

ERE is my baby and in terms of the above three, it is (faster, better). Morally---insofar my name is being attached to it---if I had to slack on a variable, it would be fast, thus solutions that are (cheap, better) are also acceptable on the forum. However, I'm loath to entertain (cheap, faster) versions of ERE. As far as I'm concerned that's effectively a contradiction in terms.

Asking for a cheap version of faster & better results in neither.

What this means is that ERE is NOT inclusive of all values from the entire demand-curve. As such, ERE is exclusive of approaches or explanations that aren't "good" in the sense of being fragile, oversimplified, or shallow. Anyone is free to start their own website with a "how to retire extremely early" with simple guides that are easy to understand and promise quick results even as the resulting success rate will be <5%. However, ERE is not going to be associated with it and it's not going to happen here, because I consider such efforts damaging to the "brand" and ultimately damaging to those who buy into such quick&easy schemes.

WLs touch a nerve because they're an explicit measure of "better". Insofar your values are in the mostly postmodern tradition exemplified by the liberal arts where hierarchies are anathema, a table that implies ranking will be offensive because it implies that some insights are deeper and better than other insights" and perhaps by extension some will extrapolate this into the idea that "some people are better than others" and so go down the "elitist" line of arguments. Here any question or opinion is an equally good and valid one... argue something something debate something.

Whereas in the more modernist tradition of STEM, people are quite used to dealing with different depths of insight into the nature of reality. They usually have no problem with hierarchical levels that imply that a kind of Bohr's correspondence principle holds: That each new level of insight includes and extends the insight all previous levels; that deeper levels mean a better perspective and not just yet another perspective that is simply different and equal to all other ones. However, the ability to hold a better perspective never implies a better person; some people are just not as far ahead as others. The implicit acceptance of hierarchical insight also makes this tradition less likely to presume that anyone can have a great revolutionary idea or ask good questions right after being introduced to the subject. Here the knowledge base evolves slowly in a kind of trial and error approach that can be developed systematically.

In retrospect it's not surprising that some took to WLs like cat-nip ("Yay! A roadmap to deeper insights!") and some thought WLs were insulting if not personally, then generally ("How dare you imply that opinion A>opinion(*) B, you elitist condescending jerk!") And of course seeing this in terms of modernist vs postmodernist values is a bit simplistic but I bet if we count the miffed parties, we'll see a strong correlation.

(*) Ditto questions, insight, understanding, solutions, ...

And so it rained. And so the atmosphere changed again for the 6th time.

Now, I understand that all modalities (the entire demand curve) are necessary to the process; modernists and postmodernists each have a role. All three triangle combinations serve a purpose. E.g. cheap/fast introduces people off the street to the concepts. After a while they fail and move to the cheap/good and after a while, some go on to the fast/good approach.

However, looking to turn ERE itself or add the cheap/fast approach or deemphasize the good/fast approach in the name of inclusivity is damaging to the overall movement chain. It caps the process at the lowest level as it cuts off the head of the chain. This is not good because there simply aren't that many fast/good forums out there. It would be like saying that since graduate school offers the deepest level of taught insight into a particular topic, lets open it up to everybody from grades 0 to 15 so that all may equally benefit. This fails to consider the second-order effect of doing so namely that the level of conversation drops to either the median, the average, or the lowest common denominator each of which would be a loss. This is why university classes aren't walk-in classes "catering to all comers" but typically either directly or indirectly requires taking the 101 before the 201 before the 301 course and so on. Yes, the "professor" can answer questions at all levels and will indulge the occasional newbie question but one person flooding the zone with questions that have been answered before is not helpful nor is it respectful of the "professor" or the other "students".

I think of these forums as a compromise. The forum is open to all. It's public. It's free to enter. I don't charge. I answer a lot of questions but not all. In return, there are some forum rules like http://www.albion.com/netiquette/rule3.html and http://www.albion.com/netiquette/rule4.html and in return I'll follow http://www.albion.com/netiquette/rule9.html and http://www.albion.com/netiquette/rule10.html

Overall, there's a reason why things are the way they are. Yet, this being the internet insofar anyone is not happy with the exclusive emphasis on "quality" or "depth", they're free to join or start any of the many other subcultures out there.

My efforts and I)

My time and energy is finite and limited. Coffee might boost it a bit but it is not endless. 7wb5 explained me pretty well. I can elaborate on that and say that as an INTJ, explaining Ni costs a lot of Te energy. A lot! Writing this post, for example, means that nothing else creative will be done today.

This means I have my own cost function of life energy in terms of (cheaper, faster, better) which I try to distribute here on the forum as well as in other parts of my life. I will personally gain from explaining an interesting (to me) question to something I haven't answered before. Working through the Te for the first time will strengthen my Ni. I will also gain (Fi) from helping someone who is struggling to understand something. I will give people a lot of benefit of the doubt in terms of that, presuming that someone is genuinely trying to understand. However, I won't gain anything from explaining the same thing to the same person over and over.

There's some accounting of time/energy traded.

I think other INTJs will understand this well but other temperaments will not grasp it naturally.

My patience is high but it is not infinite. "If I lift one corner and the student doesn't come back with the other three, I give no further instruction". So I'll lift one corner, even a few times but I won't do it endlessly. In particular, a good way to test my patience is to ask the same question again as if it hadn't been previously answered. This to me indicates a very one-sided transaction. "Inquisitive ignorance" takes 3 lines to ask a question which may require 3 pages to answer in full. If this happens again (and again) while dismissing the previous answer with a "lol lol" or an "I didn't see that", it's eventually going to register as an energy sink. And---this is important---since I strive to maintain the "quality" of the forum, this is going to be a problem, since I have to do damage-control (see e.g. the climate change threads) lest people somehow think that the question is unanswerable. For example, wearing people down that way is a common strategy in climate denialism. I'm not someone who stays up all night because "someone is wrong on the internet", but I do care what happens and is written on this forum even if there will come a day when I too will move on.

Also see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law

Now if you were to pay me $500/day or $5,000/month, I'll "happily" answer the same question over and over. But if you want it for free, and lets be honest 99% here do, I consider that exchange very one-sided and disrespectful of the time/energy balance and will eventually lose patience. In particular, saying stuff like "a really smart person should be able to figure out how to explain complex stuff so anyone can grasp it without effort" might fly in undergraduate classes where students pay enough tuition to act like entitled consumers, but it's eventually going to trigger me. I'm not paid at the Paul Krugman rate for answering questions here. Claiming that such questions are helpful, part of some tradition, or [too] challenging is just adding insult to injury when the only challenge is the sheer amount and repetition of questions. Condescension most likely happens because I'm more inclined to think that someone is ignorant rather than inconsiderate/disrespectful of other people's bandwidth insofar they keep asking the same question over and over w/o any sign of increasing comprehension. This is probably an INTJ or at least an Enneagram5 thing.

Indeed, some do enjoy answering the same question over and over finding new ways to explain the same thing. When I quit blogging those types wondered why I quit since it was always possible to find yet another way to talk about e.g. "how to save money on insurance rates". There are [many] forums and facegroups where every other post is a question about "how to open my first brokerage account" as well as forums for "tl;dr - have opinion anyway" discussions which are optimized for low-effort socializing.

However, much like a garage gym, I see this forum mostly as a place for those who seek to get faster & better. Since it's *free*, you (re)pay with effort in the form of good answers and good questions. A good question means searching the archives before asking and paying it forward by answering someone else's question and paying it back by demonstrating a sincere effort at understanding the answer(s). Keyword effort.

Re: A Jacob Mention

Posted: Tue Jun 15, 2021 4:29 pm
by white belt
IlliniDave wrote:
Tue Jun 15, 2021 6:26 am
I may be misremembering but it seems like journaling is much more prevalent than it was in the sense journal posts seem like a higher percent of the total recent active threads. Like many I'm increasingly reluctant to enter most discussions. That's an artifact of the wider world leaching into the forum rather than a pathogen that spontaneously evolved here, imo.
I think this is more of a result of the suspension of the politics forum. Political threads were generally those that drew the most posts, with pages stretching into the dozens in a matter of days.

Re: A Jacob Mention

Posted: Tue Jun 15, 2021 8:06 pm
by IlliniDave
white belt wrote:
Tue Jun 15, 2021 4:29 pm
I think this is more of a result of the suspension of the politics forum. Political threads were generally those that drew the most posts, with pages stretching into the dozens in a matter of days.
From 2016 on I agree, as around that time everything became politicized. I might be misremembering, but it seemed like prior to that a lot of socioeconomic and philosophical discussions seemed to avoid excessive politics, and even politics people disagreed over politely. To my recollection the first wave of change was in 2016. Pulling the plug on the politics forum is much more recent.

Re: A Jacob Mention

Posted: Tue Jun 15, 2021 8:47 pm
by Dream of Freedom
IlliniDave wrote:
Tue Jun 15, 2021 8:06 pm
From 2016 on I agree, as around that time everything became politicized. I might be misremembering, but it seemed like prior to that a lot of socioeconomic and philosophical discussions seemed to avoid excessive politics, and even politics people disagreed over politely. To my recollection the first wave of change was in 2016. Pulling the plug on the politics forum is much more recent.

Maybe there was a brief reprieve, but before that it was @secretwealth and others spamming political threads.

Re: A Jacob Mention

Posted: Wed Jun 16, 2021 6:13 am
by Scott 2
Independent forums as a medium are dying. Centralized social media won the attention wars. Long form text exchange is fading into the past.

IMO, any culture change is a reflection of that larger overall trend.

Jacob's moderation style has been remarkably steady over the years. Nothing in his most recent post is new or surprising. Ironic that Alphaville's departure lead to another 2000 word post, where Jacob repeats himself.

Re: A Jacob Mention

Posted: Wed Jun 16, 2021 7:54 am
by IlliniDave
Dream of Freedom wrote:
Tue Jun 15, 2021 8:47 pm
Maybe there was a brief reprieve, but before that it was @secretwealth and others spamming political threads.
I'm not saying there were no political threads/overtones prior to 2016. I don't even remember secretwealth's threads because there seemed to be a lot going on that wasn't journals and wasn't political squabbles. Can't speak to the period between 2012 and 2014 though.