Yes! Let us have a superior forum for a superior race!

I'll pass, thanks. /trollaccount

I wouldn't be fan of this, at least at this point. What would happen is that all the good/active posters would naturally migrate there and that kills any interaction with new people.

I don't think BFI is bad enough to justify this. I'd rather people just point out the worthless drivel in here and we try to make subjective decisions on that. If that doesn't work, then we could discuss a private forum. I don't see what the real difference is in practicality. In either case, we're stuck dealing with subjective decisions on who gets to stay.

Here's the bottom line for me...there's no excuse for being a douchebag, other than the fact you're a douchebag. BFI is a better place if people are decent to each other. I'm not saying you can't call someone's ideas out or use strong language, but you can do it without personal attacks or constantly belittling people.

Based on my life experience (both in business and years of mid-to-high stakes poker), I'd say more often than not that people who have enjoyed a high level of success and have a high level of intelligence aren't douchebags. I suspect that is true here too and I'm fine with losing a few really smart douchebags for everyone else to benefit.

Anyway, welcome back. I'd encourage you to be a little softer...I appreciate your posting most of the time.

I have the opposite experience to yours and Abbaddabba's claims. And the research backs me up. Increasing wealth and success is strongly correlated with being confrontational, thriving on conflict, aggression and lower and lower empathy. There's a reason we're finding out that half of Hollywood and politics is raping people. Wealth and success are correlated with narcissism and very low empathy.

That successful people are charming to those where it benefits them to be seen as such, is of course standard. If you met me in person you'd find me likeable.

There's not much for me here in trading wisdom so if I can't be a "douchebag", to quote you, I post a lot less. That's the tradeoff. You've stated your preference, and I'm happy to respect it.

Another amazing trader recently banned is cicakman. Guy has posted at least 7 5+ bagger trades (figure that compounded), and rarely gets it wrong. He told a mod to eat a dick and got a perma for it. He now shares his 5+ baggers privately with some 2p2ers.

Personally I think the real damage done in this forum is the unbridled hysteria by the bitcoin posters. People have a real chance of losing their life savings because of posters in this forum advocating 100% in and no risk. That's a lot worse than being called a cuck. Not your problem, but if we're talking about real world harm, that takes the cake over putdowns and salty language.

Anyway, this is a nice forum, I think the best stock forum on the web by a wide margin, and I think it'll improve again once the market becomes livelier, and there's real strategy to discuss. We're at the top of a long bull without much volatility and no real bargains or killer trades

ToothSayer is basically the type of people HR discuss all the time. Toxic as hell but also extremely productive if managed correctly.

The mods can decide whether that's a plus or not but I personally think it's a net plus for BFI, as long as people continue to engage with him.

PS: you don't have to be a douchebag to be an unorthodox thinker.

I totally believe I would find you likable. I don't get why you would act any different on the Internet. The implied "if i can't be a douchebage, I'll just take my posting and go home" is pretty childish, imo. But whatever.

For the record, you're free to tell me to EAD. I won't ban someone for insulting me personally, that also seems pretty childish. I suppose there are cases I would and I have no idea of the circumstances of the ban you're referencing.

I personally agree with you on bitcoin. I'm glad you are posting in that thread to give an alternative view. That still wouldn't justify being a total douche. Agreed on the risks to n00bs. Just to be clear, I'm personally fine with salty language, etc.

I also like this forum...it's really about the only part of 2p2 I frequent anymore, after I quit playing poker seriously years ago to totally focus on growing my business and not screw up my family/life balance.

Anyway, appreciate the discussion.

The issue of high quality conversations being derailed by fanatics isn't unique to BFI. Most discussions on this site end with two extremes repeating themselves until they are forced to stop. Quickly imposed 12-24 hour time outs are a better solution to perma-banning a contributing member for ruffling your feathers or even the one week timeout which seems to be default ban for first and fifteenth time offenders.

Seeing the movement of 2p2 to be this "PC" status quo community from its roots is a bit depressing. The idea of playing poker professionally takes a willingness to act and think against the grain of the societal norm. This forum used to be a bastion of the outcast. People with unique ideas and viewpoints checking each other and arguing and talking **** and trolling. That post by Mason where he dissects a reasonable post line by line and uses it justify a permaban would have incited a riot 10 years ago. Maybe its a sign of how dead poker is, but to me its a sign of how much 2p2 has gone through a paradigm shift.

THIS! We get enough of PC America littered all-across Social Media (why I only use Twitter for traders/breaking news and Linked-In because online resume).

Glad to see TS back.

Yes, he's abrasive. Yes, he's a know-it-all. And yeah, sometimes he's borderline insulting.

But he's also a top poster in this subforum and is responsible for a lot of the better content in here... welcome back, sir.

It would be a great tragedy and waste of energy if the only crypto related threads in existence were based on conflict between naysayers and proponents. Because you would end up having two distinct polarized divisions each gaining self satisfaction out of finding opposing arguments that can be easily refuted because neither side really knows what they are talking about. You would just have constant arguing (not even debating), and both sides feeling like they have done their duty with no real content being brought to light.

If crypto needs to move subs fair enough. But the subject is growing and gaining significance especially in the poker industry. I'd urge the moderation standards to encourage threads to be setup in a way that they don't all devolve into people that aren't knowledgeable arguing each other about the legitimacy. That's just fighting for the sake of fighting.

There are very interesting implications which are impossible to get to while people are just name calling.

We might be making progress after all.

Noose, Crypto is more than an exchange of ideas. Anybody who really wants to inform himself can find quality sources.

If you want to honestly debate, this forum is the wrong place. Don't try to convert people into something they're not.
It's a good place though to measure the pulse "on the street". I enjoy the anti-crypto crowd, although the arguments against BTC/crypto have not evolved since the first days, but you see people come over slowly but steadily. The only thing happened is that BTC grew over the years. Everything else stayed 100% the same.

I talked to very wealthy people who are skeptical and their arguments are the same, sometimes dressed up nicer.

The crypto threads are there to educate people and morally support weaker people who are on your team. Crypto is as much community because part of the value-proposition is intangible (belief and imagination needed).

Non-crypto BFI threads are dead with a few exceptions.

Oh god I'm bullish on crypto but these new crypto threads need to be burned to the ground. This forum is being spammed by a dude in a manic episode.

I think its just a growing pain.

It makes sense to have debate and "fighting" between groups that don't agree, and groups that are not knowledgeable versus those that are. But it also makes obvious sense (to me at least), to have threads that separate those groups so that you can have unfettered discussion in different directions that aren't bogged down by the exact same point of conflict (ie bitcoin is flawed; bitcoin is not flawed).

Crypto is obviously going to change the face of poker. Payment processor restrictions and regulatory control have made the industry sick. Crypto has slowly quietly been breathing new life into the game as previously restricted players are finding they have new options available.

P2p poker is on the horizon and in the meantime there are multiple ico offerings for hybrid poker sites already advertising on 2p2. There are more arising by the week.

It would be a tragic waste to not foster this growth and to let general ignorance hold it down.

It just means they play the political game well. Most of the smartest poker players I know are actually pretty modest. The two richest guys on the planet, who actually got rich through merit are modest as hell (Buffett and Gates). Most people in most fields who are at the top of their game are usually more modest and nicer than average. You just hear more about the ones misbehaving. Because they are very vocal and attract a lot of attention.

Also a big ego might be useful in politics, but in purely performance driven fields it usually gets in the way.

Read a book about the best performing American CEOs a while back and almost all of them were the opposite of what you were describing.

This is the same bias as when people think crime is going up when it is really going down, they watch too much evening news.

I actually do think a crypto sub is a good idea. There's clearly demand for it (I was about to start yet another crypto thread myself). Crypto is the exact kind of new, fast-moving domain where very little is settled science and debate/group reasoning is most valuable. However there's a danger in choking out every other topic in the business forum.

Right, and Bill Cosby is a lovely father figure.
The basic research on successful/wealthy people supports my position, not yours (they're more aggressive, confrontational, thrive on confrontation, have much lower empathy). That it is what it is. It's my experience as well that successful people are nice/well mannered quite often, but the research is the research.

In their public/public social lives they're just acting.

Just saying I just read Shoe Dog and the Ray Dalio book... And neither of those guys can hide their innate dickishness for a whole book lol.

Obv very successful guys we can all learn a lot from... But nice they are definitely not.

Most rich people I know surround themselves with other rich people and just create an echo chamber of affirmation. Maybe that's more leaning towards trust fund types, but a lot of the really well off poker players i know fall in that category as well. Most people desperately need to fit in, even the very intelligent/successful.

Book is The Outsiders, now I remember:

Look at physics, usually the loudmouths are not the ones who are the smartest. Or at poker, the best players are usually not arrogant loudmouth dicks either (Ivey, Patrik Antonius, Galfond, Tom Dwan etc). Heard Jungleman is a dick though, but he seems more an exception among the top players.

The best investors are usually not loudmouths either. The top investing guy, Buffett is a stereotypical nice guy who always sells himself short. Then look at Ackman, a loudmouth who is slowly imploding now.

I read a lot of non-fiction history and biographies. One of my favorite subjects are the robber barrons of the 1800's. It is no mystery why guys like Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Gould, Carnegie etc. were so successful. They were all ruthless to the completion and extremely smart operators and micro managers. Very tough negotiators who knew whatever business they were in better than anyone else. I don't really think any of them were "dicks" but they all had "dick"like qualities when it came to success.

All that said there is no reason to be a "dick" on the internet.

None of those people made any of that money laying bets. Or wheeling and dealing like me.

There are to many cryptocurrency threads. A long time ago when there were to many gold and silver threads a single gold thread and silver thread were created. Maybe have a max 3 or 4 threads or less for bitcoin/crypto. There were 7 threads on the front page earlier.

1. Bitcoin news & trading (the current bitcoin thread) - newbie help and questions, bitcoin news, tradable events, people's positions
2. Legitimacy and future of crypto - longwinded arguments about crypto and its future
3. Alt coins thread - all others

We don't need more.