“You Goons Are More Intense Than the People Who Have an Interest in Learning About the New Ideas. 50 Times More Intense. Nassem Taleb Wrote About How a Small Minority of a Population Can Gain Influence Far Out of Proportion to Its Numbers By Being More Intense.”

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:

Rob,

Have you tried branching out to other personal finance forums lately? This site seems like just you and Anonymous bickering at one another!

Warm Regards,

Bennett Fan

I haven’t tried posting at a new place in a long time. I did that often in earlier days.

The same pattern repeated over and over again. There are always people interested in what I have to say. I always try to be responsive to the questions asked by those people. You Goons are always insanely abusive when the merit of your strategy is questioned. And that always scares away the people who have an interest in learning more. You Goons are more intense than the people who have an interest in learning about the new ideas. 50 times more intense.

Nassem Taleb wrote about how a small minority of a population can gain influence far out of proportion to its numbers by being more intense. Buy-and-Hold Goons comprise about 10 percent of most communities of investors. But their intensity gave them an effective veto power over what I said in those communities.

It’s emotionally painful for me to involve myself in the sorts of conflicts that evidence themselves whenever Buy-and-Hold is challenged. I have done it on thousands of occasions. Those of us who have doubts about the strategy need to do that if progress is ever going to be made. So I see it as my job to place myself in the firing line. But I have taken a lot of hits over the years and I am not inclined to take on more hits today unless I have reason to believe that there is going to be a payoff. I continue to take on hits when you Goons post comments to my columns at the Value Walk site because I think it is important that I experience the learning that follows from writing new articles every week about the Valuation-Informed Indexing concept and taking on those hits is part of the price that must be paid for doing so. So I post there. But I no longer have much appetite for going to new places and seeing the same ugliness play out one more time.

After I finish the book, I may elect to go to some new places. It would be a good thing to do. But my expectation is that I will not be seeking out lots of new places until I see reason for believing that site owners will be standing up to you Goons. I believe that we will see that in the days following the next price crash. At that time I believe that I will be posting at lots of new places. Eventually, I believe that we will see a day where honest posting re the last 38 years of peer-reviewed research will be permitted (and encouraged!) at every site on the internet. Let us pray.

I hope that helps a small bit, Bennett Fan.

Research-Based Investing Fan Rob