“The Majority of Alcoholics Prefer to Remain Alcoholics, You Know? I Don’t Think It Follows That We Should Not Provide Services Helping People to Overcome Alcoholism.”

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

If you have THOUSANDS of supporters, go ask them to do what you want.  Meanwhile, you won’t even open up YOUR website to people wanting to make what they think are “honest” posts.

I’ve asked them. I did that all the time when I was posting at the various boards.

Having thousands of people interested in learning about the last 41 years of peer-reviewed research isn’t anything close to having a majority of investors wanting to hear the case against Buy-and-Hold. The vast majority would prefer to believe that the numbers on their portfolio statement are real. That’s the entire problems. The vast majority of investors prefers not to know how stock investing works. Nothing could be more clear.

The majority of alcoholics prefer to remain alcoholics, you know? I don’t think it follows that we should not provide services helping people to overcome alcoholism. I think we should provide such services. If it makes the alcoholics uncomfortable to hear that such services exist, that’s just too darn bad. I don’t think we should force people to take advantage of such services (except where that is done as part of a court proceeding). But I think that it is a good thing for such services to be available to people. Alcoholism is a trap and people need access to ways to overcome it when they make up their minds to do so. The same is true of Buy-and-Hold (price indifferent) investing strategies.

Just because I believe that we should open every site to honest posting doesn’t mean that I believe that site owners should not place limits on what can be said at their sites. I absolutely believe that there should be limits. John Greaney wouldn’t be looking forward to a long prison sentence today if Motley Fool had enforced its site rules in a reasonable manner by banning him the first time he advanced a death threat. I sent the site administrator there an email suggesting that they do just that. I believe that every community member who viewed the guy as a friend should have done the same and I said so at the board. Site restrictions are very much needed. Bans on honest posting re the peer-reviewed research are a huge negative.

Rob