Other Forums?

[curious_george]

Years ago I used to be very active on the Steve Pavlina public forums...Back before the amazing personal development guru suddenly turned into my 5 year old when he discovered some people were *gasp* leaving his forums for other forums so decided to simply shut down his entire forums in response. I am still healing from the loss, lol.

I find myself not interested in money lately. Actually I'll be honest - I was never actually interested in money. Money has always simply been a tool to achieve something else in life. Lately it has gotten worse. I never even check the stock market anymore. I have no idea what my networth is anymore unless I need to reference it in a post...Then I have to go add everything up. I have not known what the price of a gallon of milk or gas is in a long time now. It was around the time I hit a 2.5% withdrawal rate I was like 'eh, that seems good enough for me' and most financial concepts disappeared.

I track total monthly expenses...that's about it.

Do any of you guys frequent other forums that are more general personal development related? Honestly I'm far more interested in personal development / psychology / neuroscience than finance.

[RetiredAt63]

Once we have the financial side settled, this forum is great for other aspects of our lives.  MMM has said his main goal was environmental not financial.

Personally, I look at my bank balance at the same time every month, to make sure my spending is on track.  I look at income/expenses if I am contemplating a major activity (like a move or major purchase or expensive vacation), but otherwise everything is basically on auto-pilot.

If people have the time, I am sure they would also be on other forums.  My other regular internet reading is not financial.

[SunnyDays]

I have lots of time, but don't frequent any other forums.  The pure money side of things has never been an interest of mine either, but this forum fills all the roles you describe above to at least some degree.  It makes me think about my general lifestyle, my values and my behaviour.  That's enough for me.

[Dicey]

I have lots of time, but don't frequent any other forums.  The pure money side of things has never been an interest of mine either, but this forum fills all the roles you describe above to at least some degree.  It makes me think about my general lifestyle, my values and my behaviour.  That's enough for me.

My feelings as well.

[Fru-Gal]

I have always enjoyed Steve Pavlina. Didn’t know he had a forum.

[curious_george]

I have always enjoyed Steve Pavlina. Didn’t know he had a forum.

Yes - I have also always enjoyed Steve Pavlina's articles. He had a forum in the 2008-2011 time period or so that I was very active on. I don't remember exactly. He actually still has an article up *sort of* explaining why he took the forums down. I lost a *lot* of respect for him that day.  He got annoyed that some people were leaving the forum for a new *special* forum that he wasn't invited to. He got jealous, took this as a personal insult because this was happening in 'his home' as he explained, then wrapped the whole thing up in personal development language and subtly blamed some of his own fans for his own jealousy and self worth issues.

Then he deleted all the fucking forum posts where this was all spelled out and wrote a nice blog post with a very *different* view on the matter where he explained it all away using personal development language and viewed it as a personal transition for himself.

You can read his story on it here:

https://stevepavlina.com/blog/2011/12/shutting-down-the-forums/

I stopped reading his articles after that point. Something about a guy preaching about truth and honesty then deleting shit he said himself in his own forum and rewrapping everything into an article post putting himself in a positive light was too much for me to handle.

ETA: Seriously it was one of the most childest things ever. It would be akin to Pete getting upset with me for making this thread asking about other forums, then posting a bunch of things on the forum bashing me for discussing some other forum, then deleting all the conversations and taking the forums down because he couldn't control himself and explaining it all away in financial terminology. 

ETA 2: Steve originally started out in the software development world, which is how I originally met him because this was the time period I was learning and developing hobby computer games as well. He used to run a small game company called Dexterity Software. His articles about how to improve sales and develop better computer games were more popular than his actual games, which is why he switched to personal development. You can read more about this here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dexterity_Software

Most of my interactions with him were always positive and he generally acted with integrity. The interactions leading up to him shutting down the forums were very out of character for him, in my experience. I don't mean to say this one negative experience outweighs all the positives - I have learned a LOT from the guy over the years.

[Metalcat]

Nope.

I am part of another forum for my rate genetic condition, but I don't enjoy chatting there at all. I can't handle the "suffering Olympics" of the chronic pain community.

That place is a resource for me to assess various treatments and risks, but otherwise I stay out.

This is the only forum I shoot the shit in, and in my thousands and thousands of posts, probably less than 1% are actually about money.

It's the same way that very little of MMM's blog content is actually about money. It's mostly about lifestyle.

ALL financial decisions are lifestyle decisions, all of them, because money isn't a thing in and of itself, it's a proxy for time and energy where all 3 values change over time, and are modulated by lifestyle decisions. So financial decisions are all about making the best trades based on the relative values of each.

If you grasp money as what it is, the currency of time and energy, then you see that every discussion about money is a discussion about personal values, hopes, dreams, fears, and priorities.

We don't talk about money here, we talk about taking charge of our own life outcomes by defying the expectations society pushes on us.

That's about as general a subject as there can be.

[slackmax]

Yes, am involved in other forums, of course. Assumed everyone was. No?

Interpersonal connections are big with me now. Have another forum for that. Although I have posted here, in Ask a Mustachian, about that subject, and got useful feedback.   

[LD_TAndK]

The Early Retirement Extreme forums are mostly geared towards personal development. Smaller posting volume but there's some real gold if you look back at old discussions

[Luke Warm]

Anyone have any recommendations for a bike commuter forum?

[Dicey]

The Early Retirement Extreme forums are mostly geared towards personal development. Smaller posting volume but there's some real gold if you look back at old discussions

There is, but if you choose to participate, be aware that you cannot use your MMM voice. I made an account so I could follow a thread, at the thread creator's invitation. IiRC, someone made a comment that was both misinformed and unduly critical of my friend. I corrected them in what I thought was a straightforward manner, and got my hand slapped by two mods. It boiled down to: I was a newbie there, so how dare I gainsay a LongStandingMember? For my friend's sake, I ate crow, even though the other person was in the wrong, IMO, and noped the fuck out of there. There might be gold there, but be careful how you prospect it.

On topic, I believe that either "Get Rich Slowly" or "Go Curry Cracker" (possibly both) have started forums.

[curious_george]

The Early Retirement Extreme forums are mostly geared towards personal development. Smaller posting volume but there's some real gold if you look back at old discussions

There is, but if you choose to participate, be aware that you cannot use your MMM voice. I made an account so I could follow a thread, at the thread creator's invitation. IiRC, someone made a comment that was both misinformed and unduly critical of my friend. I corrected them in what I thought was a straightforward manner, and got my hand slapped by two mods. It boiled down to: I was a newbie there, so how dare I gainsay a LongStandingMember? For my friend's sake, I ate crow, even though the other person was in the wrong, IMO, and noped the fuck out of there. There might be gold there, but be careful how you prospect it.

On topic, I believe that either "Get Rich Slowly" or "Go Curry Cracker" (possibly both) have started forums.

I never had an account at ERE even though it's probably more my (younger selfs) style. They generally seem pretty laid back from what I recall but I don't think it would be a place the OP (who I believe is a millionaire plus and probably more ER.org or bogelheads type) would enjoy. I came to MMM and FIRE via minimalism, frugality, simple living,  and environmentalism and I think ERE fits that kind of lifestyle better. So if the OP interested in those kinds of things then it might be a good fit. Otherwise probably just look at individual topics he/she might be interested unrelated to finances and FIRE.

Reading through the ERE forum it does seem pretty interesting. It doesn't seem very popular though.

This also makes me wonder about the moderation. I have said some stuff on these forums where even I wondered if I would get my hand slapped, lol. Like starting this thread for example. If I started a thread on the ERE forums asking about other forums, would I get the thread deleted and a mod warning?

I was mostly wondering if there was some sort of generally popular personal development forum these days that was a replacement for the Steve Pavlina forums. Searching through Google this doesn't seem to be the case...In fact it sort of seems like forums are dying out.

I think I'm going to focus more on some smaller local in person groups for what I'm looking for.

Thanks for the feedback everyone!

[GilesMM]

Here is a neuroscience forum for you.

https://community.sfn.org/index.php   

[Sandi_k]

On topic, I believe that either "Get Rich Slowly" or "Go Curry Cracker" (possibly both) have started forums.

GRS used to have forums, long ago, before JD sold it. Then they had bugs, and the corporate overlords weren't interested in fixing it, so they were suspended.

When JD purchased the site back, he tried to re-launch the forums, and apparently toasted all of the historical content. He has expressed interest in starting them again, but I haven't seen any action yet.

Honestly, he seems detached and uninterested in working too hard at GRS these days. Maybe because of his mom's decline, or because of his house purchase, sale, and new purchase? Whatever. Suffice to say, I'm not holding my breath.

[Dicey]

On topic, I believe that either "Get Rich Slowly" or "Go Curry Cracker" (possibly both) have started forums.

GRS used to have forums, long ago, before JD sold it. Then they had bugs, and the corporate overlords weren't interested in fixing it, so they were suspended.

When JD purchased the site back, he tried to re-launch the forums, and apparently toasted all of the historical content. He has expressed interest in starting them again, but I haven't seen any action yet.

Honestly, he seems detached and uninterested in working too hard at GRS these days. Maybe because of his mom's decline, or because of his house purchase, sale, and new purchase? Whatever. Suffice to say, I'm not holding my breath.

Yeah, I was a fan in the early days, but then there was MMM, then the MMM Forum and I never really looked back. Another one that was good in the early days was Trent Hamm at "The Simple Dollar", but his appeal dissipated when he sold out. I did learn how to make my own laundry soap though.

[turketron]

Anyone have any recommendations for a bike commuter forum?

I don't visit any dedicated forums, but there's a bikecommuting subreddit that's fairly active.

[tj]

I've been on Bogleheads for 13 years. Some of the conversation can be enriching.