What percentage of people on here do you think are HONEST, HARD WORKING PEOPLE?

You should realize, that if that were true about this place ever, it wouldn't stay true for long, because for a subset of the population (which is VASTLY larger than you think) the kind of person you describe is "prey".

And since these kinds of people tend to hunt in packs and they can smell blood in the water, very very quickly, the predators and scavengers will outnumber the prey.

What is it you think LED to the person posting the thread that this OP disagreed with?

There's also a distortion that happens when you talk about the bad people online as being a "vocal minority" because that's not possible in an online context.

You're dealing with a permanent informational medium. The most vocal segment CANNOT be a minority, because they produce the majority of the documents.

The population of this forum only APPEARS to you to be people - it's actually just a big repository of information. I would say the vast, vast majority of the information contained on this site is shared by people who are not qualified to say what they are saying other than that they are repeating it.

That in itself is one of the most dangerous forms of dishonesty, when you present your opinion as fact because it masks ignorance from the audience. Remember, it's not just willful or predatory dishonesty that harms.

Would anyone disagree?

I feel like if you come into this place you need to have your night vision goggles on, not your rose colored glasses.

Steven,

The good news: Youtube have identified who this bunch is

The bad news: it's the whole Warrior Forum

Harvey

Sorry to hear about that Wags.

"Great spirits are always met by violent opposition from mediocre minds"
-Albert Einstein

My opinion on the subject? Who knows for sure. I'd like to think most are honest.. but then I read (laugh though) my blog comments.

Grant

I am honest to a fault. I can't even imagine how many sales I've lost
because I've told people this isn't for them if they're looking to push a
button and have $100 bills fall from the sky.

I honestly sometimes think I'm not really cut out for this business because
there are a lot of things I won't do and there are a lot of things I see that
I hate.

But then I look at people like Paul Myers, Kevin Riley, Tim Gorman, Dean
Shainin and others who I admire because of the way they run their
business. Paul Myers, with his newsletter, takes the term "overdeliver" and
gives it a whole new meaning.

There are some really good eggs out here Michael.

There are also some really bad apples.

Such is life.

Michael,

I would kind of agree with Colin. There are well over 100K members of this forum. A fraction of that number is active. The inactive people do not represent what this forum is all about.

Therefore, it would be a mistake to count us as one of them. As for those who are left standing, it's difficult to say. The naive thing to say would be that there's only a couple bad apples. But I'd be willing to bet there are a lot of dishonest and lazy people either pretending to be legit, or simply lurking in the shadows.

So why do I hang out here? Because the people who represent this forum are the ones who are active, and these people are honest.

Curtis

I believe in what Ted Sturgeon said about 99% of everything being crap. I said 90% because I'm more of an optimist. If I was trying to avoid the 90% of crap out there, I would never leave my house.

This forum is big enough to be a reflection and microcosm of the world at large. At least, the technologically advanced first world culture.

And you can't really believe that 90% of that society is NOT both lazy and stupid and lie all the time, not just to authority and each other, but to themselves.

And hey, me too. No one can escape it - our brains are built to sleepwalk us through life.

I count myself among them because I'm not yet such a misanthrope that I don't want to be part of humanity.

It might not be the same 10%, because I don't they they have a causal relationship, but I think the percentages would be about the same.


Almost everyone thinks they are "honest" or at least they live up to some kind of code. Excluding total sociopaths, even the worst deliberate frauds have a sort of ethics where their predatory natures will be reigned in when among perceived equals.

No bad guy ever thinks they are just being a bad guy. It's always internally justified. There's a really great series in the New York Times right now by Errol Morris about how the ignorant, by definition, are not capable of recognizing how ignorant they are.

We are ruled and dominated and surrounded by overconfident idiots.

You did! Would you rather I lied in my answer?

But to the core of your question - why am I here anyway? Why do I spend my time posting all the stuff I do? I dunno. Duty? I was born with the ability to create a signal, but I was born into a world of noise.

There are other people like me, and I prefer to spend my time with them, but if you don't use the signal, if you don't get out there and listen for other signals, you never find them. That gets lonely and depressing.

Also, I think a large part of the ignorance problem has to do with SMART people not CARING and not doing MORE. You know what I'M tired of? Not negativity about your fellow man, because I'm a realist and its deserved.

What I'm tired of is how things have gotten so backwards that it's not cool to be smart. I think that keeps WAY more progress from happening than ANYTHING else. If society put as much value into education as it put into sports, the STARS would be in our reach by now.

We walked on the FREAKING MOON at one time in our human history. At one point THAT is what riveted the world's imagination. Now we have reality TV, which to quote Dana Gould - is "an amateur production about nothing".

So I say enough. I say cut a swath through the masses. Let your little light shine. Be the missionary of the smart and the honest and the USEFUL out there among the sleeping masses. Maybe if I wake up just one or two people... and THEY wake up one or two people...

Then MAYBE us smarter people will not get bred out of existence before the inevitable rock from space wipes out most of the human race. If we have at least a FEW smart people left by then, we might not get reset back to zero.

But you know, I try to be an optimist.

Well, now that you put it that way, I'd guess we're into the 70% and above.

~Bill

Do you think an idiot could explain to a smart person how to be an idiot? Probably not. It's the same thing with creativity - even if you have it, you can't necessarily teach it. That's why you see a lot of that.

And to be honest, they aren't lying - if they could GIVE you a step by step for that part, none of the people following would have any uniqueness, and in all likelihood, would fail because of it.

A lot of success in marketing has to do with getting attention, and getting attention has to do with breaking the pattern in a noticeable way. If everyone is breaking the pattern and the same time in the same way, it's just another pattern, and the attention-getting breaks down.

You've seen this happen in this niche - when people complain about "launch fatigue" it's because they've spotted the pattern of artificial buzz. It's no longer a believable singular bit of naturally-occurring goodness.

What I recommend you do instead of looking at being told to be creative and have a unique approach as a cop-out, is consider this quote from Ben Franklin:

"Write something worth reading, or do something worth writing about."

Best way to get attention online I ever heard. Follow that line of thought, and you WILL FALL out of the box. Hope that helps.

Sheesh Steven, I'd run out of fingers and toes and any other digit I'd care to use before I even exhausted the list of women on this forum I'd JV with if given the chance much less the men.

I'm either an optimist or I live a very sheltered life.

~Bill

But see, here's the other side of that.

The people you WOULD trust to do it are certainly fewer than the people you COULD trust to do it.

I'm currently embroiled in four JVs with appointments to discuss two more by Monday.

Last week, I had two of the three JVs I was doing then fall through. I couldn't trust those people to do what needed to be done. And, honestly, I didn't think I could either.

But I did anyway.

People surprise you. If you get so bound up in the bad experiences that you won't let them surprise you in good ways anymore, I honestly think you lose a lot more than you would if you just went ahead and let those bad experiences keep happening.

I like good surprises. But in order to get them at all, you have to take risks, and you have to accept that there will be bad surprises too.

I am going to have to disagree with you here on a point or two.

I don't think debate has fallen out of favor because teachers are incompetent. And I don't think they teach from the book because they are incompetent. They are forced to because so many dollars ride on standardized test performance. They are forced to get the square pegs into the round holes and that doesn't leave much time for extras. I don't find laying these ills at the feet teachers who don't decide policy and only have these kids part time to be at all productive or particularly on point. It all starts at home. From who does make policy to what the perceived value of education is. When we get home straight then we can start looking at other reasons. But first the 800lb gorilla must be dealt with.

Everyone exagerates a little. But, I feel that most of the people are honest and straight with what they are presenting. Percentage?? I would gues 85% honest - 10% exageration - 5% outright lies