There are quite a few forums on the WWW & a vast majority of posters are a bunch of happy people that are ready to compliment each other on any particular achievement, learn from others, seek advice, etc. Totally different story on financial discussion boards, I bet you will find it hard to come across another industry discussion board that will feature so many ego starved people. Why?
Man has an innate desire to be lord over his domain. One measure of this is the accumulation of wealth. Those that are wanting in this regard still have a need to proclaim their "greatness." Certainly a financial forum would be the better venue for such lying, pontificating and other forms of self aggrandizement than say a site that specialized in bread baking tips.
Though I am certain there is rivalry between best short crust pastry recipe. I do quite a lot of video shooting/editing as a hobby & participate in various discussions on the net about the subject. I keep seeing good, exquisite & poor work, this work that these individuals do is also fee based (weddings, corporate, commercial advertising, etc.), though they do not fight. Sure, some people envy the work of others, but they do not let their envy dissolve into meaningless rivalry & bitter spitefulness.
i really don't know what you are talking about but i suppose that is expected what with me being better than you.
And here is a prime example. This type of commentary simply does not exist in other industries. So what if you are better than me? You are not going to get a medal for it.
well I am, that is for sure ... and a medal wouldn't satisfy any of my desires in any way ... even God who is supposed to be all perfect always talks about himself, go read the bible ... I am this, I am that, I can do this, I can do that, if you do that I will do this ... and I who have been created in his image, am a self worshiper now what is the problem?!
Same thing occurs here on ET, but you will find it where there can be no bullshitting or childish posturing. Take a look at this thread: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=87653 The average loudmouth wannabe idiot ET member who generally has the attention span of a gnat and still lives at home with mommy and daddy, will not have the desire to participate in a thread of this nature. Because it involves some higher technical aspects of trading, there's no one to bait and cause escalation, generally speaking.
<i>"and a medal wouldn't satisfy any of my desires in any way ... "</i> Just curious... which of your desires are being met in this financial trader's forum? It seems like many of your posts circle right back to God and religion. What relevance is that to financial forum discussion? Might as well take that stuff up at Oprah.com in the premenstrual self-help threads, same degree of relevance there as here.