I teach Jr. High. I see/hear kids telling one another how stupid they are, they're ugly, retarded, lots of "YOU'RE GAY", "PROVE IT"..."YOU CAN"T DO THAT"....etc etc. I also see some of that here. Kids don't invent hate. (Which is actually self hate and great fear.) They learn it from Mom and Dad. So when I see folk acting like they're the next guests on Dr. Phil or Jerry Springer, I try to remember that their parents taught them very well. The producers of Phil and Jerry's shows are very good traders. They exploit a market for personal gain. $$$$
"Money and sex stir the strongest feelings of self-preservation. Freud might have a good handle on it. You rarely see a jilted ex-boyfriend getting along with the new boyfriend or two people competing for the same woman rarely get along. The female equivalent is catfighting. It is the same thing with trading. A lot of people put their ego on the line when they make financial decisions. Trading is different than photography or most other endeavors. When you are a photographer, you provide a service that can be creative, unique or personal. As a short term trader, you are competing against other traders for a limited piece of the pie. Active trading is a net negative game (losers pay winners and the house always takes a commission) were successful traders win based on the foolishness and lack of skill of other traders. You are what you do, and this psychology will manifest itself in other ways. Also, many traders on ET are from abrasive cities such as NYC and Chicago." From PM of a poster who wished to remain anonymous.
The financial industry has some traditions. And the industry does attract people from all walks of life. One aspect of the industry is taking care of OPM. Money is also a commodity that is rented by the finacial industry. People use their heritage to determine how to make money in a lot of cases. This picture creates what is possible in the worlds of all of these people. A lot of people believe in what they have created is possible. Another huge theme of the financial industry is how money changes hands. There are beliefs that include that how money changes hands is competitive and how money changes hands has a lot to do with how well a person does it. Often this view of how money comes to change hands is related to knowledge, skills and experience. Any person has beliefs about their knowledge, skills and experience and how well they compete and how well they make use of their knowledge, skills and experience. These things probably would just keep rolling along, ad nauseum , and within a range of variation if it were not for a couple of other things. Most important is what the emotions of trading engender to these types of people. There is a transition from one end of this spectrum to the other. It is definitely a one way street. The emotions of trading in the tradions carried out in the financial industry are patently negative. The emotions are a result of people choosing to do what they do and the people are simply making bad choices that have the consequences that are being articulated in this thread about the way it is. What is being said is the way it is for the people saying what they say and saying what they observe. A person enters the scene by opening a door of his own choosing. He brings a convnetional cultrual orientation and does not find out that making money does not follow his heritage's conventions. The person seasons himself by thinking "competing" will enable him. He thinks acquiring retlated knowledge, skills and experience will make him successful. As is shown statistically, all people are more subject to failure than anything else, especially traders. Traders also get to be emotionally fearful, anxious and angry as they go further down the one way street. Most cannot go from part time to full time and full time traders cannot make enough money to life compared to other professions. Most traders find out what they do is not permanent for internal as well as external reasons. The door was opened, choices continued to have consequences, emotions compounded over time and beliefs became pervasively entrenched to the extent that options to move to other places knowlegewise, skillwise, and to gain new experience are systematically eliminated. Only an ever narrowing exit is provided to a dorr that automatically locks, upon exit, remains. Posting is done over part of this life experience for people. When people are opening the door, they are asking and seeking. Some are working from greed others are sincere. Fearful people seek help and so state that they want it. They are having consequences of bed choices. They know not to make anymore bad choices. The anxious people tell of their experiences and are either oriented to blaming or chastened or are wanting empathy or are commisserating. they are not usually able to make a sustained effort at this point for the simple reason that they are in a dynamic where their insufficiencies do not allow them to escape from the compounding dynamic of their beliefs misunderstandings. In the financial industry a person cannot kid themselves for too long because the final judge is the account bottom line and paying for life's expenses. When people begin to compare they get angry. They thought they were copmpeting with others to whom they copmpare; they were not competing; it was just a mistaken belief among all of their acquired beliefs that stem from their heritage. Making money has different rules than the rules of the culture. One myth is that you compete to make money. The myth is learned from anger. Angry people who were anxious are people who become "right" from the misfortunes of their experience. They especially talk about what is possible and what is not possible from a vantage point of never experiencing what is possible. The more a person is pulled away from what is actually possible, the more angry he becomes. Objectivity and rationality is not possible and what replaces it is his "right" list. Seasoned people who still hang on in niches, often become "protectors" and "spotters". They "know" the truncated spectrum of what is possible which is only to the lessor side of where they "preside". So fear, anxiety and anger are the measures the academics get for the emotions of the big traders of the inancial industry. External "cures" are affected by the measuring pros. The financial industry spectrum is truncated as presented here in this thread. Who and what is missing? The people who are not here are mostly the people who do not use the conventional orthodoxy. The conventional orthodoxy will always create the one way stree out of the financial industry and the bus stops along the route on the way out are well described, well "talked" and well "walked" right to the exit.
There was a study conducted at MIT in the 1960's which found a higher rate of meloncholia, manic depression, paranoid schizoid psychosis, obsessive compulsive disorders etc in people who work in the financial industry than in other professions. I don't know if this helps to explain your query.
Because losers can't bare to deal with their failure and hide behind a veil of success where none exists. These forums are an outlet to fantasize, brag and act like a bigshot as losses mount and depresssion sets in.