Announcement The Forum is transitioning to a subscription-based membership model

[charlie]

So do accounts made before a certain date still get to post freely? What's the cutoff?

If someone had an account and was posting freely on or before June 4th then they are grandfathered in and do not have to pay a subscription fee if they do not want to.

 

[Frankdee20]

I definitely won’t be allowed to speak unless it’s a reply

 

[Frankdee20]

Let me tread lightly

 

[shucknchuck]

I definitely won’t be allowed to speak unless it’s a reply

 

[yerrag]

Consider the yearly as nearly "free". I am no longer paying for the newsletter so this is a good place for those funds.

That's a good point, but I don't see much equivalence in the quality of Ray's newsletters as compared to what the forum offers. They complemented each other then, but without the newsletter now, I hope that supporting Charlie in keeping the forum alive for the foreseeable future would with paid membership would be a step in the right direction. It would certainly keep bots away, but may also be throwing the baby out with the bath water. As this would also discourage people from joining the forum that otherwise would have. But certainly, I am cognizant that Charlie has given this a lot of thought. And that the pros outweigh the cons.

As this keeps Charlie from dealing with the burden of dealing with pestering bots, which I imagine takes some time and effort to deal with. And a new user who isn't sure this forum is for him, would just sign up for a month to give this forum a trial spin, and then get to decide if he continues to be a part of the forum.

And I also hope though that in time, Charlie would have more resources available to make the forum more appealing to newbies, given that Ray Peat's ideas are a hard sell to people already gaslighted enough by the medical industry, with more coming from many useful idiots in Youtube videos and podcasts that crowd out Peat's ideas with empty promises of better health with various diametrically opposing ideas in diets ranging from ketogenic to carnivorous to low-carb intermittent diets.

It is a common refrain how even us members here have with our friends and family that our Ray Peat-based lifestyle is a hard sell to them, and I hope that just be pointing them to this website I won't have to regurgitate to them each the ideas of Ray Peat, which by themselves are not an easy sell because it is equivalent to like getting a PhD degree sans the degree. And that somehow, this website may be able to give them some sort of curated guide for them to take this journey of discovery and learning. And when successful in doing so, more members will be talking of their successes rather than failures and disappointments, and even when they have solved their health issues, would rather stay than leave because in gratitude they want to continue to commit to supporting Ray Peat's work in this site.

Currently, I do not see this site being capable of making this a reality. There's a lot of misinformation being given by members, and it doesn't appear there are many members stepping up to nip a member's spreading of wrong ideas at the bud. I've seen in my first year of members willing to take the effort to tamp down on this, but over the years I've seen less and less of this, as if there are less knowledgeable members or more indifferent members.

I would like to contribute to this effort not only monetarily but with my time, but it would be hard to just contribute financially if there is no blueprint on how this website would become more relevant.

When Peat was still alive and churning out newsletters, I would be reading a new newsletter and the topic of the newsletter would be in a thread. Ray would understandably be brief and concise with his writing, at times he would say something that includes a term of a phrase where the meaning isn't clear, and where a prior understanding of a term is needed. As a newbie, and even as an oldie, I would try to engage the members here and ask what it means. It would disappoint me that often I don't get an answer, and it's a good day when I get an answer. So this very much speaks to the need for the forum to gain more traction in gaining quality members, or to help develop quality members.

I would then write to Ray Peat himself, and find the answer, and share in this forum. But Ray Peat is gone. And I feel, as many would do know, be an orphan.

This website has a hard task ahead in keeping alive Ray Peat's ideas and see it become more and more move from the outermost fringe of culture into the mainstream, and to develop us into more critical thinkers, as to understand and live Ray's lifestyle, is to make people adopt the same mastery of skills that would improve society. But that is a higher vision. I would, on a more grounded level, like to at least, have us start by going back into Ray Peat's writing, and specifically his newsletters, as that is where you can hear Ray Peat speaking to you as Prof. Ray Peat, and you are in a class discussion with fellow students, making sense of his deep reveals, and connecting them, and making them more relevant and applicable to health issues each member may be having.

 

[yerrag]

Interesting experiment! Let's see how it goes! I am afraid with the change it can become a complete echo chamber though. I hope not.

An echo chamber of good coherent ideas may work better than a babel of conflicting ideas that require members to be more critical in their thought process.

How the future members are to be filtered does not ensure better membership quality, although the willingness and ability to pay is a practical criteria to keep the website open and serviceable.

The retention and growth of members, both pay and nonpay, would be one major criteria to gauge the success of this experiment. Another would be the quality of topics and the exchange of ideas as Ray Peat's ideas are subjected to the rigors of criticism and attempts to dislodge it from primacy by alternate and antagonistic ideas by members who find that Ray Peat's ideas have not worked for them. It is a crucible that determines how strong Ray Peat's ideas can be defended by the membership. If some of his ideas can be refined, or even replaced by better ones, it would be a good sign, as this is in keeping with Ray Peat's attitude that we don't just follow him (or any other expert) blindly, but with careful study and examination of facts, as the process of discovery through time (past, present, and future) goes on and progress in made in finding truth.

Fresh and youth is always good, having to pay might probably raise the average age of the forum, thus unbalancing it.

Fresh and youth is always good, for the potential for youth to develop into seasoned and wise and critical. As the aged and seasoned turns crusty and senile, leaving behind past contributions that gets synthesized into fresh insights.

Having to pay may also skew membership rolls to favor the source of bots, who find that the ability to pay is the new way to infiltrate the membership, to corrupt the membership with mainstream medical ideas that would dilute the website of Ray Peat's ideas in the appearance of being open to other ideas. The well-financed medical complex has a 1000:1 advantage at the least to stack the membership rolls with doctors, PhD's, quacks, and useful idiots, and wordsmiths to make consensus among themselves capture mindshare of their false ideas in this forum.

At the same time since covid times the forum took a bad direction, I don't know why. It used to be a safe, open minded, kind, supportive, small comunity charming place and for the last 3 years it has been flooded with racists, misoginists, fanatics, incels, extremists and weird people of all kinds and shapes. I really hope we can get back to that old feeling.

Those terms appear to betray where you sense of balance lies in your world view, which is colored with more progressive ideas, which I may not necessarily agree with. But those differences should not be a source of disagreement when the matter of health is concerned. They are peripheral to the main discussion in this forum. Rather than make them a source of disagreement, it is better to allow those differences to exist in the interest of being united in health matters.

Your point is well taken, for I see that there is more spirited debate in those matters, and much less when it comes to health matters. It would not be a small distraction if the debates here on peripheral matters take center stage in this forum, and members who joined for health reasons end up mired in endless discussions in matters of much less consequence to their health, though they are hardly trivial in the wider sphere of things.

 

[YourUniverse]

I worry the content could get worse in a way, as a monthly membership simply becomes a business expense

 

[Makrosky]

Those terms appear to betray where you sense of balance lies in your world view, which is colored with more progressive ideas, which I may not necessarily agree with. But those differences should not be a source of disagreement when the matter of health is concerned. They are peripheral to the main discussion in this forum. Rather than make them a source of disagreement, it is better to allow those differences to exist in the interest of being united in health matters.

Maybe even before covid. Not sure. What I forgot to clarify is that before, political/ideology/news/economy/etc. used to be restrained on a small subset of threads in a subforum. For some years now it has invaded most threads in one way or another. And it dragged us all into it. If it would have been only covid, fine. It is health related. But there is no thread now without some agenda2030 topic, wokism, feminism, trumpism, religion, inflation, etc. Basically it has metastasized and is all over the place.

Before nobody really cared if you or me voted for trump or killary or if we were in favor of gender reassignment or wtf. We were here to talk about health and Ray's work. We kind of were decent enough to not pester others with our political views.

And of course, it is just my subjective feeling. Others might feel it different.

 

[Makrosky]

@yerrag main page of the forum. Latest 20 topics right now. 7 of them just the title indicates political content. The rest of the threads I am mostly sure at one point or another have some posts with political content as well.

Isn't this too much?

That's what I meant.

Don't get me wrong I also participate on those threads and sometimes I even find it funny. But I think it is too much and as you said, energies are derived from useful and meaningful health topics into that.

 

[Peatress]

We have just experienced the greatest, most evil event of our generation and we've got to pretend that we are not losing an excess of 1000 people a week? Agenda 2030 is no small thing. I will not pretend those events are not happening - even if I wanted to I couldn't because I've been poisoned by the evil cabal. If people don't want to read those posts it's easy to avoid them. If the content someone is posting is problematic then banning them is an option - that includes me.

 

[Peatful]

@yerrag main page of the forum. Latest 20 topics right now. 7 of them just the title indicates political content. The rest of the threads I am mostly sure at one point or another have some posts with political content as well.

Isn't this too much?

That's what I meant.

Don't get me wrong I also participate on those threads and sometimes I even find it funny. But I think it is too much and as you said, energies are derived from useful and meaningful health topics into that.

Ray said opening up peoples minds to anti establishment thinking regarding their health was just a gateway for him to speak about political or societal topics.

He knew folks would engage regarding their health before being open to contrary thinking on the latter.






Remember his legacy-
Ending oligarchy and the digital culture….

 

[yerrag]

Maybe even before covid. Not sure. What I forgot to clarify is that before, political/ideology/news/economy/etc. used to be restrained on a small subset of threads in a subforum. For some years now it has invaded most threads in one way or another. And it dragged us all into it. If it would have been only covid, fine. It is health related. But there is no thread now without some agenda2030 topic, wokism, feminism, trumpism, religion, inflation, etc. Basically it has metastasized and is all over the place.

Before nobody really cared if you or me voted for trump or killary or if we were in favor of gender reassignment or wtf. We were here to talk about health and Ray's work. We kind of were decent enough to not pester others with our political views.

And of course, it is just my subjective feeling. Others might feel it different.

I can't say it is a subjective feeling on your part. I feel the same way but perhaps at a different degree. But it is strong enough that we would both talk about it in this forum. But I get this disturbing feeling that it isn't so much us complaining about it as much as this forum being a subset of society that is more keenly aware of what is going on, being that we are more predisposed to question the narrative in what is reported to us.

I also suspect that the manipulators at large that operate on a strategic level around the world, are constantly creating crises, to create all sorts of stressors for us- in order to weaken us by a thousand cuts, and more importantly, to distract us, and even more importantly, to put us in a state of being dazed, unable to decide where to begin to right a sinking ship where leaks are everywhere. This is intended to create in us a sense of helplessness, where we get to feel that it's useless to fix one hole, while the other 999 holes are left to leak. This analogy isn't a good one though, as it's easy to fix the other 999 holes if you know how to fix one, and that isn't the case at all with the many wrongs being done unto us.

Wokeness, transgenderism, cancel culture - are just relatively recent wrongs being imposed on us, and they are just the socio-cultural aspect of the wrongs rained down upon us. COVID-19 hoaxing falls under the medical (physiological) aspect of it, which is a continuation of mercury vaccine autism gaslighting, built upon the false idea of the existence of viruses, built upon the Nobel Prize- legitimized idea of Pasteur's germ theory.

We could go on and on about the false drug war, the false war on cancer, the false cholesterol theory of disease, but the level of raining down of wrongs has accelerated at an exponential rate.

And it is hardly avoidable that each new wrong becomes a thread in this forum.

But I for one, and I'm sure you as well, are cognizant that we must not fall prey to being distracted and discombobulated into going into all these wrongs and spending too much of our time discussing them - at the expense of building our knowledge of our physiology, and our body, so that we do not stay ignorant of the wisdom of our own body to keep us on a level of health that makes us independent individuals that are not needy of government and its puppetmasters- to take of us, thus trading our liberty for security. As we resist the design to make us dumb and dumber.

 

[Nfinkelstein]

But I for one, and I'm sure you as well, are cognizant that we must not fall prey to being distracted and discombobulated into going into all these wrongs and spending too much of our time discussing them - at the expense of building our knowledge of our physiology, and our body, so that we do not stay ignorant of the wisdom of our own body to keep us on a level of health that makes us independent individuals that are not needy of government and its puppetmasters- to take of us, thus trading our liberty for security. As we resist the design to make us dumb and dumber.

preach!

 

[yerrag]

@yerrag main page of the forum. Latest 20 topics right now. 7 of them just the title indicates political content. The rest of the threads I am mostly sure at one point or another have some posts with political content as well.

Isn't this too much?

That's what I meant.

Don't get me wrong I also participate on those threads and sometimes I even find it funny. But I think it is too much and as you said, energies are derived from useful and meaningful health topics into that.

I know.

It's such disappointing to see that even @haidut would introduce a new thread many times, and the research and writing that comes with each new thread, is sometimes met with hardly a yawn, and a reply. I'm just using haidut as an example, but if it could happen to haidut, it is more likely to happen to members here with less stature that post and would like to put into discussion a topic relating to health.

We all have a limited time. Time spent on A means less time on B. We each have to find a balance. As a member on a forum dedicated to Ray Peat's ideas on health, I would like to read up more on his past newsletters, and though I consciously refrain from engaging in the political threads these days, I still find it hard to go back to reading his past newsletters. I don't think I'm an exception.

It is one thing to be conscious and aware, and another to be both as well as being able to take some action with what you know. And in most cases, it's your own body where you have much say in affecting outcomes. No matter what it is you know about the goings on in politics, you are at best just a kibitzer, and helpless - in changing the outcome.

 

[yerrag]

We have just experienced the greatest, most evil event of our generation and we've got to pretend that we are not losing an excess of 1000 people a week? Agenda 2030 is no small thing. I will not pretend those events are not happening - even if I wanted to I couldn't because I've been poisoned by the evil cabal. If people don't want to read those posts it's easy to avoid them. If the content someone is posting is problematic then banning them is an option - that includes me.

A photographer chooses his subject, and the rest is background. The more he edits the image, the more he is criticized. He lets it be.

Ray said opening up peoples minds to anti establishment thinking regarding their health was just a gateway for him to speak about political or societal topics.

He knew folks would engage regarding their health before being open to contrary thinking on the latter.






Remember his legacy-
Ending oligarchy and the digital culture….

One without the other is unthinkable.

 

[Peatress]

When people are locked into their 15 minute smart cities, with their smart appliances and GMO foods, they will finally realise that their inability to oxidize glucose is political.

 

[Nfinkelstein]

When people are locked into their 15 minute smart cities, with their smart appliances and GMO foods, they will finally realise that their inability to oxidize glucose is political.

hoping...

 

[akgrrrl]

That's a good point, but I don't see much equivalence in the quality of Ray's newsletters as compared to what the forum offers. They complemented each other then, but without the newsletter now, I hope that supporting Charlie in keeping the forum alive for the foreseeable future would with paid membership would be a step in the right direction. It would certainly keep bots away, but may also be throwing the baby out with the bath water. As this would also discourage people from joining the forum that otherwise would have. But certainly, I am cognizant that Charlie has given this a lot of thought. And that the pros outweigh the cons.

As this keeps Charlie from dealing with the burden of dealing with pestering bots, which I imagine takes some time and effort to deal with. And a new user who isn't sure this forum is for him, would just sign up for a month to give this forum a trial spin, and then get to decide if he continues to be a part of the forum.

And I also hope though that in time, Charlie would have more resources available to make the forum more appealing to newbies, given that Ray Peat's ideas are a hard sell to people already gaslighted enough by the medical industry, with more coming from many useful idiots in Youtube videos and podcasts that crowd out Peat's ideas with empty promises of better health with various diametrically opposing ideas in diets ranging from ketogenic to carnivorous to low-carb intermittent diets.

It is a common refrain how even us members here have with our friends and family that our Ray Peat-based lifestyle is a hard sell to them, and I hope that just be pointing them to this

This website has a hard task ahead in keeping alive Ray Peat's ideas and see it become more and more move from the outermost fringe of culture into the mainstream, and to develop us into more critical thinkers, as to understand and live Ray's lifestyle, is to make people adopt the same mastery of skills that would improve society. But that is a higher vision. I would, on a more grounded level, like to at least, have us start by going back into Ray Peat's writing, and specifically his newsletters, as that is where you can hear Ray Peat speaking to you as Prof. Ray Peat, and you are in a class discussion with fellow students, making sense of his deep reveals, and connecting them, and making them more relevant and applicable to health issues each member may be having.

Well said. And yes, because it seems that many new members think this forum is some kind of helpline for all their ills.

 

[Texon]

We have just experienced the greatest, most evil event of our generation and we've got to pretend that we are not losing an excess of 1000 people a week? Agenda 2030 is no small thing. I will not pretend those events are not happening - even if I wanted to I couldn't because I've been poisoned by the evil cabal. If people don't want to read those posts it's easy to avoid them. If the content someone is posting is problematic then banning them is an option - that includes me.

@Peatress

"Agenda 2030 is no small thing."....Especially when one considers they have Agendas 2040, 50, 60, etc, all the way out to 2100...no joke. Overcoming the effects of the covid poisoning will be a monumental task so maybe the forum can be a key resource in the effort to heal as many as possible?

 

[yerrag]

Well said. And yes, because it seems that many new members think this forum is some kind of helpline for all their ills.

Yes, maybe that can be made possible with a curated chatbot in this forum giving the better answers in order to point them in the right direction.

This would certainly be more than worth the subscription fee as outside the forum it's a veritable jungle of misdirection and misinformation. with Google and all.

But the chatbot should limit itself to health matters, specifically metabolism and Peat-centered, and shy away from political matters, lest it incur the ire of the censors.

Then charlie would have another problem, albeit a better problem, when a long queue forms in the application for membership line.

This would help set us up to use good information to begin with, and it will be easier for each member to connect the dots in unraveling the mystery that is their diseased condition, and to get better.

The chatbot could compile a list of resources buries within the website including, but not limited to RP newsletters, books, articles, interviews, and the works of scientist often cited such as Szent-Gyorgi, Warburg, Ling, Koch, Metchnikoff.

A member would have enough material to embark on a deep dive for his own particular context, and emerge more knowledgeable, and become more useful as a poster that adds value to threads. The quality of the forum improves with more knowledgeable members.

---____________---

Could someone call Elon for a turnkey Chatbot server system? Tell him he gets a free lifetime membership to go along with it. And free advice from us all.