JK-Trilly

Again, I don't really know, but all of my closest expat friends in Thailand have been here at least 20 years and none of them post on this site at all. They might read something if somebody sends them a link to a specific news article, but that's about the extent of their interaction on this site. Even if they're looking for some answers about changes to visa laws or something like that, they wouldn't post a question on this site. What they typically do is speak to other expat friends or do an online search for news articles, maybe go onto the Bangkok Post or The Examiner. And nowadays, many people are posting questions to AI models for answers rather than even searching using engines anymore. And why do they do this, because they don't really put any stock in crowdsourced information or opinions from people whom they don't know. Most of them also don't have a very positive opinion of other foreigners in Thailand in general so that may have a big something to do with it as well. I'm not trying to discredit what you're saying, but this is just based on the knowledge of my core group of long-term expat friends in Thailand.

I would think it's a pretty low number if you are referring to "active expat members". None of my long time expat friends come on here AFAIK. I think there are quite a few that may come for an occasional news article, question or answer, but that's probably about it. If I had to take a guess and, to finally answer your question, I would guess it's less than 5%.

Thank you to everyone, who took the time to cast their vote in the poll and to add something to this topic.

This is just a short follow-up to my previous topic (linked below). Based on all the responses everyone gave, I’ve put together a list of the 10 most common reasons people spend time on the forum (trolling, flaming and bickering not included). To get a clearer picture of the most significant driving factors, I’ve now created a simple poll where you can quickly vote for the reasons that resonate with you the most without having to restate what you already posted in detail earlier. I’m curious to see what really motivates others and whether the reasons people keep coming back are much different from my own. Personally, I’d say it’s mostly boredom and habit in my case. Occasionally, I find it entertaining and somewhat interesting to hear other people’s opinions, but if I could keep myself fully occupied with other activities, that would probably take care of the boredom factor and might help to break the habit. However, based on some of the responses to my previous post, it seems that my reasons are not necessarily the same for others. I’d appreciate it if you could take a moment to quickly and kindly cast your vote (you can select multiple reasons in the poll if you want to). I'm interested to get a better sense of what drives other people’s interests and see what percentage of other people's reasons might align with my own. Thank you.

That does sound like a generally positive approach and a good way to avoid the bickering and toxicity. My only caveat is that I find many of the news headlines pretty negative and disturbing, especially the ones highlighted in the daily newsletters. Do you agree? A lot of the newsletter highlights seem to focus on drug or other criminal-related arrests of foreigners, and there are often stories about foreigners causing problems and ending up in trouble in Thailand. To me, this creates a pattern of negative and toxic topics that I really don’t want to start my day reading. It seems like this type of content attracts attention, which might be why it dominates the newsletters. Honestly, if there weren't so many links to drug busts or foreigner arrests, I think I’d find the newsletters more positive. There’s nothing wrong with including those news stories on the site for those who want to read them, but I don't need them to be the primary focus in my inbox.

Lots of good feedback here. It seems like many people are simply on the site because of boredom, and some are like me, hoping to break the habit completely, rather than looking for happiness or fulfillment, which is something I don't seem to get from the site as I mentioned in my OP. That got me thinking, if we’re not here to find personal happiness or emotional fulfillment, then what is it that we’re actually hoping to get out of the site when we come here? That is a good question. Is it just about passing the time, learning something new, or maybe finding some interesting conversations? Or is it just about being heard, sharing your thoughts with others and offering advice? Perhaps if we shifted our focus a little and thought about ways we can still get something useful from the site, without expecting emotional satisfaction from it, then maybe that would work better. For example, do you think there are parts of the site that offer more intellectual or thought-provoking discussions, rather than pure toxicity, that might be more enriching, even if they don’t provide happiness or fulfillment? Or perhaps some people could find it useful for personal growth, even if the site isn’t a place to seek happiness. I also wonder if there’s a way to engage in a more positive way without getting drawn into reading all the heavy negativity that can sometimes take over. So I wonder how does one manage to avoid the temptation of following negative threads or posts that don’t contribute to anything productive? Is there a way to focus on just the good parts without getting caught up in the drama or angry and intense bickering matches?

I’m actually finding some positives in that though. The fact that the most toxic posters on the site don't have any limitations on their posting abilities has led me to spend less time on the site reading, simply because I don’t want to be in their presence. So in a way, it’s helping me pull away at times. Honestly, I worry that if there were a lot more quality posters on the site to begin with, it would be even harder to stop reading as much. Do you agree?

In fact, just the thought of that might be enough to break the habit. 👍🏼

+1 😂

Ignore is a very useful tool, but if you rely on it too much, you might end up only seeing posts from a small handful of members. To some extent, I think you have to take the bad with the good, otherwise, you’re not really getting the full experience, and it can start to feel a bit limiting. On the other hand, you could also say that choosing who you engage with carefully is just a smart way to navigate any situation.

I completely agree. For nearly 30 years in Thailand, I never really looked at this site. Though to be fair, I don’t think it was even around for the first 15 years that I was here. Over time, I would occasionally glance at it for bits of information, but I never visited regularly. It’s really only in the last year or two that I started reading more, and mainly for the reasons you just mentioned: boredom and age. When I was younger, I wouldn’t have had any interest in something like this. So I guess I have two choices: either somehow become younger again or find better ways to spend my time. I also used to work a lot more, especially on personal projects, and that’s something I plan to start doing more of again. Hopefully, that will help fill my time in a more rewarding way. As I said before, stepping back from spending too much time reading here is a work in progress, but I’m actively working on it.

Maybe so, but interacting with them in an online discussion is still Ok with you?

By definition, an online messaging platform is an online community. An online community is simply a group of people interacting through digital platforms, typically on the internet. But to save us from another 12 posts debating use of the term “online community,” here are some alternative phrases you can use if it makes you feel better: Forum Message Board Comment Section Chat Room

Does this online community make you feel very happy and fulfilled, or are you here mainly out of boredom, loneliness, anger, frustration, depression, or something else? My post here is meant to be a bit of a confession and, for me, I can honestly say it doesn’t give me much fulfillment, yet I still keep coming back to read things daily. I’m not even sure why. I likely fall into one of the categories I just mentioned above. Honestly, it feels like a bad habit I wish I could break, but so far, I haven’t been able to, although some days I am able to really pull away from it all. So it's still a work in progress. That’s not to say I’m here to bash the forum or blame anyone. It’s certainly not anyone’s fault. In fact, it’s probably my own fault for looking for fulfillment within something that likely isn’t capable of providing it. There are a few posters here who seem quite obsessed and very toxic, and I really don’t like reading what they have to say, so I just look past their posts and don’t fall victim to their negativity. So that isn’t really the big problem. Also, it is what it is, so everyone has the right to express their thoughts. I think the main issue for me is that most of what I see and read on the site just doesn’t really resonate with me. There are very few people whose opinions I feel I can relate to. That said, I do enjoy reading posts from a handful of members, particularly those who take a more thoughtful, intellectual, and philosophical approach rather than filling their posts with repetitive bias and anger. Unfortunately, the loudest voices on the forum are often the ones who post incessantly without adding much and often seem to be the most aggressive and condescending. Some discussions are dominated by people who don’t appear interested in real conversation but rather just want to be heard or to criticize others. That makes a lot of topics feel repetitive and unproductive. Maybe that’s a big part of the problem for me and that they create an atmosphere that I often don’t want to be a part of. I tend to browse The Pub and The Political Soapbox the most, and sometimes I check out the (mostly shocking and disturbing) news section. However, I often find that discussions quickly stray so far from the original topic, often turning into bickering matches, that I simply lose interest. I wish I had ideas to offer on how to improve the discourse here, but honestly, I’m not sure if there’s a real solution. Maybe it’s just the nature of online communities. There are only so many topics to discuss, and eventually, things start to feel stale. If I had one suggestion to make, it would be to limit people to a maximum number of posts per 24-hour period. Say, no more than 35-40. I still think that’s a generous number, but it would certainly help reduce the level of toxicity from those who seem to go to great lengths to regularly sour the mood with their daily post counts, often up in the hundreds. That said, I’m curious if there are other areas of the forum that people find more engaging or rewarding, perhaps sections I’ve totally overlooked? I know there are plenty of areas where people ask and share information on topics related to life in Thailand, visas, and similar topics, and those can be really helpful for those in need of specific details. But for me, I rarely need that kind of information, so those sections don’t hold much interest. I do like the section about banking and the economy, but again, there isn’t much new and interesting content being discussed there. It’s often just people having difficulty transferring funds, tax questions, how to open financial accounts, and similar issues. Anyway, I’m just throwing this out there to see what others think. Maybe some of you feel the same way, or maybe you see things totally differently. Any feedback, either positive, constructive or negative about what I said is more than welcome.

The S&P is down 6.75% from its high of 6,147 in early February, closing at 5,738 today. That entire decline has happened within the last 30 days, all since Trump took office. The percentage drop itself isn’t massive, considering how much the S&P has risen over the past few years. What is significant, however, is when it falls below its 200-day moving average, which it did today for the first time in 16 months. A 20% drop is technically required to officially enter a bear market, but breaking below the 200-day moving average triggers a sell signal, meaning traders should exit all long positions. Long-term investors can ride it out, but at this stage, nobody should be going long in equities when this sell-off could still have a long way to go. If the market falls much further, then the only way Trump could push the market back up after the damage he’s caused would be by pressuring the Fed to cut interest rates, but that seems unlikely. The Fed won’t be eager to cut in an inflationary environment, and once stagflation sets in, reversing the damage won’t be as simple as flipping a switch. Trump was handed an almost perfect economic situation, inflation hovering around 2% and unemployment at one of its lowest levels in decades, around 4%. All he had to do was just leave it alone. Then he came in like a wrecking ball with his sweeping tariffs and laying off tens of thousands of government workers, and in just 30 days, he’s already inflicted significant damage. If things continue on this trajectory, he could be facing a full-blown economic crisis in a few months, one that he won’t be able to fix just by flip-flopping his position every 24 hours. No president has implemented sweeping tariffs ever since the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which was widely recognized as one of the major contributors to the Great Depression which started after the stock market crash in 1929. Every president since then has understood that tariffs don’t fix anything, they only break things in the system. He clearly has no idea what he's doing. Only a fool would start a trade war with its closest trading partners. Canada buys more stuff from the US than the UK, France, China, and Japan combined and the have already started making efforts to stop buying American products as much as possible. China is planning to do the same.