Even more interesting that two of these bloggers were once “Stocktwit Recommended” traders, including @kunal00 and @urban_ryno. In fact @kunal00 has been consistently one of the *best* traders on Twitter, and anyone who has been on Stocktwits long enough knows this.

Howard Lindzon has a problem with @stockgod (that would be me) because his ego is far too large. As many will tell you all of my picks have been incredible, even after I was banned from Stocktwits. We started Bulls On Wall Street because we believe there is room for a community who welcomes all people, regardless of their backgrounds, and we allow the community to weed out the garbage, it’s a pretty simple concept.

While you may refer to it as a “lame alternative” I guarantee you that our followers are making larger returns, not to mention we clear out much of the noise that you’ll find on the broader stream. I would never dump a stock on our community — and I do not consider myself above anyone. I might also mention that my entire portfolio is up over 450% this year – and if you ask any of my followers they have all done incredibly well watching me trade.

I’m not here to bash one or promote another, but I do not accept your inclusion of our site as merely “penny stock deviants” — it’s just not the case. Currently many of the stocktwit stream and recommended users follow me, @kunal00, @urban_ryno, and @copperstl.. take a look for yourself..

Next time you write something I would encourage you to back up your statements with facts. Otherwise I wish you well, good luck and thanks for mentioning us.

@stockgod, http://www.bullsonwallstreet.com

Good to hear from you and I hope all is well at Brown/in Texas.

A couple thoughts I had on your response. I think time is relative (as is the world). If you wanted to achieve the exact standard of living enjoyed by even the wealthiest men of, say, Teddy Roosevelt’s era, you would have to do actually quite little. In the modern world, we work harder and longer to achieve a standard of living those men could never have even dreamed of. Right now, I’m reading a book called “Spent. Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior” and it really makes you think about why we work so much. Surely, there are exceptions. There’s the uneducated single mother with three kids, etc. But in general, the time is there — it’s just what we decide to do with it.

I also think there are many distractions. This I agree with. Sometimes technology is a huge distraction. At night, I can watch 500 channels, I can share pointless conversations on a slew of internet widgets, I can take the elevator down and lounge with my laptop at the Italian eatery in my building. In the olden days, you didn’t have such options. When the sun expired, you had to tell stories, read, or write. So agreed on that.

But you’re right, thanks to technology we can have these lengthy conversations at a moment’s notice. Cheers to that.

Long time no talk. I enjoyed your post very much. Dr. Miller told me about your blog last week. I would like to offer my own take on the death of writing, and I suppose the death of reading:

When talking about the writing and correspondence of the past, we can not overlook the time, and world, in which both took place. Obviously, we live in a much different world now than in the time of our Founding Fathers, and their world had (or lacked) various elements which allowed them to read and write to such an extent.

First, is time and money. Not to say the Founding Fathers were twittling their thumbs in between letters (they were laying the foundation for one of the greatest societies on Earth), but had the time that most lacked.

One only needs to read a few lines of a letter to know that it was a work of great time and effort. Because these men were educated and affluent, they could afford to write such volumes. And its not like everyone was releasing such tomes. There are plenty of farmers, or even educated merchants that, out of necessity, had to devote more time to their enterprise than their correspondence. Given their various backgrounds, not all Founding Fathers wrote to such an extent.

Today, I do not think that much has changed in the economics of writing: those who do it are the ones who can afford (or get payed) to do it. Most people simply do not have the time. Teddy was from a wealthy family and so he could go on hunting (on which he wrote a great deal) and exploring and reading and writing. A very different position from someone who was working in a factory or meat-packing plant or farm whose livelihood and survival required the majority of their conscious time and effort. Similarly, few people today have the time to write to a “prolific” degree.

Its getting late, and I could write a whole blog of mine own on this but I will make a few more quick considerations.

Modes of communication. Letters were longer, in part, because it was more efficient to express many idea in a long letter and then have someone respond in a long letter of their own; as opposed to waiting weeks to address one point at a time. Today, thanks to technology, a lengthy conversation can be had at great distances in the same format as an in-person conversation.

Also, there were fewer distractions. There wasn’t TV, the facebook, or professional sports to which they could devote time. There were just fewer ways to spend their time.

Ok, I am going to sleep. Let me hear your thoughts on my thoughts.

The events of my life provide the excitement, I think, to make it readable. I think the key is getting the meta-themes right — the hypocrisy and destructive power of The System, the oppressive path forced upon us and the enduring allure of succumbing to a perverse social order.

Philalawyer does this expertly. He writes interesting tales with the sex, drugs, and rock and roll aspect balanced by a deep, biting social critique. It’s true, it’s been written, but he brings something unique to the table with a raucous wit, excellent writing, and scorn for his profession. Could I do the same? I don’t know. And would it be tired? I’m not sure; I don’t think so. I know I’m a bit vague about what it is that has made my experience unique, but only because this is a public forum.

Polite literary culture, I think, would regard Philalawyer as lowbrow, but it isn’t. Tucker Max is lowbrow, fair, even if hilarious. The funny thing is, Max is just as conscious, and were he a better writer, he could have written a book with more takeaways. He’s just trying to entertain. Can you think of other modern writers — Chuck Klosterman comes to mind — that are funny, interesting, while critiquing culture in some of the ways I might seek to?

I should preface this by saying that I’m not at all familiar with Tucker Max, aside from the disdain a few friends have for him. So I can’t quite place the reference.

I admire the approach to write for an audience that is wider than your advisors. In the first potential angle, I worry that you’d walking over well-trodden ground. In addition, you’d be welcoming readers to approach your story as one of identification rather than insight. This is a particular worry of mine in any type of storytelling that covers a broad, identifiable subject. College, naturally, fits the bill.

I find the second angle more intriguing, but I’m a post-modern guy, so that shouldn’t be surprising. Perhaps I’m just showing my preferences. In this approach, though, my concern would be that you already seem too on-the-nose about your feelings on the culture. It sounds like something I’ve both read and heard before; I feel like it’s perhaps the first step. That the project would not be about pinning down the world you describe, but forcing yourself to take something away from it. That pinning down would essentially be your first act, and not the entire story.

An over-arching concern is that your advisors will want to push you, and won’t settle for something so immediately in your wheelhouse. I say that not to discourage you; in fact, I feel the opposite: if this is what you want, it’s smart to start pressing on the pitch now. If it’s good, the general subject you’re approaching won’t matter a lick.

Hope this is at least somewhat helpful; I look forward to reading more about it as you work through it.