Glory years of HA

[CannedHam]

I've been a lurker since 2009/2010 and a member since 2012. Seems to me the glory years of this forum were from 2010-2014 in terms of quantity/quality of postings. Anyone else feel the same?

It's really depressing to see former all-star posters with 1k+ posts who haven't been active in many years. I guess FB, reddit, twitter are also making traditional forums obsolete.

[Contrarian Expatriate]

A lot of the controversial tenets of the forum have now become accepted truths in mainstream life.

For example, at the beginning, it was considered gospel truth that America (and the West) was the absolute best country for people, men especially. Well, that myth is no longer fully accepted by most people these days. It is accepted that Western women are insufferably bad, and life abroad can be far more fulfilling than in the West.

This board went a long way in driving home that point, but there are now so many digital nomad and life abroad forums, articles, and resources, that HR is not the only medium on the matter. So while the board has died down a bit in recent years, I think it is because its message has been so universally adopted. That is a very good thing.

HA now strikes me as an alternative views forum critical of established Western groupthink.

[xiongmao]

It would be nice if Winston would invest a bit more of the income of this site in the site rather than spending it in Angeles City. Like where's the SSL certificate? Hell Hostgator gave me a free one (see it used on my Chinese dating blog here).

Also we could do with some nice phpBB mods on here - I mean we still have the basic editor circa 2005 and there's no extra emoticons.

It's a shame because people wanting to leave the West and go and be HA has never been more popular. Well except for the ISIS members who have realised that they weren't HA after all and now want to go "home".

[zboy1]

A lot of the controversial tenets of the forum have now become accepted truths in mainstream life.

For example, at the beginning, it was considered social heresy to think that America (or the West) was the absolute best country for people, men especially. Well, that myth is no longer believed by most people these days. It is accepted that Western women are insufferably bad, and life abroad can be far more fulfilling than in the West.

This board went a long way in driving home that point, but there are now so many digital nomad and life abroad forums, articles, and resources, that HR is not the only mouthpiece on the matter. So while the board has died down a bit in recent years, I think it is because its message has been so universally adopted at truth.

HA now strikes me as an alternative views forum critical of established Western groupthink.

Exactly!

I remember when most people thought HA's were 'nuts." Now, our ideas are not an anomaly. In fact, as Contrarian mentioned, they are a bit mainstream nowadays. Everyone knows the West is f*cked, the U.S. sucks, that feminism is sh*t, and that foreign countries are better for life and dating.

[Moretorque]

yOU can thank the 1965 immigration act as being a major nail in the coffin for the USA, they even had Ted Kennedy promoting this disaterous bill for the states as in tote the line on the one world dictatorship or you are dead like your brothers...

[TruthSeeker]

It would be nice if Winston would invest a bit more of the income of this site in the site rather than spending it in Angeles City. Like where's the SSL certificate? Hell Hostgator gave me a free one (see it used on my Chinese dating blog here).

I looked on Bluehost (where HA is hosted) and it says:

FREE Domain Name Registration
FREE SSL Certificate Included
1-Click WordPress Install
24/7 Support
Starting at $2.95/month*

So why hasn't Winston implemented the free SSL certificate? Is this something new? Winston you might want to check into that.

[fschmidt]

Like where's the SSL certificate?

Who cares? HTTPS is worthless bullshit being promoted by evil Google. Just another example of misplaced priorities.

[TruthSeeker]

https://www.sslshopper.com/why-ssl-the- ... cates.html

Why SSL? The Purpose of using SSL Certificates

SSL is the backbone of our secure Internet and it protects your sensitive information as it travels across the world's computer networks. SSL is essential for protecting your website, even if it doesn't handle sensitive information like credit cards. It provides privacy, critical security and data integrity for both your websites and your users' personal information.
SSL Encrypts Sensitive Information
The primary reason why SSL is used is to keep sensitive information sent across the Internet encrypted so that only the intended recipient can access it. This is important because the information you send on the Internet is passed from computer to computer to get to the destination server. Any computer in between you and the server can see your credit card numbers, usernames and passwords, and other sensitive information if it is not encrypted with an SSL certificate. When an SSL certificate is used, the information becomes unreadable to everyone except for the server you are sending the information to. This protects it from hackers and identity thieves.

SSL Provides Authentication
In addition to encryption, a proper SSL certificate also provides authentication. This means you can be sure that you are sending information to the right server and not to an imposter trying to steal your information. Why is this important? The nature of the Internet means that your customers will often be sending information through several computers. Any of these computers could pretend to be your website and trick your users into sending them personal information. It is only possible to avoid this by getting an SSL Certificate from a trusted SSL provider.
Why are SSL providers important? Trusted SSL providers will only issue an SSL certificate to a verified company that has gone through several identity checks. Certain types of SSL certificates, like EV SSL Certificates, require more validation than others. How do you know if an SSL provider is trusted? You can use our SSL Wizard to compare SSL providers that are included in most web browsers. Web browser manufactures verify that SSL providers are following specific practices and have been audited by a third-party using a standard such as WebTrust.
SSL Provides Trust
Web browsers give visual cues, such as a lock icon or a green bar, to make sure visitors know when their connection is secured. This means that they will trust your website more when they see these cues and will be more likely to buy from you. SSL providers will also give you a trust seal that instills more trust in your customers.

HTTPS also protects against phishing attacks. A phishing email is an email sent by a criminal who tries to impersonate your website. The email usually includes a link to their own website or uses a man-in-the-middle attack to use your own domain name. Because it is very difficult for these criminals to receive a proper SSL certificate, they won’t be able to perfectly impersonate your site. This means that your users will be far less likely to fall for a phishing attack because they will be looking for the trust indicators in their browser, such as a green address bar, and they won’t see it.
SSL is required for PCI Compliance
In order to accept credit card information on your website, you must pass certain audits that show that you are complying with the Payment Card Industry (PCI) standards. One of the requirements is properly using an SSL Certificate.
Disadvantages of SSL
With so many advantages, why would anyone not use SSL? Are there any disadvantages to using SSL certificates? Cost is an obvious disadvantage. SSL providers need to set up a trusted infrastructure and validate your identity so there is a cost involved. This has been alleviated by increased competition in the industry and the introduction of providers like Let's Encrypt. Performance is another disadvantage to SSL. Because the information that you send has to be encrypted by the server, it takes more server resources than if the information weren’t encrypted. The performance difference is only noticeable for web sites with very large numbers of visitors and can be minimized with special hardware in such cases.
Overall, the disadvantages of using SSL are few and the advantages far outweigh them. It is critical that you properly use SSL on all websites. Proper use of SSL certificates will help protect your customers, help protect you, and help you to gain your customers trust and sell more.

[fschmidt]

The primary reason why SSL is used is to keep sensitive information sent across the Internet encrypted so that only the intended recipient can access it.

Nonsense. The biggest problem is actually the browser stealing your info, and Chrome does just that, sending it to Google, a company of pure evil.

Why are SSL providers important? Trusted SSL providers will only issue an SSL certificate to a verified company that has gone through several identity checks.

More nonsense. I have a free hosting service that anyone can use and can get a free unverified SSL certificate. I implemented this using https://letsencrypt.org/ . If you want, I can show you how to do this.

HTTPS also protects against phishing attacks. A phishing email is an email sent by a criminal who tries to impersonate your website. The email usually includes a link to their own website or uses a man-in-the-middle attack to use your own domain name. Because it is very difficult for these criminals to receive a proper SSL certificate, they won’t be able to perfectly impersonate your site.

More nonsense. Just get a similar domain name and have that server proxy to the real domain, altering or stealing whatever it wants. Users won't notice.

[fdiv]

I've been a lurker since 2009/2010 and a member since 2012. Seems to me the glory years of this forum were from 2010-2014 in terms of quantity/quality of postings. Anyone else feel the same?

It's really depressing to see former all-star posters with 1k+ posts who haven't been active in many years. I guess FB, reddit, twitter are also making traditional forums obsolete.

I have to disagree somewhat. I don't think it was ever that great. From what I can tell this site consists mostly of Mr. Wu's sockpuppet accounts chattering back and forth in order to make it appear that the site has lots of active users posting constructive content. Most of the users here are catatonic and completely act like bots!

[CannedHam]

I've been a lurker since 2009/2010 and a member since 2012. Seems to me the glory years of this forum were from 2010-2014 in terms of quantity/quality of postings. Anyone else feel the same?

It's really depressing to see former all-star posters with 1k+ posts who haven't been active in many years. I guess FB, reddit, twitter are also making traditional forums obsolete.

I have to disagree somewhat. I don't think it was ever that great. From what I can tell this site consists mostly of Mr. Wu's sockpuppet accounts chattering back and forth in order to make it appear that the site has lots of active users posting constructive content. Most of the users here are catatonic and completely act like bots!

Yeah I agree there is a lot of of drivel and unnecessary bickering. But at one point I recall a lot of the members were either living abroad or had lived abroad and had lots of first hand knowledge to share. Problem is the "here's what I think..." dreamer blowhards who never left their basement would outnumber of overwhelm the "here's what things are really like abroad..." posters who had actual useful info to share. Like when Scott Mallon would regularly post here but he got into a scuffle with Winnie the Wu and GTFO'd.

[Cornfed]

I have to disagree somewhat. I don't think it was ever that great. From what I can tell this site consists mostly of Mr. Wu's sockpuppet accounts chattering back and forth in order to make it appear that the site has lots of active users posting constructive content.

Winston only trolled his own forum once or twice and was called out fairly quickly as I recall. Most of us are real. The reason for the decline is probably that the opportunities for Westerners abroad are declining.

[dancilley]

This forum is not obsolete to me, because FB has banned me more than once. FB can delete anything/anyone with the click of a button, so I would recommend Winston put more energy into this site. Also, I don't recommend Bluehost because I was banned from them also. There are other web hosting companies that let any kind of content to be uploaded, so long as it isn't illegal.

I am very frustrated that so many people are offended at, and do not accept, sexual content, and politically incorrect content. They refuse to be open to ideas and information that will allow them to live a truly great life.

YouTube will delete your videos easily if you do not age restrict them.

It is wrong that we do not truly have freedom of speech, or, that so many people and corporations do not believe in freedom of speech.

People act as though sex is evil, and that you are a wicked, bad person if you are trying to make progress toward successful reproduction. That is completely wrong. The truth is that talking to fertile, healthy women and giving them pleasure and causing them to like you makes you extremely happy as a man. You are supposed to engage in the process of reproduction. But people have been, and constantly are being, programmed to believe that consumerism is the way to live the happiest and most fulfilling life.

It is so crazy how people think you are a menace and a disgusting person, just because your mind is focused on sex and reproduction.

I am going to create a cult that is similar to other cults that have already existed. But this cult will not engage in any illegal behavior, such as not waiting until a girl is of the age of consent.

There already have been cults where a man can feel good about being himself, that is, he gets to engage in a sexual relationship with a young woman, and produce as many babies as possible. He gets to attract many other women and do the same thing, i.e. form a polygynous family.

So, he gets to engage in the process of sexual reproduction as much as he desires, and that is what makes him happy. It's not quite that simple obviously, but one thing is certain--that our environment, the society we live in today, does not educate, support, promote, etc. the huge need to be sexually active, to build a family, and to be valuable to the members of that family.

So, I am serious about creating a new environment, where everyone is as happy as possible because everyone is healthy and getting all their needs met.

My website is http://ltblp.com. I make videos and do streams where I talk about what matters in life.

Together, we can create a gated community where men can be men, and women can be women, and no one has limiting beliefs, such as that talking to women is "predatory behavior," that women cooking is "slavery," etc.

Like I said, in recent history, and now, there are people who are already living a similar lifestyle. So I am extremely confident we can create one for ourselves. We just have to do the work to create it, and then it will exist, and hopefully our lifestyle will be accepted by mainstream society eventually.

[CannedHam]

I have to disagree somewhat. I don't think it was ever that great. From what I can tell this site consists mostly of Mr. Wu's sockpuppet accounts chattering back and forth in order to make it appear that the site has lots of active users posting constructive content.

Winston only trolled his own forum once or twice and was called out fairly quickly as I recall. Most of us are real. The reason for the decline is probably that the opportunities for Westerners abroad are declining.

I think there are still some untapped markets abroad (namely Central/South America), but they are slowly shrinking. Asia, in particular, has drastically changed with places like Thailand becoming incredibly expensive and over-saturated with foreigners. Same thing will probably happen to Vietnam soon, as more westerners are heading there nowadays. China is absolutely out of the question nowadays with the current regime/situation if you're looking to do anything other than a 1-2 year "fun" stint teaching English, and even that is bordeline.