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Early Retirement Extreme Forums » Lifestyle Questions

1. 

   jacob
   

   Expert
   Joined: Jul '10
   Posts: 3,297

   NYC made a good point that there are already subcultures or communities which are compatible with ERE.

   I have tried to find label to explain to people what it's all about with moderate success. It always turns out to have a missing component or something which is completely incompatible with the culture.

   For example, we share the DIY attitude of punk subculture, but not the clothes/fashion and anticapitalism. I share many ideals with libertarians, but not the environmental aspects. We also have things in common with bohemians, beatniks, etc...

   In fact I've mostly found many identifying traits with subculture (suggesting that they all share commonalities).

   So I am at a loss ...

   Posted 2 years ago #
2. 

   Zev
   

   Master
   Joined: Aug '10
   Posts: 437

   More speculation: Trust fund babies might share some qualities with EREs. There are probably a lot of secret and subtle trust funders who don't live lavishly, some of whom may live only on interest/dividends. Rich kids (another name for them) are disproportionately involved in the arts and literature, I've observed. I'm not a TFB but I've gone to school with some.

   Such folks are usually liberal rather than libertarian.

   Another "subculture:" old retired people living on a fixed income. Many of them probably live a similar lifestyle to young "retirees," traveling and reading, volunteering, sitting on boards, sailing...

   Posted 2 years ago #
3. 

   il-besa
   

   Journeyman
   Joined: Jul '10
   Posts: 107

   Umh... I would say people into volunteering/charity, working for development organizations, have things in common... like the frugality aspect, the idealism, the non-centric work life, the open mind.... at least from my experience.

   But then becomes very personal, also all the ERE and ERE wannabe are not the same!

   Posted 2 years ago #
4. 

   Steve Austin
   

   Journeyman
   Joined: Jul '10
   Posts: 178

   ERE, beatniks, aye. Also what about the original hippies, before the mainstreaming and faddishness of that movement in the late 1960s United States?

   I self-identify with "Gen X", but not fanatically. When I was in high school, I wrote a current events paper on the Social Security trust fund liability, and the term (for what is now Gen X) back then was the Baby Bust, contrasted with the Baby Boom, of course. I bring up this X thing only to mention another subculture with which ERE may relate, Generation X / Lost Generation / Gilded Generation / Liberty Generation / Cavalier Generation / Reprisal Generation, i.e. Nomad (Reactive):

   http://bit.ly/bgu812

   (table apparently from the Strauss/Howe book Generations)

   Posted 2 years ago #
5. 

   MidwestHomebody
   

   Apprentice
   Joined: Jul '10
   Posts: 42

   I would posit that labels or subcultures are mostly important to marketers looking to cash in on trends and sociologists describing social movements ten years after. If we look at hippie communes or other experiments in group living, they have failed for the most part. (An exception being fundamentalist Mormons in the Southwest, but they have baggage we don't want to emulate.) However, even if we picked a state or a city to migrate to, the whole idea of ERE would preclude us from trying to seize power to legislate our version of the "good life" on unwilling others, except, perhaps, to further expand liberty. This negates the purpose of ERE, which to me is freedom from coercion and wage slavery. It's also antithetical to the libertarian / anarchist views expressed on this site. I would say, if someone wants to move, they can find an area friendly to that individual's needs and we can all live our lives the way we want. So if ERE catches on, it will be spontaneous and grass-roots, and maybe worthy of a PhD thesis ten years hence.

   Posted 2 years ago #
6. 

   MidwestHomebody
   

   Apprentice
   Joined: Jul '10
   Posts: 42

   Now no longer mostly harmless, beware of my average literary rapier!

   Posted 2 years ago #
7. 

   Q
   

   Master
   Joined: Jul '10
   Posts: 346

   Nothing wrong with ERE infiltrating ranks of the system...

   Posted 2 years ago #
8. 

   The Dude
   

   Master
   Joined: Jul '10
   Posts: 392

   I think the simple living and small living space communities very ERE like but without the long term planning of FI and personal desire for freedom from the monetary things that hold us back from it.

   Posted 2 years ago #
9. 

   Mo
   

   Master
   Joined: Jul '10
   Posts: 442

   Since learning about the ERE concept I have encountered many people who seem to be living in a way that is consistent with ERE. Many of them are still employed. The common thread that I seem to encounter is the rejection of consumerism-- the anti-consumerist.

   Posted 2 years ago #
10. 

    Zev
    

    Master
    Joined: Aug '10
    Posts: 437

    where does the Adbusters crowd hang out? my suspicion is that they work high-paid jobs in advertising, so it would be interesting to see how much they've dropped on faux-retro furniture, or whether they actually live an anti-consumerist lifestyle.

    Posted 2 years ago #
11. 

    Seabourne
    

    Novice
    Joined: Jul '10
    Posts: 25

    I's posit that the "Make" community and associated probably have an enormous amount of overlap, the exceptions being primarily that they accumulate things to play with - tools, scrap supplies, space to work in, but otherwise, I think that they would fit right in. They do tend to be far less consumerist, and focus on being able to make/fix/create, and avoid spending on things that are disposable.

    Posted 2 years ago #

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