Early Retirement Extreme Forums

There's been a lot of political and geopolitical upheaval lately. Have you made any personal decisions with it in mind, and how has it impacted your ERE? How do you anticipate it impacting your ERE and how are you preparing?

As we are in the lifestyle forum and not the politics one, please refrain from loaded statements and political insinuations (even mild ones). I am strictly curious about how people have adapted to what has been happening on a personal level. I am also curious about how you see the next 6-18 months go, and how you are adjusting to that.

While this isn't the money thread, if you have made any changes in asset ownership (both financial and real assets), id be curious about that

As I wrote in the other thread, I got back to work. I also bought around 9 months of dried goods supplies (rice, chickpeas, lentils and oat flakes). I'm also becoming more hedonistic (which translates into spending more money on small pleasures - I'm on track to go from $6k per year to something like $10k - although part of that is inflation to be sure), seeing how fragile our existence and current state of comfort can be.

+1 Zbigi's dry goods and still getting a pay-check.

Other than that, I'm keeping good information hygiene. It is not of vital importance for me to understand who is more at fault or who started it when bad things go down. I don't obsess about what I can't control -- this was not always the case, and took a while for me to "get right."

Business as usual here in the USA.

My responses are not based on war fears, they are more based on pandemic, grid down, civil unrest, supply chain failure, severe weather event fears.

My freezers are full of food, although if electric power goes out, that food will not be good after about 2 or 3 days.

I have shelf storage of things like canned refried beans and whole wheat crackers, canned fruit and other stuff that would provide food without the need to cook for about 2 weeks, maybe more. Just need a can opener. I have large bottles of water stored in the basement as an emergency supply, maybe 20 gallons.

I need to get another face cord of firewood before fall. I have a 5 lb propane tank and the fittings to run a two burner camp stove.

My cars are in decent maintenance condition.

I have a camper van with solar power, big battery bank, a fridge, water tank, sink, RV toilet. If a tree falls on my house I can live in the van for as long as I need to, just need to dump the tank and fill the water every week. As long as I don't drive much, my tank of gasoline could last months. I use propane to cook and heat water, that tank will also last months of full time live aboard use.

Same here @sky and @zbigi, one of the first things I did were also to stock-up on non-perishables. I figured even if it's only in service of my anxiety, it wouldn't do harm.

@candide, the part that worries me about information hygiene isn't so much to determine who's wrong or who started it--rather, there might be a key development which might mean an urgent need to act. it's a balance - staying informed vs doom scrolling.

personally, i am glad to have gone to work as well. depending on how inflation develops, this might have been pointless: the risk would not have justified the real value of what i was paid to undertake it. but right now, the steady paycheck is a comfort. the stash isn't of a size where i am able to have no anxiety when withdrawing during a downtrend

ertyu wrote: ↑

Sat Jul 02, 2022 3:23 am

@candide, the part that worries me about information hygiene isn't so much to determine who's wrong or who started it--rather, there might be a key development which might mean an urgent need to act. it's a balance - staying informed vs doom scrolling.

Same here. I really wish there was a service called "relevant news", which posts only info about things that actually matter and are actionable. It sucks that, even though I spend a fair amount of time on the news, I sometimes miss things that are actually important for me (e.g. big tax changes for IT contractors) and am only informed about them by my friends. What's the point of reading news when I can't even get the relevant info, but am instead drowned by political squabbling and endless pundits pieces and speculation... It's clear that the news organization see themselves as mostly provider of entertainment and generally a filler of void in people's lives.

i like news, but it's clearly a hobby (even if it allowed me several times to anticipate a buying panic). I'm im switzerland, so it's about as safe as can be, except concerning food, but we are surounded by net exporters, so i'm not to worried.
I have some stocks, and if they aren't enough, i'm ok with improvising and eventually dying if i'm too bad at it.
I find it very hard to know what exactly to prepare for.

zbigi wrote: ↑

Sat Jul 02, 2022 4:53 am

Same here. I really wish there was a service called "relevant news", which posts only info about things that actually matter and are actionable. It sucks that, even though I spend a fair amount of time on the news, I sometimes miss things that are actually important for me (e.g. big tax changes for IT contractors) and am only informed about them by my friends. What's the point of reading news when I can't even get the relevant info, but am instead drowned by political squabbling and endless pundits pieces and speculation... It's clear that the news organization see themselves as mostly provider of entertainment and generally a filler of void in people's lives.

Those news would have to be highly tuned by someone/something that knows your situation very well. Algorithms are making a brave (reckless?) attempt, but in mass media that sorting mechanism is left to the individual person. In other words, it's the difference between broadcast and narrowcast. Pundits tend to serve as "virtual friends" for people who can't formulate their own conclusions. They basically translate information into knowledge/opinion. It's a partial solution to the broadcast/narrowcast issue. Find an opinionator to identify in order to skip the information gathering stage. Media bubbles are another solution which solves the cognitive dissonance issue---they simply ignore anything that may pop the bubble. A good indicator to whether the news is generally relevant is whether it shows up in the Venn overlap between different bubbles---very little does---identifying this requires following more than one bubble.

The other question is ... does the people really need to know [the news]? I think in a democracy they do. But since we for the most part live in representative democracies, the people don't need to know. Politicians are equivalent to pundits in that regard. Pundits with power though. This comes with its own set of problems (it shifts the power outside the noosphere). One can for the most part do fine on a zero-information diet. However, being a news junkie has its advantages. E.g. this forum picked up on COVID19 in Jan2020. This gave people two (TWO!!) months to get their shit in order. Whereas much of the world was blindsided and consequently angry (blaming the forced move on someone else). So it is with many things. The problem is false positives.

WW3 is location dependent. Some countries nobody really cares about


Like in Cold War, maybe live in Hong Kong? This makes sense because it is not in any group. USA will not nuke city that belongs to UK. China will not nuke city that is "really" Chinese/full of Chinese. USSR will not nuke "China" (the UK but really China). While also, HK offers full convenience. Cool modern city. Not hole in the dirt in Montana.


Today, HK is not offering this sort of protection. But what is the equivalent?

@prudentio the other option is, instead of belonging to all groups, to be a place that's completely irrelevant.

South and Central Americas did well in the previous world war - no major players there, and they're too far away and too insignificant to be relevant for the major players.

One of my ex-polyamours may be profiteering off the situation by acquiring a Ukrainian refugee war bride This will effect me only to the extent that he will no longer be available as my person I am most likely to call if I blow a tire on the highway, but gas is too expensive for me to be doing much driving anyways. Also, I predict the relationship will only last for as long as it takes her to learn enough English to understand him.

One thing to prepare is: be ready to move, and move fast. I.e. leave your house within 2 days with enough things to travel and be ok for months or years in a new place.

zbigi wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 03, 2022 2:10 am

South and Central Americas did well in the previous world war - no major players there, and they're too far away and too insignificant to be relevant for the major players.

china has a foothold there in some of the resource industries

This discussion reminds me a bit of a classic article from the blog that got me into ERE: https://earlyretirementextreme.com/the- ... treme.html

Personally, I have invested in some things that will give me a buffer in case of a food/energy shortage, such as dried/canned food, a wood stove and firewood, and so on. But the marginal value of these items drops quickly, in my opinion.

For instance, let's say you have one year's worth of food storage. Sounds nice, but if there were really even a two-month global food shortage, you may have enough food but most of your neighbors certainly won't, so then your concern is going to be them breaking down your door to steal your food to avoid starvation. Buy a gun, then, you say, but those people will also likely have guns. The point is that there is a real limit to the usefulness of disaster prepping. I also don't think trying to live in the global south is going to make you safe from the effects of a major upheaval. As world markets become increasingly correlated, they will be subject to the same shocks we are.

So my strategy is to hedge my bets (as in the abovementioned article) and prepare for the possibility of mild or intermittent food or energy shortages, while also placing some bets on the possibility of none of that ever happening and continued prosperity.

Also, in terms of web of goals, I actually enjoy heating my house with a wood stove. Cutting/hauling/stacking firewood gets me outside and gets me exercise and the radiant heat from a woodstove is the most comfortable type of heat I've ever experienced. Having dried or canned staples on hand saves me a lot of trips to the supermarket (I can usually just buy vegetables from the local farmer). So ideally whatever efforts you are making to build resilience should also improve your life in the present.

@jacob, in the comments of the post referenced above, in addition to the three books recommended in the body of the post, you mention sthephen leeb as someone whose work contains "the best paper strategies for the bad outcome." Am now reading The Oil Factor, which is the only book of his I am able to access. What is your current thinking on his work?

I think the issue with something like a global famine is that so many people are going to die that it will dramatically change the world. The after effects of something like that are hard to predict, so flexibility and hedged options remain important.

As for me, this is what I'm doing:
- Probably going to stay in software a lot longer (having money always helps)
- Pick up camping as hobby and prepare equipment for that in an easy go-bag in case the worst happens and I have to evacuate
- Develop diet/storage solution to live off dry storage for up to a year
- Get in shape
- Pick up a lot of skills
- Start radio hobby again

Not much.

I increased dry storage back in early 2020. Maintaining it is easy. At the same time, I added sprouting my own sprouts, making fresh greens easier and more common.

Still avoiding news. Mrs riggerjack monitors

https://m.youtube.com/c/AgendaFreeTV.

If something relevant comes up, I'll take a look. This is where I saw the Chinese C19 reaction/actions in January 2020. Spoiler alert, low production quality, complete amateur content, and Steve is biased as hell. But it is a good reminder to me of how little most people understand about how the world around them operates. For my purposes, these are features, not bugs.

To the extent that I want to know more about a subject, I tend to listen to hetrodox long form podcasts. For instance, this is the sort of things I consumed as part of my understanding of the Ukraine/Russian conflict:

Red famine, https://www.amazon.com/Red-Famine-Stali ... 0385538855 an account of the Russian/Ukrainian conflict from late WW1 thru Stalin. Extensive examples how a state can make life untenable.

https://martyrmade.substack.com/p/podca ... ne#details

Darryl Cooper is American, and conservative, but what he talks about is somehow completely missing in the MSM, especially the conservative brands.

None of my sources would be relevant to most here. I only included them as examples of news management in support of Jacob's model of using known personalities to process the raw data, and filter noise.

Just living my life. Whatever happens happens.