Early Retirement Extreme Forums

Once I got the shield I realized I'd probably never have much of a sword and to pursue my [relatively] impotent sword for the majority of my life would be a fool's errand... So I'm turning my shield into a fortress (self-sufficiency).

Having the power to say "No." is incredibly satisfying... Funny, it's almost unrelated to money as sustenance farmers, and even the homeless have this power.

secretwealth wrote:Also, I rarely do this, but this is an important and very personal thread to me. Any more references to libertarian vs. socialist ideological debates will get deleted. It's entirely unrelated and you know it.

secret wields the banhammer? I demand mod representation for the Libertarians!

I promise to shut up.

SW--Just reminding you of how you started this thread...

"I was thinking of posting this on my journal, but I think it deserves broader discussion."

Felix wrote:Internal freedom is probably helpful in attaining external freedom. It also may be the missing freedom for some who are good at the external side.

Internal freedom may be independent from the external freedom after you've reached enlightenment.

There is an important distinction to be made between absolute internal freedom and partial internal freedom. I'd say that absolute internal freedom is pretty much non-existent; while it's possible to shackle yourself to one idea (consumerism), it's also possible to free yourself from that idea and shackle yourself to another one. In my case, I gave up consumerism for academic prestige nearly 15 years ago. That doesn't mean I was any freer than the average wage slave--in fact, I'd say I was at least on par if not less free.

@jp: Broad discussion is good. Unrelated tangents on ideological bugbears are not.

Yes, one can make yourself a slave to many different ideals. There is a talk on youtube by David Foster Wallace (this is water) where he says that the thing you worship will enslave or destroy you. If you worship beauty you will always feel ugly, if you worship knowledge you will always feel ignorant, if you worship money you will always feel poor. I guess academic status is one of these things.

What I liked about the original post was the recognition of the materialistic side of things as important. I think there is a part in Kiyosaki's Rich Dad Poor Dad (I don't like the guy, but the book is pretty good) where he goes into how it is ridiculous to say that money is not important only to spend your entire life trying to make enough and that it's better to recognize it as important and consequently not spend your entire life enslaved to make it.

I have always had the thoughts that going for money means being a sell-out, that it is somehow demeaning etc. and to some degree I still do even though not to the extent that I once used to. But it is simply a recognition of the reality of things to accept the importance of money in today's society.

Your post really drove the idea home.

secretwealth wrote:@jp: Broad discussion is good. Unrelated tangents on ideological bugbears are not.

Do you remember this thread? viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3877&start=0
It veered off so quickly, I changed the thread title so you could continue your discussion on reserve banking (which wasn't even remotely related to my OP).

I guess I'm confused as to why it's ok for you to do it to others' threads, but when it's your thread, you shut people down?

It's a forum. It happens.

Note to self: Send more PMs, derail less threads.

secretwealth wrote: Also, I rarely do this, but this is an important and very personal thread to me. Any more references to libertarian vs. socialist ideological debates will get deleted. It's entirely unrelated and you know it.

In my pursuit of ERE I just saw freedom of speech go down the drain ... just messing.

To bring back some smiles to this thread:
http://9gag.com/search?query=freedom

secretwealth wrote:

jacob wrote:Aren't you guys simply discussing the difference between freedom-from and freedom-to?

@jacob Yes, they are. Hence I think it's a semantic debate not worth getting into.

It is not just semantics. It is the fundamental philosophical concepts of freedom and it applies here.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liber ... -negative/

Finding balance between negative freedom (freedom-from) and positive freedom (freedom-to) is important.

"Money-is-power" is skewed toward the fact that money can buy freedom-from. It is focused toward the negative-freedom. Are there consequences to having a negative-freedom focus? I believe so. Overcoming constraints is important, but it is not the only thing, at least in my mind.

@Ego: That's a different issue. Yes, I fully agree that the distinction between freedom-from and freedom-to exists, but it's different from the discussion of whether money brought me freedom or power.

I would say, in general, I am more focused on what you call negative freedom (freedom from) rather than positive freedom. I think it's because I view ERE as a kind of insurance policy (i.e. it gives me freedom from having to work again) rather than a fundamental ideology (i.e. it gives me freedom to do X or Y).

I know a guy who turned down a rehire offer from a job that paid 20% more than the job he'd taken after the layoff, simply because the rehire offer came with a mandatory 'improvement plan.' If he hadn't had the post-layoff job, he'd probably have taken the rehire offer. Because he had an option, albeit a lower paying one, he didn't need to submit himself to bureaucratic nonsense. That's an everyday, non ERE example of how money brought some power to his table.

@SW

Late to the party, but loved your OP. Thanks for sharing!

Thanks, GandK. I appreciate that.

The biggest power money has: to buy us self reliance.
Money can also buy some happiness. Many people hates the job they have. The day they hate most is Monday. If they have money, they'll have the choice to choose a happier job or shall I say work regardless of the pay.

Consider the body builder: he notices that he looks better with more muscle and less fat. As he continues down this path he looks better and better, until some day without realizing it, he starts to look worse and worse to others, eventually becoming grotesquely muscular, no longer attractive at all.

It's the same with the anorexic. In the beginning losing weight helped their appearance, but they couldn't tell when they had passed the point where the relationship changed.

"Money is power" is the same. In the beginning, YES, money gives power. But after a point, this stops, and the relationship reverses.

If you have direct access to people with lots and lots of money, study them. In my experience there's a point where they become calcified, overly concerned with protecting what they have, dependent on luxuries and material comforts, totally unable to relate to people that don't have a bunch of money, and eventually even starting to believe that they are better than all the people who don't have a bunch of money...

I think the point where money stops giving power is fairly easy to overshoot, but rarely discussed. I guess it is on the other side of FI, so there's no huge reason to be concerned about it now.

But to think that money always gives power is the same as the body builder always striving to add muscle, or the anorexic always striving to lose weight. Money is power, but only up to a certain point.

Interesting thread. I'm really not a fan of the word power because to me it comes across as trying to control someone or something. I may just be talking semantics but that attitude is something that I have an aversion to.

In saying that I think money is important but having more isn't really important. I think you need a certain amount of money that is relative to your expenses but after that I think other things are much more important. Good friends and family and your health for instance are some things that to me are just as important as money.

Felix wrote:I always see it as buying yourself out of slavery.

I completely get this point. I view myself now as really in a state of slavery. I have a pretty decent job but I need that job. It will take me a while to get out of this situation.

jennypenny wrote:There is also an undercurrent of control in this discussion that makes me uneasy. I guess I subscribe to one of Tolle's arguments that control is an illusion that can make us unhappy. I don't think money gives us as much control over our lives as some here think it does.

This is to me an important point. Money helps some things but it doesn't help everything.

jacob wrote:Aren't you guys simply discussing the difference between freedom-from and freedom-to?

I'm not sure but I think that there is a chance of turning freedom-to into one expensive lifestyle which would leave me working for years just to afford my next holiday or fancy car.

Thanks, this is just what I needed to see. I almost took this route (poor academic), and really glad I found this site first.

jennypenny wrote:

Spartan_Warrior wrote:

Ego wrote:Not being under the power of other people is not the same as being free.

I'm having trouble wrapping my head around this. To me, not being under the power of other people is exactly what freedom is. Can you clarify?

I won't answer for Ego, but I think once you take the red pill, you're free. The rest is just arranging your life to match your idea of what freedom should look like.

What do you mean by the red pill? serious question

James_0011 wrote:

jennypenny wrote:

Spartan_Warrior wrote: I'm having trouble wrapping my head around this. To me, not being under the power of other people is exactly what freedom is. Can you clarify?

I won't answer for Ego, but I think once you take the red pill, you're free. The rest is just arranging your life to match your idea of what freedom should look like.

What do you mean by the red pill? serious question

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_pill_and_blue_pill

Taking the red pill can be translated into looking at reality for what it is for you and arrange your life to fit it, as opposed to letting reality dictate your well being. An example related to ERE might be that you realize working 9-5 in office slavery is no life for you, and you find a way to game the system and create a better reality for yourself. Taking the blue pill in this case would be to make up some belief that this is the kind of life you should have, and continue to live in a fairy tale. Its about attitude.

secretwealth wrote:But my life can be a warning to those who come afterwards, and if any twenty-something has had the patience to read this entire thing, I hope they read and remember this: money is power. Never forget that.

Sir, reporting for duty, sir! Thanks for sharing, another kick in the butt for me to elude not only the 9-5 consumption tread mill, but the often indentured pHD academia track.