Early Retirement Extreme Forums

I always wondered about the distribution of people on this forum. Why there are no, for example, Chinese or Russians reporting from their countries in journals.

It is not because the economies of the countries don't support ERE lifestyle, or people don't have a need for these ideas, of are culturally or philosophically distant from the principles. The reason is completely unrelated: the people like you and me who are here have only one thing in common- we write, or atleast can read English.

Noam Chomsky is mentioned often here so I think this thread will be interesting to those who have read his work.

Never really thought about it too much, but yeah, language is pretty important in the realm of written communication, and does define the edges of the extent of the theoretical community of the discourse. I'd say we have a little more in common than language, but language is the prerequisite.

English is pretty much the language of the internet. If you make/communicate in another language you are immediately in a much smaller bubble.

Also I think we have quite a diverse set of people here from different places, but all of us did indeed need to know english.

I mean Jacob himself is originally from Denmark, I'm originally from the Netherlands, I think Clarice is originally from Russia. I know we also have some members from South America and Asia.

I think there is actually a correlation between not being from America and accepting ERE, probably because we weren't as immersed in consumer culture as many Americans have been their whole life. Even more so for people who start out outside of America and then come to America as they know how to live a less consumerist life and get the benefits of the income opportunities that are provided in the US.

prognastat wrote: ↑

Fri Mar 08, 2019 10:02 am

English is pretty much the language of the internet.

And financial markets, at least the developed ones.

Can the Chinese even access this part of the internet?

@Kriegsspiel: Yes, at least the regions I have been (just a few.)

I think many of the Chinese people would be just like "duh" if they encountered this forum.

I'm by no means a China expert, but I'm not sure how well it would go over with someone reading JLF's little green book on a crowded Beijing subway line. It's capitalism, although purer than ours in some ways, is still relatively new. Although not in a Marxist/class struggle sense, it technically still communist (real estate ownership is really the equivalent of what we call land leasing). I could be wrong, but I just don't see a movement railing against a consumer society taking foot there. I mean they still got pictures of Mao hanging up in Tianemen square. That doesn't exactly engender free-thinking.

In the Autobiography of Malcolm X, he said that if he could have studied any field, it would have been linguistics. Which makes sense, being that his last name is a letter.

You don't need financial markets. Real estate works fine too.