Radical Personal Finance Interview with Jacob: How ERE Protects from Catastrophic Risk

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chenda
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Re: Radical Personal Finance Interview with Jacob: How ERE Protects from Catastrophic Risk

Post by chenda »

@alphaville - I think we'd still be arguing about which wing to build first by the time it hit the ground :lol:

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Alphaville
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Re: Radical Personal Finance Interview with Jacob: How ERE Protects from Catastrophic Risk

Post by Alphaville »

chenda wrote:
Sat Mar 13, 2021 4:19 pm
@alphaville - I think we'd still be arguing about which wing to build first by the time it hit the ground :lol:
freedumb! :lol:

Quadalupe
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Re: Radical Personal Finance Interview with Jacob: How ERE Protects from Catastrophic Risk

Post by Quadalupe »

jacob wrote:
Sat Mar 13, 2021 2:19 pm
I AM looking to do more podcasts but mostly as either an interviewee or a conversation, not as a interviewer. I want to explore different kinds of media. I figure it's about time. Also contemplating doing something like a set of lectures or some such.
Huh, interesting! What kind of content would you want to put in the lectures? Speaking of lectures (and closing loops :P ), I found Speaking of closing/opening new loops, I found this old thread. Some ideas you had 7 years ago:
young jacob wrote: 1) If you live on a dorm, try starting a "lecture"-club where one person gives a 'fascinating' talk about a subject. I did that when I was an undergraduate gathering 10-15 people talking about "big bang", "nucleosynthesis" and other astronomy details. Danger: If you talk about money, you might be known as THAT guy. This could go either way.

2) Try to create a "Parks&Recreation" course. Lots of cities have a parks & recreation department where people can pursue sewing, email for seniors, karate for toddlers, nature walking, and what have you. Create an ERE course.

3) Make youtube videos. One person already asked me to do this but I never saw any vids. It would be cool if someone could do it RSA animation style.

4) Make podcasts or live interviews(?)

5) Get on Ted/X :) I just might do that if invited ;-P
Fun to see that forumites are trying option 1 as a mastermind group and you are currently doing option 3 (stoa interview) and 4 (other podcasts).

(offtopic: I would also be down with some kind of international meetup, since everyone is already somewhat used to zoom/teams etc! I attended one IRL meetup here in NL, but I'd enjoy having one with some people farther away as well. I'll try to drum up some hype later in the relevant subforum)
[...]

I tell or suggest FIRE podcasters up front to pick some focus that is NOT [how I got started], [how you can get started], or [how I spent the last 10 years].
If I understand correctly the podcasters pick some kind the subject beforehand, not you. Do you have a list/backlog of topics you want to discuss? How much of prep between you and the host goes on behind the scene? Do you agree on some kind of rough high level script beforehand or is it all action/reaction?

<edit>

The meta-critic blog led me to a nature article where they formulated a nice definition of emergency:
Nature article wrote: EMERGENCY: DO THE MATHS
We define emergency (E) as the product of risk and urgency. Risk (R) is defined by insurers as probability (p) multiplied by damage (D). Urgency (U) is defined in emergency situations as reaction time to an alert (τ) divided by the intervention time left to avoid a bad outcome (T). Thus:

E = R × U = p × D × τ / T

The situation is an emergency if both risk and urgency are high. If reaction time is longer than the intervention time left (τ / T > 1), we have lost control.
As I understand it, the main difference between JS and JLF (or me for that matter) is not in R part, but in the U part, especially the reaction time needed. To recycle (heh) the metaphors from above: when falling out from the mountain, JS puts τ / T at << 1, whereas we would say that τ / T goes infinity, since T = 0 already. Not sure if this helps others at all, but it helped me. :lol:

guitarplayer
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Re: Radical Personal Finance Interview with Jacob: How ERE Protects from Catastrophic Risk

Post by guitarplayer »

Oh Jacob, you are going to send me to a grad school eventually if you keep on joining podcasts :D I find that I really miss discussing / exploring ideas, which I now only do on this forum or with DW.

I set up a thread about benefits (interested in potential upsides) of doing a PhD in humanities / social sciences in the education section. I think that once someone does not need to worry about money, this can be a worthwhile venture. For example, write a PhD about the social context of the ERE movement :)

Hristo Botev
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Re: Radical Personal Finance Interview with Jacob: How ERE Protects from Catastrophic Risk

Post by Hristo Botev »

Very good listen; my main takeaway:

Minute 1:10:25: "The point is not to retire and become useless to people, it's really to become more useful."

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Re: Radical Personal Finance Interview with Jacob: How ERE Protects from Catastrophic Risk

Post by jacob »

Quadalupe wrote:
Sat Mar 13, 2021 5:10 pm
If I understand correctly the podcasters pick some kind the subject beforehand, not you. Do you have a list/backlog of topics you want to discuss? How much of prep between you and the host goes on behind the scene? Do you agree on some kind of rough high level script beforehand or is it all action/reaction?
They pick the topic/questions. I don't have a backlog. My preparation varies---I've found that it helps a lot if I know the overall (section-level) questions in advance since it allows me to provide more in depth answers than "top of my head" type answers + I know where they're going with a given question because I know where they will be going next making it possible to set each other up.

Most of my prep focus is on deciding what NOT to say---it's very tempting for me to go down rabbit holes that might personally fascinate me right now but which aren't really very relevant to anyone else and in turn forget to mention important stuff.

Going in blind and doing action/reaction results in less signal (not mentioning relevant stuff) and more noise (mentioning irrelevant stuff). If I don't know the structure, I will inevitably try to impose my own.

I see the ideal interview as a dance performance between two people for a given audience. The interviewer picks the dance and provides the structural lead and clarifying emphasis, while the interviewee provides the content. The more I know and the more they know, that is, the more we're on the same page, the better the interview gets---like any conversation. IOW, it also helps tremendously when they know my work well. For that reason I tend to decline invites to "two minute morning radio shows with gotcha-style comedians" (fish slap fight) or "agony aunt type talk-shows" (drama train wrecks).

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Seppia
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Re: Radical Personal Finance Interview with Jacob: How ERE Protects from Catastrophic Risk

Post by Seppia »

I’m curious
What are you trying to accomplish by doing more podcasting?
Just get better at it? Reach out to the masses? Simply provide more content but keeping a “hermit up the hill” approach?

jacob
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Re: Radical Personal Finance Interview with Jacob: How ERE Protects from Catastrophic Risk

Post by jacob »

@Seppia -

I think that was answered here?!
jacob wrote:
Sat Mar 13, 2021 2:19 pm

7Wannabe5
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Re: Radical Personal Finance Interview with Jacob: How ERE Protects from Catastrophic Risk

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Very interesting interview. I think that many lives comic applies even more so to ENTP, because we don't even necessarily seek mastery. Raw hacking competence achieved and we're ready to move on. At the juncture where you were discussing flow, I started wondering whether more people avoid anxiety or boredom? I always thought that one reason why most people enjoy drinking alcohol is that it simultaneously reduces your true competence while increasing your perceived competence, so makes boring things seem more interesting and risky things seem more under your control.

guitarplayer
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Re: Radical Personal Finance Interview with Jacob: How ERE Protects from Catastrophic Risk

Post by guitarplayer »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Thu Mar 18, 2021 2:39 pm
I always thought that one reason why most people enjoy drinking alcohol is that it simultaneously reduces your true competence while increasing your perceived competence, so makes boring things seem more interesting and risky things seem more under your control.
Just wanted to say I really enjoy those random thoughts!

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Re: Radical Personal Finance Interview with Jacob: How ERE Protects from Catastrophic Risk

Post by Stasher »

jacob wrote:
Sat Mar 13, 2021 2:19 pm
I AM ALSO looking to get out of the "FIRE-movement"-space since I think ERE is bigger and has more potential (has richer complexity) than what FIRE has become. It feels a little bit like doing crossfit whereas what most people want are six-pack abs, and currently they turn to crossfit to provide quick&easy tips for that simplistic goal. I want to move on and away from that space/consumer demographics. Get too close and complainypants will whine about all that other stuff that seems irrelevant to good abs as far as they understand.
This is why after 7 years I finally created an account on the forum, to get back to the core of what matters. ERE is grounded in ecological concern and the realization of the footprint we create. Becoming self reliant and mitigating our personal footprint through systems that make sense is a win to me. The MMM forums has become a very enabling FIRE culture that says its ok to spend $75,000 a year.

That being said I do appreciate how you touched on in the interview Jacob that someone dropping from 90,000/yr spending to say $60,000/yr has a major impact and should not be overlooked. We just need to encourage them to then go from 60 to 30K and beyond :)

I as well realized that the host doesn't fully grasp the threat from climate change and thinks of all places, the US or in my case Canada will all get behind it...neither country has for the pandemic so why do it for the climate. Time and time again the economy comes first and change only happens if it is profitable.

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