Contagious sustainability via corporate retention strategies

The "other" ERE. Societal aspects of the ERE philosophy. Emergent change-making, scale-effects,...
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Lucky C
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Contagious sustainability via corporate retention strategies

Post by Lucky C »

FIRE is contagious to individuals with the right combination of personality plus income potential, due to the radical improvement in lifestyle that is possible while still working within the established systems of our society and without any real pushback from those in power. But to get a whole sustainable society to become contagious, must it offer a radical improvement to our current systems in the eyes of "normal" people? The benefits of ERE are enough to infect a few physicists and engineers, but how should it mutate to get r0 > 1 for the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker?

The ERE book talks of being "locked in" at a relatively young age to the American way of life, burdened with student loan and mortgage debt, trained for a very specific career path, etc. Capitalism, our education system, our political system, etc. have some nice tricks to keep these systems in place. A society could borrow these tricks and adapt them to a more sustainable way of life.

A billionaire could create a village from scratch in a country with lax regulations, make it as nearly closed loop as possible, scout out a mix of people to populate it, and financially incentivize it enough (e.g. cancellation of debt, free housing) to get them to go all in: leave their old life entirely behind, downgrade a lot of technology, take compulsory courses to learn how to live in said society, etc. Just throw money at the problem. The financial incentives could essentially lock them in by forcing anyone who walks away to pay it all back. But obviously very few if any wealthy people would want to try something like this, even as an experiment.

What corporations are trying, however, is to merge work and life while providing so-called work/life balance. This is kinda sorta possible in that allowing remote work can save a lot of commuting time, but at the same time causes work to "invade" home more easily - e.g. hopping on a Zoom call at an hour that you wouldn't have to be working, since you started your 8 hour shift early by not commuting. For a while before Covid there was the strategy of making work more comfortable with perks like free food and nap pods, which feels nice while you're at work but effectively gets people to stay at work longer. Extrapolating these trends leads to the line between work and life being completely blurred - much like in ERE / advanced Wheaton levels, except it's the Evil Corporation version!

So what am I getting at? Well if you can't provide something completely different than the corporate world to out-compete them, you have to do something which is similar but somehow more appealing from the average employee's perspective. People want to be employed with satisfying work. They need that structure and aren't going to abandon it for ERE en masse. Nowadays, they are increasingly motivated to look for a good "work/life balance," which makes things interesting...

We know that poor work conditions are likely to cause high turnover regardless of pay. If I picture some job retention model with a few variable inputs, and I set satisfaction to 0%, I know I could crank up pay to 100% and still get poor employee retention. What if I flip it - satisfaction to 100% and pay to 0%? This is the realm of retired people continuing to work jobs they love, or serious hobbyists (in some productive hobby) who don't need to make money from it. These people with no pay are much less likely to "quit" than the people with the best paying (but most horrible) jobs in the world! If you can employ people with very satisfying work, while removing all the horrible aspects of being locked into a job, and while satisfying their basic needs, they're yours for the taking. They will however need some of their stability and comfort they're used to, even if "normal" jobs aren't very stable once a recession hits (some marketing may be needed).

Therefore, by providing more satisfaction with less pay, one may have a chance to compete in this crazy job market and snatch up those who are dissatisfied with the traditional way corporations work. Once on board, the employees can be put to work on sustainable solutions to cancel out some of the harm done by the current corporate world. Like the billionaire example above, the "lock-in" will have to be kept in mind - the lifestyle benefits must be so good that once you convert, you're never converting back, and will probably try to convert others in order for the trend to spread.

So how would the average person be willing to take a big pay cut in the hopes for a more satisfying job? Well the trick is we would supply them with a somewhat ERE lifestyle as part of their "total compensation" or corporate amenities or whatever you want to call it. Maybe efficient housing could be provided which could maybe get around some housing regulations by being part of the corporate campus as "2nd offices" that family members and friends are allowed into at any time. No need for a car; just walk a short ways to the building you work in. Cooked meals are provided, not from a catering service, but from employees who must follow a budget-friendly recipe list. An organic farm on campus provides most ingredients; it's staffed by some full-time employees but other employees can work it part time or just tend their own garden in their free time. Maintenance, health services, security, etc. - all internal employees, no outsourcing. Many services provided on campus to employees for free, such as a fitness center and repair shops, and some goods manufactured on site could be sold to employees at cost. This could be a non-profit corp, or a for-profit with profit-sharing, or maybe something else entirely? And of course employees would have the flexibility to set their own schedules and to easily jump into other career paths to fit their interests.

Corporate propaganda would be totally focused on these priceless perks and selling you on the lifestyle where work doesn't feel like work. Due to the efficiency of what is provided by all these perks, it will cost the corporation say $10k per employee per year but feel like $50k per year based on the way people typically spend money. So the corp may only pay someone $20k per year as salary, but "think of it as more like $70k with all these perks!" while it only costs the corp $30k total. Key to the corporate culture will be focusing on quality of life, not your salary. Plus, if the living on campus thing could work, everyone would be in the same happy bubble and the outsiders doing things the old way would be seen as the crazies who are wasting their lives and killing themselves chasing the dollar signs.

I guess I am inventing a commune that runs itself as a corporation (at least it would appeal more to those afraid of Communism)? Plus with the capability to provide a wide variety of goods and services in the same location. I don't know... is there anything to this?

7Wannabe5
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Re: Contagious sustainability via corporate retention strategies

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

I think we may already be heading more in this direction with the digital gig economy. On the other end of the spectrum from the highly perked, highly paid tech professional, I am thinking about high school dropouts I was teaching who were talking about having to be the one who trains the next person who shows up two days after picking up a gig off of an app. Another example would be when I was in charge of scheduling the staff for a very large bookstore, and I scheduled every single employee we had to work on Christmas Eve, but I gave them the freedom to either do some of the necessary work (man registers or info stations, straighten books, etc.) or wander into the party room as desired.

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Re: Contagious sustainability via corporate retention strategies

Post by jacob »

Lucky C wrote:
Sun Sep 19, 2021 12:39 pm
I guess I am inventing a commune that runs itself as a corporation (at least it would appeal more to those afraid of Communism)? Plus with the capability to provide a wide variety of goods and services in the same location. I don't know... is there anything to this?
I think you've reinvented grad school? The university (or nearby supermarket/dorms) provides convenient and cheap house + meal plans. You have a lot of freedom in terms of how much you work and even how you work within a fairly limited subject field. You can more or less set your own hours as long as progress is fast enough. In return, you're paid about 1/2 to 1/3 of what someone with your qualifications could make coding widgets for EvilCorp.

The fact that universities can underpay people with MSc's that much shows how popular it is.

The retention strategy is that it's hard to go back if you leave.

The flipside here is that this is all funded by the tax payers in the hopes that some of these research efforts have a pay-off. (Or if nothing else keep the wages of teaching smelly, lazy, frustrating, ... undergraduates down.) Certain giant corporations used to have internal divisions (e.g. Bell Labs) doing basic research with actual impact. I'm not sure that's a thing in STEM anymore? Maybe in biotech. Conversely, it's still how it's done in finance where academia is just an afterthought.

PS: Why is the availability of a wide variety considered a positive good? I don't need 26 different brands of tomato sauce of 14 different sandwiches to choose from. That kind of combat-ineffective optionality just clutters the brain. I just need one or two choices that are both really good for the price. This is why shopping at Aldi is a thing :)

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Lemur
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Re: Contagious sustainability via corporate retention strategies

Post by Lemur »

I thought you re-invented Twin Oaks
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_Oaks ... C_Virginia

sky
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Re: Contagious sustainability via corporate retention strategies

Post by sky »

How will the employees save money to retire?

Frita
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Re: Contagious sustainability via corporate retention strategies

Post by Frita »

Other than the horrendous blouses that women must wear, the Bruderhof has a certain appeal for reasons you describe. If one is born into it, easy. Giving up all financial security (present and future) to join is rather scary. Perhaps that’s why most communes have such high turnover and failure rates.

@Jacob
Grad school seems to be more of a Bardo-like state between undergrad and real life though most people will probably stay longer than in some random commune.

boomly
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Re: Contagious sustainability via corporate retention strategies

Post by boomly »

I think the impulse behind the idea was to find a replacement for "The Job" which wouldn't cause the average job-haver to significantly restructure their beliefs.

Modern jobs feel a lot like modern romantic partnerships - providing a lot of different psychological services in one package.

A modern job is security, status, time-occupier, source of meaning. What prompted Lucky C's idea, I think, is the question "How to replace all those psychological services without needing to introduce too much cognitive dissonance (which, of course, leads to ideas being flat-out rejected)?

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Re: Contagious sustainability via corporate retention strategies

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

“boomly” wrote: Modern jobs feel a lot like modern romantic partnerships - providing a lot of different psychological services in one package.
True, and this is why many or most communes are either celibate or free-love. The strong dyad towards nuclear family easily comes into conflict with the “tribe.” For instance, I lived in both a mixed singles undergrad/grad co-op and married/family grad apartment housing and they had very different vibe. Quite fun vs semi-depressing.

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Mister Imperceptible
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Re: Contagious sustainability via corporate retention strategies

Post by Mister Imperceptible »

sky wrote:
Mon Sep 20, 2021 10:30 pm
How will the employees save money to retire?
For maximum efficiency it would probably be better for the corporation to convert the employee’s genetic material into nutritious wafers when the time comes to decommission the employee.

Toska2
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Re: Contagious sustainability via corporate retention strategies

Post by Toska2 »

Nice Soylent Green reference. +2 ere points.

Lucky C
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Re: Contagious sustainability via corporate retention strategies

Post by Lucky C »

jacob wrote:
Mon Sep 20, 2021 7:25 am
I think you've reinvented grad school?
Maybe, except for everyday goods and services, leaving the research and "progress" to be handled by other "traditional" organizations.

By "wide variety" I don't mean like what is offered by Kraft or Nestle and their various brands, but you'd have one group that does canning/preserving, another group that makes clothing, another that builds and repairs houses. All these useful activities that are either super industrialized (large scale where humanity is lost) or taken up by hobbyists (too small to be efficient or professional quality). Or when a small group provides such goods or services somewhere in the middle they are "artisan" goods at a higher price and they usually want to grow their business until they're filthy rich.

Twin Oaks produces hammocks, soy food products, and plants. This is great, but I am thinking bigger, beyond the stereotypical eco-lifestyle. For people who don't want to "live off the land" and spend all their time weeding and chopping wood. There would be jobs for people who just want to stay inside and do work on the computer all day too.

@boomly Indeed I think an imperfect corporate solution with all the familiarity a corporate job brings can gain "market share" from all the more highly flawed corporations out there. I am picturing an organization that is seen by the public as being a desirable and respectable place to work, high job satisfaction, good on your resume, etc. There would be enough pay for the employees to live on, but it would just be clearly less than what people would get elsewhere. Everyone would know that before they even apply, which would filter out those without the right mindset.

Specialists would be utilized, but it would perhaps be a Renaissance Corporation? I believe the term is Strategic Business Unit, for the divisions that would exist to produce each type of product or service. The employees would likely stay in their own SBU unless they got really sick of it, but the corporation would have some web of goals to optimize how the SBUs work together as a system.

Maybe pay wouldn't have to be so bad in the "start up" phase. After all, there wouldn't be a lot of productivity at first... Amazon massively gained market share by selling everything so cheaply they were unprofitable for many years. Can a new corporation follow the unprofitable-for-years unicorn playbook but with the goal of gaining employee share?

I know there are tons of flaws with these vague ideas, but I just wanted to think about how people could be pulled away from the status quo by keeping the alternative lifestyle just inside their comfort zone, while in effect they would be starting a much more sustainable lifestyle. Most people think they need the conventional work schedule, repetition, predictable flow of income, and organized corporate environment. The corporation has the power to radically transform the world while from the workers' perspective it would be a minor shift in skill sets.

sky
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Re: Contagious sustainability via corporate retention strategies

Post by sky »

There is a precedent to the type of organization you are describing:

https://youtu.be/UmGa8edtQPM

Gilberto de Piento
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Re: Contagious sustainability via corporate retention strategies

Post by Gilberto de Piento »

For those that don't want to go to YouTube to follow the conversation, the previous link refers to medieval monks. Some modern monks also create and sell products.

Could also draw parallels to the Amish or the Amana Colonies? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amana_Colonies. There was a whole era of utopian communities in the US: https://www.history.com/news/5-19th-cen ... ted-states. Thanks US history class.

Also see The Village by M Night Shyamalan re the original post's "village" comment. :)

Not trying to dump on the idea, it is interesting and thought provoking. Thanks for sharing.

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Re: Contagious sustainability via corporate retention strategies

Post by jacob »

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0813586518/

Mistitled. Less about the AT and more about the communities.

ETA: Pretty sure that Twin Oaks was featured.

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Re: Contagious sustainability via corporate retention strategies

Post by Salathor »

Lemur wrote:
Mon Sep 20, 2021 8:29 pm
I thought you re-invented Twin Oaks
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_Oaks ... C_Virginia
Wow. I read the Washington Post article about it. I'm honestly a little saddened by the stories of the people in it. An interesting idea, but a failure. The woman who started it expressed it perfectly when she said she was just looking for a father, in the end. Makes me want to go home and hug my girls. I'd be interested in seeing the documentary segment though. See if anything has changed in the 20 years since the article was written.

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Ego
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Re: Contagious sustainability via corporate retention strategies

Post by Ego »

Bitcoin Beach checks some of your boxes. They are the group that played a big role in El Salvador's adoption of bitcoin as a national currency. Much more grassroots but with deep wallet crypto funding.
https://www.bitcoinbeach.com/

Lucky C
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Re: Contagious sustainability via corporate retention strategies

Post by Lucky C »

Thanks for the good historical examples of profitable communes. These are interesting!

So why didn't they spread? Religion is a common theme, so they are limited mostly by reproduction rates. The non-religious groups are still fringe eco/crypto/etc. so they don't attract the normies. Their businesses also don't seem to evolve much, usually specializing in just one industry.

To take employees from Evil Corp, a Virtuous Corp would need to employ some of the same tricks used by the big corps of the world while having the actual work being useful for a sustainable world. How the corporation would evolve over time would have to be planned well. It may start as a normal small business with a large bank loan, building up the capability to evolve the work in the future but needing to fit into the current local economy. Of course the owner and any executives would need to religiously adhere to "the plan" from the start, with safeguards in place somehow making it impossible to deviate from the Don't Be Evil path without limiting growth and evolution.

A lot of care would need to go into the design of the facilities. V Corp would want to have full ownership of mixed-use buildings a short walk away from (not too noisy or dirty) industrial shops. Ideally the whole campus would be owned by V Corp so the transportation and landscaping could be controlled. Much of the land would be used to grow food or timber of course. Consumables could be a good first step. Beer, wine, jams, jellies - with more and more ingredients being grown on site or at a local V Corp owned site each year. A bakery too, utilizing some of the same ingredients grown on site or trucked in. So from the start there would be a diverse set of income from your typical farm stand fare, value added consumables, commercial income from rented out shops (future V Corp capacity), and residential income from the apartments above. The unusual integrated nature of the campus, which will sure include some nice walking paths and picnic areas, would be for many a more inviting place to visit than the mall and a nicer place to live than a purely residential & high density development.

Up to this point, there is nothing very revolutionary here. All of the employees earn regular wages with traditional benefits and it may be that none of them live in the on-site apartments. It may be hard to incentivize living on campus because providing free housing while reducing wages would just count as a taxable fringe benefit at market housing value in the eyes of the IRS. So the average employee would not really see this as a net benefit unless they are maybe struggling to find housing in a bubbling market with limited inventory - might work now but not a great long term strategy.

Instead, VCorp must seek loopholes or alternative strategies. Perhaps inspired by Jacob's ERE journey, it owns land that would be suitable for RV camping. It opens up a mechanic shop that specializes in RV repair and becomes Really Virtuous Corp. RV Corp could also be a used RV shop in order to acquire RVs in various conditions. Those that aren't scrapped for parts, but are suitable for living in (whether or not they are roadworthy) can be parked on the RV campgrounds. When one is newly parked there, it is offered as housing for an employee and his or her partner or small family for a small paycheck deduction. I'm not a tax or law expert but I'm thinking this could work well for both parties. The market value of an RV hookup would be a small tax burden compared to the market value of being provided a "free" apartment.

RV Corp would include common areas that would ease the resistance to committing to RV living while keeping RV dwellers' lives efficient through shared amenities. A lot could probably be done to push the limits of RV living & state/local regulations. Maybe park a few RVs in a barn for more of a buffer from the outdoors. Or at least customize the RVs with an insulating shell and other efficiency improvements. Fencing in key areas would help with privacy. Free community internet would be a nice perk too.

There may be flaws in the RV plan, but the general idea is providing a clear benefit over the traditional way of living while appearing to be comfortable enough for a normie to try it out. The experience must be genuinely better, to both live and to work there, such that employees never want to leave. I'm sure there are many other avenues that can be explored along these lines, and some may work in different locations, with approaches that capitalize on local resources while pushing the local regulations to the limit.

The marketplace could evolve into the one stop shopping experience that the middle class seems to want. The shopping experience for middle class shoppers in the USA is evolving into a faux diverse marketplace type of experience. Disney stores in Target, hair salons in Walmart, Amazon returns at Kohls, etc. True, you can get more than one thing done at these locations, but the groupings do not seem natural compared to something like a European market that gathers all the farmers, fishermen, and bakers together in the city center. The American markets make sense from a megacorp profit standpoint and the Euro markets make sense from the individual small business owners' perspectives. Neither make sense from an ecological perspective. An efficiently integrated local marketplace may make the most sense for business owners, employees, and consumers in the event of a major energy crisis.

But the ability for it to spread and become the norm is probably more important than making it an ideal ecotopia.

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