Heinlein quote

The "other" ERE. Societal aspects of the ERE philosophy. Emergent change-making, scale-effects,...
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Heinlein quote

Post by jacob »

Heinlein also wrote:At least once every human should have to run for his life, to teach him that milk does not come from supermarkets, that safety does not come from policemen, that 'news' is not something that happens to other people. He might learn how his ancestors lived and that he himself is no different--in the crunch his life depends on his agility, alertness, and personal resourcefulness.
I never heard this one before today ... but I think this might provide the motivation for going from ERE1/"early retirement extreme" to ERE2/ "emergent renaissance ecology".

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/plus_%C3 ... AAme_chose

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Re: Heinlein quote

Post by chenda »

Sounds like a quote from a Richard Hannay novel.

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Re: Heinlein quote

Post by jacob »

chenda wrote:
Sun Sep 26, 2021 3:57 pm
Sounds like a quote from a Richard Hannay novel.
It's literally out of a Heinlein novel. I do wonder how much this perception is ego vs reality. OTOH the convergence is hard to ignore.

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Ego
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Re: Heinlein quote

Post by Ego »

jacob wrote:
Sun Sep 26, 2021 2:40 pm
...in the crunch his life depends on his agility, alertness, and personal resourcefulness.
I can't say I have ever had to run for my life, though I do like to do non life-threatening things that engage agility, alertness and personal resourcefulness. They tend to dull when not used.

I wonder if the lesson is more durable when it is learned as part of a life-threatening situation. If I were to guess I'd say that the neophytes who suddenly finds themselves running for their lives may react by fleeing to extreme security, which typically weakens those characteristics. I've mentioned in previous threads that simply being around (or living in a country with) people who regularly experience extreme insecurity and do not have the luxury of our social safety net tends to focus the mind to the possibility that I may someday find myself in their shoes.

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Re: Heinlein quote

Post by AxelHeyst »

Climbing in a “no fall” situation (free solo or ledged runout) might be a decent proxy for running for ones life, which sounds difficult to engineer. In either case I think it’s easy to shake it off and not think about what that experience *means* in terms of existence. So, having the experience, but then doing the introspection required to see the connections might be in order.

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Re: Heinlein quote

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Hmmm, I would say that breastfeeding a baby yourself also gives you a pretty solid perspective on milk not coming from stores.

When the solitary adult male raccoon faces danger, he may choose flight. The adult female raccoon plans ahead for possibility of danger and moves her pups from nest to nest, mostly to avoid having them be killed and eaten by a solitary male adult raccoon.

Humans aren’t quite that violent or grimly sex-differentiated, but it is interesting to learn what you will do in emergency situations. Sometimes I’ve been cool-headed and take-charge and sometimes I’ve screamed for help and sometimes I have played possum and sometimes I have bailed ship. It takes a lot of training to overcome instinctual reactions, but it has been my experience that instinctual reactions are often correct. For instance, in situations where I have instinctually screamed for help, more competent help was available. Also, humans are sex differentiated and genetically altruistic to the extent that studies have shown that men with highest testosterone levels will often behave heroically even if not exactly best citizens in day to day life.

Humans are very social and communicative. Fight or flight etc. is too primitive for us. In most emergency situations, what we do very quickly is more like "look to the good dominant for direction." It's no accident that we dress police officers in easily identifiable uniforms. It's entirely in alignment with our instincts. Obviously, there can even be situations which default to a human female with Bugs Bunny temperament being the closest thing to a "good dominant" available on the scene, so I think we may all have better capabilities to rise to such occasions than we know.

I actually think one of the strong bases for patriarchal religions is the fact that no other human will have your back in situations where you are the Good Dominant or de facto pack of 1 because literally or psychologically/spiritually alone.

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Re: Heinlein quote

Post by Hristo Botev »

This weekend I finished Walker Percy's The Second Coming, which deals in large part with the negative psychological (and spiritual) side effects of living a life of seemingly peaceful abundance (Percy calls this, I think, a "living death"). I'm still processing the book and trying to figure out what Percy is trying to say (when I read Percy the challenge is to figure out what he is putting forward as true, or probably true, and what ideas he is putting out as false--you kind of have to go back through the book and jot down ALL the definitive "truth" statements he has characters make, and then deal with each one on their own merits to see, what if anything, is true about the statement). But, when I saw the Heinlein quote above from Jacob, this definitive truth statement from The Second Coming came to mind:
The name of this century [20th] is the Century of the Love of Death. Death in this century is not the death people die but the death people live. Men love death because real death is better than the living death. That's why men like war, of course. Bad as wars are and maybe because they are so bad, thinking of peace during war is better than peace. War is what makes peace desirable. But peace without war is intolerable. Why do men settle so easily for lives which are living deaths? Men either kill each other in war, or in peace walk as docilely into living death as sheep into a slaughterhouse.
I think this gets at what Percy is talking about with his concept of "everydayness"; and the numbness of that everydayness.

Funny, given that this is the "early retirement extreme" forum, the concept of "early retirement" is another theme of this book, which Percy is linking to the concept of "living death" and of how to find meaning when living in a world of seeming peace and abundance. Another quote from the book:
Early retirement is one of the major causes of depression.
Again, with Percy's fiction the challenge is to figure out whether he means this to be a statement of truth or a statement of truth that is actually false, and/or what sort of nuance needs to be read into this. But, notably, the book's protagonist (an extremely wealthy early retiree, whose immense wealth was due both to marrying rich but also to making it to the absolute pinnacle of his profession) seems to ultimately find resolution in part by going back to work, simply for work's sake. Seriously, Percy published this book in 1980 and the words "early retirement" appear throughout the book.

ETA: On the "early retirement" angle, there's a part in the book when our early retiree (who is 43 years old, I think--same as me, and a lawyer; perhaps why the book had such an impact on me) ends up in an actual old folks' home, sort of; though it takes him awhile to realize that's what happened--and then he does:
Jesus Christ, he thought. I'm in the old folks' home.
And . . .
Strange. He had not spent a week at St. Mark's [the old folks' home] and already he was looking forward to the Morning Movie.
ETAx2: I think the parallel I'm seeing between the Heinlein quote and what I suspect is the main theme of the Percy book is that there's kind of a spectrum of sustenance and comfort--at the one end you've got the hunter-gatherer type who doesn't really know where his next meal is coming from, and who will starve to death if he doesn't figure that out, and who constantly has to be aware of the fact that the people in the neighboring tribe want to kill him and his tribe members. And at the other end you've got a guy sitting in an old folks' home with every physical sustenance and comfort need met by someone else, such that the only thing he needs to worry about is getting up and ready in time so as to not miss the "Morning Movie." And, clearly, something spiritually, or psychologically, or whatever is lost along the way as you move toward the Morning Movie end of the spectrum.

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Re: Heinlein quote

Post by Wharnock »

AxelHeyst wrote:
Sun Sep 26, 2021 10:25 pm
Climbing in a “no fall” situation (free solo or ledged runout) might be a decent proxy for running for ones life, which sounds difficult to engineer. In either case I think it’s easy to shake it off and not think about what that experience *means* in terms of existence. So, having the experience, but then doing the introspection required to see the connections might be in order.
The first time I ever lead climbed I had the wildest rush of adrenaline considering the fact that I was still relatively "safe." For those who don't know what that is, it is basically rock climbing but the rope is not coming from above you but rather held by someone beneath you. As you go up you clip in carabiners into premade checkpoints up the wall. At one point I took a "lead fall" which is basically a 15-foot drop with the full acceleration of gravity and nothing slowing you down. At the bottom, you are caught by one of the carabiners you put into place so there's not too much danger other than hitting your head if you're not careful.

Again, I was in no real danger but the visceral experience of falling in a situation where if something went wrong you could be seriously hurt was enough to get the blood pumping.

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Re: Heinlein quote

Post by mountainFrugal »

In addition to climbing related focus, being "Maytagged" in a rapid is pretty close. The hydraulics of the rapid keep bringing you up and sucking you down with no sense of up or down when you are under. Eventually you have to relax and be pulled down (or swim down) towards the bottom of the river where the vortex is weaker and be released downstream. If you are doing multiple Maytag cycles then pressure in your inner ear drums is a good proxy for how deep you are or have gone in past cycles. If the water is very cold you then need to have the strength to find a raft (yours?) or friends kayak out of the current to recover. Then the goal is get warm because all of your blood is being pulled into your core and you will need to prevent hypothermia in your weakened state. Later in the day when all is well you can take a swig/drag of [drug of choice] and celebrate life.

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Re: Heinlein quote

Post by Ego »

mountainFrugal wrote:
Mon Sep 27, 2021 11:45 am
...being "Maytagged" in a rapid is pretty close. The hydraulics of the rapid keep bringing you up and sucking you down with no sense of up or down when you are under. Eventually you have to relax and be pulled down (or swim down) towards the bottom of the river where the vortex is weaker and be released downstream.
I had completely forgotten or blocked it. Absolutely terrifying. I honestly believed I was dead. Jinja, Uganda. White Nile.

Image Image

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Re: Heinlein quote

Post by mountainFrugal »

Pretty GNAR indeed @Ego!

Reflecting a bit more on the original quote...
I was wondering if there is an interesting distinction between:
1) having near complete control through your actions leading to a good survival outcome (e.g. you can easily outrun someone/thing)
2) there being a decent amount of randomness involved with the situation and through your actions/wits/resourcefulness you increase the likelihood of a good outcome. By acting in certain ways at certain times you become more likely to escape by running for your life or swimming/diving for safety or whatever.

Is this even a useful distinction?

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Re: Heinlein quote

Post by Jean »

I cannot put myself to fall while lead climbing. Last time i got stuck, i had to wait until my forearms were exausted to leave thé wall. It was impossible to open my fingers.

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Re: Heinlein quote

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Yes, it's nice to imagine a strong, skilled adult human successfully overcoming challenge, but primitive technology reality is more like:

https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/an ... ral-uganda
The boy’s screaming brought other villagers, who helped the mother give chase. But the chimp was rough and strong, and the fatal damage occurred fast. “It broke off the arm, hurt him on the head, and opened the stomach and removed the kidneys,” Semata said. Then, stashing the child’s battered body under some grass, the chimp fled. Mujuni was rushed to a health centre in a nearby town, Muhororo, but that little clinic couldn’t treat an eviscerated child, and he died en route to a regional hospital.
Last edited by 7Wannabe5 on Tue Sep 28, 2021 4:13 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Heinlein quote

Post by boomly »

The brain seems to recalibrate what it considers dangerous vs. safe. Extremely dangerous, yet ordinary things, like doing anything near or on a busy street, or traversing a flight of stairs, become "safe" (our emotional response, anyway). Relatively safe, yet unknown things, are still "dangerous", like public speaking.

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Re: Heinlein quote

Post by chenda »

@7wannabe5 That was a disturbing read. I do wonder if executing the chimps might in fact be the best option, if they can't survive away from human population anymore.

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Re: Heinlein quote

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@chenda:

Sorry, went off in a bit of a dark tangent there because I was thinking about how there never really have been many other species that a healthy adult male human would have to run from. I mean, big cats just about starts and ends the list*, and still running is not likely to be best tactic given extreme difference in speed.

So, Heinlein must mean running from other human OR maybe fire, volcano, tidal wave; and still a human is probably going to be shit out of luck, except in circumstance where you are faster and other human is stronger. Or you are out-numbered and/or out-gunned.

Anyways, I just circle back to if we were meant to learn how to survive by running then we wouldn’t be such a big old bobble headed species.

*Okay, maybe rhinos and alligators too. Evidence is strong that microbes have always been by far the most likely to take us down. We run to kill, not so much to survive.

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Re: Heinlein quote

Post by chenda »

@7wannabe5 yes I believe female hip width was a evolutionary compromise between narrow-and-can-run-fast vs. wide enough to make child birth functional and somewhat tolerable.

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Re: Heinlein quote

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@chenda:

Right, because using our brains to survive and thrive has worked well so far and is why we’re in the Anthropocene not the Cheetahcene.

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Re: Heinlein quote

Post by zbigi »

Hristo Botev wrote:
Mon Sep 27, 2021 8:02 am
Seriously, Percy published this book in 1980 and the words "early retirement" appear throughout the book.
The concept is certainly older than that. I don't know how it works in the US, but here in Poland there are certain professions which have huge retirement privileges. These privileged were massively scaled back over the past 10 years, but before that, you could join the Police at 18, work till you're (I think) 36, and retire with an ok pension. Same for coal mining and a couple other major professions.
Furthermore, as the country transitioned from centrally-planned communist economy to a more efficient market economy, millions of workers turned out to be redundant. One of the government's less advertised policies has been to allow these people to easily obtain disability benefits (for the rest of their lives) - hence Poland have (had?) one of the highest percentage of people on disability in the world.
In total, the stats from the past 5-10 years showed that, in a country of 38 million people, only around 10-11 million were working. Sure, some of the rest were children, legit retirees, students, stay-at-home-moms - but millions were also on some form of state-sponsored early retirement. BTW my region (a major coal-mining and heavy industry center) is full of them and the picture is not pretty - unfortunately non-negligible number of people are basically drinking themselves into oblivion. They don't have the psychological framework to handle the post-work era of their lives.

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Re: Heinlein quote

Post by Hristo Botev »

zbigi wrote:
Fri Oct 01, 2021 2:10 pm
BTW my region (a major coal-mining and heavy industry center) is full of them and the picture is not pretty - unfortunately non-negligible number of people are basically drinking themselves into oblivion. They don't have the psychological framework to handle the post-work era of their lives.
You should read Percy.

Certainly in the US the career military works this way, where the amount of your pension (as in what percentage it is of your current salary) depends on whether you put in 20 years, or 25, etc. And that's why you often see folks get promoted not long before they "retire," because the pension is based on what your salary was when you retired. My father-in-law retired as a "full bird" colonel, but he got that promotion not that long before he retired.

That said, I know lots of folks who are "retired" career military, but none of them are actually retired as in not working.

Also, a few years ago several (maybe all) of the branches were desperately trying to convince all the folks who joined in response to 9/11 to retire early, because they were facing a huge pension crisis because of all the folks who joined up and then decided to make a career out of it rather than just do a tour or whatever. Not sure what happened with that.

Anyway, the point of my mentioning Percy and "early retirement" is that the main theme of that particular book was that we're not meant to sit around and do nothing other than play golf or otherwise entertain ourselves. That there's some truth to that Aristotle "telos" thing.

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