Yields and Flows

[Redbird]

@classical_Liberal You absolutely hit the nail on the head in your second paragraph and articulated what I am indeed intuiting. I suppose I just need to decide what to do about it and move forward. I know holding back/waiting until conditions are perfect is fear-based, and I like the leap of faith argument as well. No doubt I'm agonizing over what will in retrospect appear trivial to future me.

[classical_Liberal]

@Redbird
The more i think about my comment, the more I believe that many of us actually have systemic problems that are eating up a lot of our life energy. The Limits to Growth & Shifting the Burden systems archetypes are certainly present in my life. Putting my previous comment in the context of systems theory, maybe we just need the correct lever points to free up that life energy, so it's not being wasted.

[7Wannabe5]

levels 6-8: Emergent — Unexpected and unanticipated results, 1 + 1 = banana

Brilliant

I think the experiment Vicki Robins did with becoming a locavore in her most recent book is a good, readily understood, example of this. Actually, any experiment/experience with any sort of fasting, inclusive of "consumer spending fast" that also has a social, ecological or spiritual component will tend towards emergence of states such as "profound gratitude" and/or "sharp bend in perspective." So, following your pattern, maybe something like:

Level 1: Calories in/Calories Out =Measure on Scale
Level 2: Healthy Eating plus Healthy Activity = Healthy Body
Level 3: Extreme Challenge/Experience Food/Activity = Profound Gratitude/Once-Again-Beginner-Eyes/???

So far my gardening has been limited to planting natives that bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds can feed on.

This is actually a good example of the sort of thing that gets confusing as you level up a system. Is it better to favor native plants or non-native plants which are more vigorous and preferred by some species of bees? Hard line optimizers with good intentions, but different graphs/charts/philosophies/specialized-expertise, can clash at this level. One thing that is true is that very hungry humans will almost always choose to optimize food acquisition over any or everything else in the moment within their sphere of influence, so any philosophy/model which does not first account for this will almost certainly fail.

@classical_Liberal:

I agree. Obviously, it is difficult and not-best-method to find yourself in state of desperation towards enlightenment in our affluent society. OTOH, within my sphere of social acquaintance are two relatively affluent middle-aged men who are progressively losing body parts due to diabetes while still interesting themselves in matters such as active stock market investment. So, functioning can be very different in different realms. OTOOH, I also know of a couple middle-aged men who suffered terrible financial failures, responded by getting in better physical shape, and then did much better again financially on the swift upward slope of a new S curve.

I am likely veering a bit off topic here, but as somebody who is more bi-polar Spring hare type than steady Eddie tortoise type, one thing that frequently occurs to me is that it is important/beneficial to know your "bouncing" range and your breaking points and when it is or isn't appropriate to clock-time your cycles. I think maybe this is a good part of the problem you sense with SMART goals vs. process orientation.

[jennypenny]

Actually, any experiment/experience with any sort of fasting, inclusive of "consumer spending fast" that also has a social, ecological or spiritual component will tend towards emergence of states such as "profound gratitude" and/or "sharp bend in perspective."

I wonder if the moats jacob talked about are really periods of reflection and transition. They might be imposed upon someone as C_L talked about, or they might be times we deliberately spend in the desert, as it were. Maybe crossing those moats requires a catalyst of some sort? Dunno.

[classical_Liberal]

I think maybe this is a good part of the problem you sense with SMART goals vs. process orientation.

I agree you need to "know thyself". I also understand that people will have different personal priorities. However, I think SMART goals actually change the inherent priorities away from what they originally were. We become what we measure. Not in a good way either. Habit formation through process approach is far more enjoyable, fulfilling, and ends up more effective over the long term.

Using your levels above for weight loss. SMART goal: I will lose 25lbs in six months by limiting intake to 2000 calories daily, perform 3 sessions of cardiovascular exercises, 3 sessions of strength training each week and weight myself every Saturday morning to track progress. My nursing manager would have LOVE this goal. Because the focus of the entire process becomes whether or not I lose weight, and whether or not I performed the daily cal counts and exercise sessions. It may work, and I may achieve the goal, but what did I really accomplish? Well, since I had to do cardio three times a week, I probably had to go out biking on days it was cold and rainy or just didn't feel like it, so now something I used to love turned into a chore. I wasted large amounts of life energy tracking calories on a phone app I downloaded, but since it's easier to scan UPC codes vs hand creating recipes, I ended up eating more processed food to minimize this chore. So yes, I lost the weight, great. Is life any better now that I hate biking, eat more processed food, and am obsessed with tracking calories?

Process orientation is more like the higher levels. I will stop eating all processed food, I will bike everywhere for local transport, I will perform at least one exercise of strength training before I leave my house every morning. Now what I've done is create positive habits that are cohesive into an overall lifestyle I want to achieve. It's flexible, if it's cold and raining I don't run errands on my bike. I don't waste time micromanaging my caloric intake. I may not lose 25lbs, but if my belt loops are a couple of holes tighter, then great, because that's what I really wanted anyway. Not any of the things I was measuring above.

Maybe crossing those moats requires a catalyst of some sort? Dunno.

Beware of the person that has nothing left to lose. These are the people that will do anything. Which is why I sometimes think the way most people (me included) approach ERE is backwards. The financial build up that early on focus of accumulation creates inherently gives people something to lose. Which then makes more "extreme" change less likely later. So maybe the ERE system has an inherent flaw. Selling lifestyle change in the form of an FI SMART goal means that focus is placed on what we are tracking, monetary savings. As progress becomes more and more realized over time, then there is much more to lose with change. So unless someone starts with extreme lifestyle makeover, the chances of it happening later are lower.

[jacob]

So maybe the ERE system has an inherent flaw. Selling lifestyle change in the form of an FI SMART goal means that focus is placed on what we are tracking, monetary savings. As progress becomes more and more realized over time, then there is much more to lose with change. So unless someone starts with extreme lifestyle makeover, the chances of it happening later are lower.

Good point! Ironically, how I did it myself (the extreme makeover) is different from how I sold it (the early retirement carrot). However, if I just sold it as an extreme lifestyle makeover, I doubt there would be many buyers.

To make the point further, there's a reason why talk about money is the last part of the last chapter in the ERE book. It was ultimately not considered all that important and basically in there to mathematically convince all the so-called expert doubters who had never even considered ultrahigh savings rates because their planning software maxed out at 40% or whatever.

I don't think I'm entirely to blame though. It's just that many figured they could just skip all the philosophy blabber and skip directly to find a quick and easy way to save and invest money; one that mostly went through having a high income and not spending everything. And that then became the FIRE movement

[7Wannabe5]

I am probably in the minority on this forum who approached the "ERE" book by way of other lifestyle design books such as "The Renaissance Soul" and "The Art of Noncomformity" . At first I could not grok why almost everybody else was obsessed with SWR. As I recall, the first literal practice I tried to copy from the book was actually the physical training workout which Jacob described However, I immediately recognized that it's primary value was that it was more objective/theoretical/abstract than other lifestyle design or frugal living books.

[Redbird]

I'm reminded of an old Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) blog post.

Goals vs Systems: https://www.scottadamssays.com/2013/11/ ... s-systems/

[classical_Liberal]

@7WB5
The fact you came into this forum with a different focus is what makes you so valuable to everyone here. I could say the same about @ego.

@Jacob
My comment wasn't to disparage your accomplishment. Systems thinking is getting into my brain. Like you commented in another thread, the end FIRE result of getting a bunch of 150K spenders down to 75K makes a big difference. Some of us still find our way here from FIRE, it's just our focus has to be retrained.

You could probably slightly alter the language of the ERE book and come up with:
Radical Prepper Design: A Lifestyle to Survive the Coming Apocalypse.
Extreme Minimalism: How to Live an Authentic Lifestyle with Gig Income Only.
Green Extreme: Drastically Reduce Your Carbon Footprint.

I jest, but if there were enough readers and forums devoted to each of those books, I'd be curious to see how the focus of the journals would be different in each, even though the underlying design is the same. I wonder if the synthesis of the ideas coming out of all of them would generate some 1+1 = bananas?

[7Wannabe5]

@classical_Liberal:

Thanks! You might find it interesting to browse some permaculture forums. There is some overlap, but mostly quite different group than found here. Although it might be the case that homesteading is to permaculture as FI is to ERE.

[Seppia]

1 + 1 = banana

FIRE “works” (in terms of reach) better than ERE because it’s easier. Earn a lot, don’t spend everything, stash the money in this Vanguard product and DONE!

I personally like the more nuanced/complex/deep ERE approach better, but there is great merit in quick, easy and “good enough” solutions.
Learning and implementing FIRE takes probably a week.
I’ve been interested and involved in this ERE thing for about three years and I’m still very far from scratching the surface.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that for the average high earner, FIRE seems to live in the steeper part of the S curve, while ERE is closer to the flatter top right corner area.
This is of course if we only look at it from the financial / numbers perspective, but regardless of all of Jacob’s efforts to indicate that’s NOT the main point, it’s the first (and usually last) thing people look at / consider.
Only after a bit of immersion (ie actually reading the whole book) it becomes apparent that’s not the case.
Most people stop at the title, and the “Retirement” part immediately connects them to “money”

[daylen]

Easier for whom?

Some humans prefer a familiar link to external stimuli as opposed to an increase in their internal representations of external stimuli. FIRE is easy if your job is tolerable and you dislike mental fuzziness; ERE is easier if working in a structured environment produces distress when all you can think about is how everything else is allowing this pocket of structure to exist.

Ultimately, I think these distinctions are fairly absurd since the principles of ERE still apply to lifestyle design in general. Systems theory is way of thinking/talking about boundaries across scale so that positive assertions of what a system is can be substituted without distorting the message.

Similar to how physics or calculus taught at the high-school or early university level seem so messy to someone with more advanced training. There are only a few important partial differential equations that govern almost all of physics (the hard part is constraining, solving, and measuring). Likewise, there are only a handful of important concepts/theorems in analysis. It seems like these concepts could be explained just right based on the individual student so as to save a lot of time and confusion. This requires knowing a bit about the student though.

One issue many students [in general] have is that they are not exposed to diverse enough examples and therefore rapidly loose interest, but over-exposure will cause them to tune out just as quickly. This line is vastly different from student to student and from time to time. Not to mention the differences in experiential interest (i.e. example preference). Solving this problem requires either a better selection mechanism between students/teachers and/or the teacher to have a more complex model of individual differences.

[Seppia]

I should have used the term “simpler” instead of “easier”.

I’m the one who always says simple is VERY different from easy, but still I fall into the mistake of using one term instead of the other.

[7Wannabe5]

From the book (my emphasis):

If the dynamic dependence between parts is reduced or eliminated, failure does not require a dynamic fix. One can either fix it instantly or simply leave it be and declare the part dead. The lack of cascading interactions increases resilience. It should be clear that the more diverse and independent the parts of the system are, and the more complex the system itself is, the greater its survival rate. Conversely, a , specialized system with interdependent parts, like a career professional, is likely to break as soon as circumstances change.The dynamic response of a single part can further be reduced by introducing reserve capacity (a buffer), which ensures the ability to maintain a dynamic response over a greater range of circumstances. Closely related is the increase of peak effort, as it makes what was previously extreme, normal. In some cases maintaining this reserve has a maintenance cost, but in many cases it does not.

Much of the discussion on this forum focuses on seeking simple answer to "How much buffer?" rather than "How to achieve diverse and independent and complex? " This makes sense if you believe that circumstances will only change within a given (known unknown) range. It doesn't make sense if you believe that you don't know what in the hell might happen in the future OR if you are somebody who positively seeks change towards more complex internal model structure (IOW, does your internal unbidden dialogue offer "I am anxious." or "I am bored." more frequently? Obviously, both messages would lend themselves to survival of species, but they are not evenly dispersed through population.)

ERE is easier if working in a structured environment produces distress when all you can think about is how everything else is allowing this pocket of structure to exist.

True. When I am in my more introverted mode, I would describe this state of mind as becoming obsessed with elimination of the arbitrary. Unfortunately, as your elder, I must caution that it has been my repeated experience that engaging in such behaviors as declaring the attendance of school arbitrary at the age of 14 often results in strong kick in the seat of the pants from the boot of strong majority held delusion AKA what they refer to as "reality." (How can you have meat if you haven't eaten your pudding!!??)

[IlliniDave]

Much of the discussion on this forum focuses on seeking simple answer to "How much buffer?" rather than "How to achieve diverse and independent and complex?

Emphasis mine. Probably comes down to variants on Pascal's Wager. How complex do things need to be if the driving need for complexity is to combat hypothetical, relatively low probability, eventualities? I think complex-aholics truly underestimate how unpleasant excess complexity is to people wired to be simple and streamlined.

Certainly the questions posed are worth careful considerations by each on an individual basis. It would be interesting to derive a notion of threshold complexity and a decision space for seeking optimal complexity. From my personal perspective complexity begins to tread on quality of life fairly early on. Maybe a better way to say it is: does diversity and independence require complexity? I'm often struck by how in nature the toughest and most adaptable class of organisms are the simplest.

[7Wannabe5]

@IlliniDave:

Well, my first note would be that the world environment is complex, and so are you, so it is mostly a question of how much of this complexity you desire to include in your model. Also, it is easy to confuse "complex" with "complicated" (I do it all the time while constructing my silly schemes.)

Simple organisms are tough and adaptable, but primarily at the level of species or community, not individual. The moth species becomes primarily black so as not to be seen and then eaten in soot covered city, but the individual moth can't change color. OTOH, who knows what abilities were latent in 1899 human who decided to take simple path towards becoming blacksmith like father and grandfather before him?

does diversity and independence require complexity?

Yes to the extent that there is a limit to the human brain's ability to retain specific information. For instance, you don't need to memorize a nutrition chart for every possible food you might eat in order to know that oranges, yogurt and potatoes might be a reasonable substitution for blackberries, venison and oatmeal towards survival in altered environment. OTOH, K.I.S.S protocol may or may not be inclusive of this degree of sophistication in any given realm. IOW, it depends on the extent to which you are allowing the recipe determine the ingredients you must have on hand instead of vice-versa.

[IlliniDave]

7Wb5, agree there is inherent complexity in life, but you were talking about achieving complex which I took to mean additional complexity built in to some social or other web.

I'm not sure I see the complexity in eating what's at hand in an altered environment. To me that's the simple solution versus trying to force the availability of what isn't available. Seems like it just a matter of perspective. Does a person see it as I want blackberry oatmeal and venison for breakfast, or as I'm hungry and have oranges, potatoes, and yogurt? I see the former being (or leading to) more complexity (or complication) versus the latter. I think I am again missing the point. What am I modeling?

[7Wannabe5]

@IlliniDave:

Simple model would be something like:

I need Vitamin C -> I go to my job to get money -> I use money to buy oranges at the store.

More complex and resilient model would be something like:

I need Vitamin C -> I go to my job to get money.
-------------------------I get money from my stock market investments.- ---------- -> I use money to buy oranges/berries/Tang at the store.
------------------------ I get money from royalties on cozy mystery I wrote.

--------------------------I go to my garden to harvest cabbage. ------------------------> I make sauerkraut
--------------------------I go to my garden to pick berries.-------------------------------> I dry berries.

------------------------- I visit my friend. ---------------------------------------------------> I help him make/share a tomato salad.
--------------------------I volunteer/teach table manners to toddlers at school.----> I drink fortified apple juice with them.

------------------------- I go hiking for exercise.-------------------------------------------> I forage berries.
------------------------- I dumpster dive for shipping boxes. ----------------------------> I scavenge cans of fruit cocktail.

If you modify the first two lines to read "A LOT of money" then you are focusing on adding more buffer rather than increasing complexity. Although, I will grant you that it is often true that such an effort will likely increase internal complexity within that node itself. For instance, in order to move from "money" to "A LOT of money" flowing from your job, you may have to gain new managerial or technical skills. OTOH, a human who is near expert level at foraging might never need to spend any money on food. The more methods at which you are at least competent, the more resilient you will be.

[IlliniDave]

7Wb5,

Okay, I would agree that making more money could reduce complexity. I guess rather than "buffer" I would characterize making A LOT of money as efficiency. Even I (as one who makes < A LOT) probably make enough in a few days or maybe a week for a lifetime supply of vitamin C and still have all the other options available to me in the future (except making a salad for your boyfriend, and most likely pounding juice boxes w/school kids ). Granted it's just a simplistic example, but it seems like what is being discussed is what I think of as adaptability or maybe flexibility. Having made a career largely from it, the term "model"/"modeling" is sort of a loaded term for me that has narrower meaning rooted I suppose in past usage. I've encountered the same thing as companies try to turn research/development/design into processes and use the term differently than what I'm used to. Here it seems like a list of options.

[jacob]

Will note that complexity is not an issue when the system is in place. See e.g. walking: easy for humans age 1 and up. Hard for a robot.
The hard thing about complexity is building it or rebuilding it insofar it can't be copied from others.