ERE vs sacrifice / The Wheaton scale of ERE.

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jacob
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Post by jacob »

@Felix - In practice ERE does not work very effectively if you try to do everything as an isolated consumer unit. A better way to think of it is as having turned yourself into a hub that connects persons from different backgrounds, resources from different places, skills from different areas.
The point is not to do everything yourself. ERE is not about being a self-sufficient homesteader. Nor is it about replacing a job-income with a financial independence account.
The point is to be able to do something in as many different ways as possible. This way you're not dependent on just one thing. This goes back to the web of goals (chapter 5 I think).
In any case, I think it's important to realize that you, by virtue of being alive, can never leave the game. You gotta eat as well as satisfy some other basic needs/wants (Maslow).


Seneca
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Post by Seneca »

@ Jacob- "The more you know, the more you can begin to put together. The more inefficiencies you can correct, the more value you unlock.
This value is better unlocked by combining many different skills than by working harder at one thing (unless you make $200/hour or $5/hour). "
I believe you also mentioned something kind of similar in your book to this as well, although it was a yearly income number.
The low side bound makes sense to me, but I'm curious what you have in mind when you put an upside income bound on the value of diversifying skills vs pouring the gas on a highly remunerative one?


Dragline
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Post by Dragline »

@Seneca,
It has a lot to do with the power-law distribution of wages/income in highly specialized/highly compensated fields. If you are making $200/hr, that's about $400K per annum and puts you in the top 1% of wage earners. See http://www.mybudget360.com/wp-content/u ... bution.png
Moving just a little further up the wage scale (going from say the 99.0 percentile to the 99.2 percentile) can double or triple that income without the same commensurate effort. If you talk to your wife about how lawyers are compensated at large law firms, you would see this dynamic at work -- the most highly compensated at any given firm make multiples of what the lower levels make, and often without a lot more effort -- just more focused or specialized efforts. Same is true for people like professional athletes -- any highly compensated, highly specialized profession usually reflects this dynamic.


jezter6
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Post by jezter6 »

This is a great thread. I've been following this forum and been working on debt freedom to start my ERE journey and just finally ordered the book.
In my situation, I just found out this week that I'll be laid off shortly. In theory, the Renaissance philosophy sounds really good. If I'd have worked my ERE from that point instead of only focusing on the financial part, theoretically I'd have the connections and abilities to partially retire now if I couldn't find a job right away.
And while that sounds awesome, I think a lot of the "key" behind that is the other crowd, the FI/numbers group. Luckily I have an emergency fund saved up, but I cannot live long on those savings. As much as I'd like to do the Renaissance thing, just be retired based on unemployment, but without that safety net of having FI funds if there's a lull in projects to earn some money on (Renaissance strategy) - ultimately the risk of complete failure and eventual homelessness says that it just won't work.
Obviously the ultimate goal should probably be the Renaissance way, doing what we love, and if we get paid for various things, great! That way less comes out of the FI fund and gives a greater chance of success for a longer time with those funds. That and the ability to continue to integrate into society and not be the "lonely millionaire" who's stuck at home because they don't want to spend money, ever, because it's all about staying under SWR and protecting the nest egg.
It's just so much more difficult to try the Renaissance approach without having significant FI savings to be able to survive down period.


RealPerson
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Post by RealPerson »

@jezter6 - Sorry to hear about the layoff. I hope you land on your feet soon. You make a very good point. The way I read this is having to practice Renaissance principles before you have a personal emergency such as losing your job. Implementing Renaissance in your life has to be ongoing, and definitely start prior to being forced into it. You are finding that your choices are pretty much finding a new "standard" job, or become homeless. This is a good reminder for all of us to act on antifragility implementation now.
I find local ERE networking to be pretty challenging. I have not discussed ERE with any of our friends and extended family, because I don't think they would understand it. Finding a new ERE network is not that easy as far as I can tell. Hence the forum: it makes it so much easier to connect. That provides intellectual and motivational stimulation, but is no substitute for a real local Renaissance network. Does anybody have concrete advice on this?


jezter6
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Post by jezter6 »

@RealPerson - thanks for the well wishes.
Agreed, practicing the Renaissance principles should be a part of the ERE journey along with the FI. I think FI is really the vehicle that allows you to do the other without worry of losing a roof over your head.
It's sort of a strange balance. As mentioned with Renaissance, there's both the theory of repairing and maintaining, which generally requires a fair set of tools, and of course the bigger projects require bigger tools. But in the same time, that philosophy seems to espouse a certain flexibility to move around as necessary and could find housing in multiple places, from a main home, RV, or even a level of couch surfing. Only 1 of those, however, affords a real opportunity to store tools needed for the maintenance/repair aspect.
As such, until you get to the FI point, particularly with a 100% paid for home, hopefully with low fixed costs like property tax, the chances of having a steady payment on that home that, if it goes unpaid for a few months while you Renaissance couch surf, will end up being taken from you, which suddenly limits the rest of your Renaissance life because you no longer have the tools and facilities to do that maintenance.
Obviously Jacob's RV living adventure does point out that a home and tool storage area does not necessarily mean acreage and a fixed underground foundation, but it was also paid off with minimal fixed payments that if went unpaid would lead to forfeiture of his home.


Seneca
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Post by Seneca »

@Dragline"It has a lot to do with the power-law distribution of wages/income in highly specialized/highly compensated fields. If you are making $200/hr, that's about $400K per annum and puts you in the top 1% of wage earners. See http://www.mybudget360.com/wp-content/u ... bution.png"
If that is what he has in mind, I have a lot to say on why people making that kind of money (or plan to) are in the most need of diverse skills.
I actually hope it's not what he had in mind and we're missing something!


Dragline
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Post by Dragline »

Its in the middle of the ERE book under "A Renaissance Lifestyle":
"Freedom is attained by creating a large gap between production (revenue) and consumption (expenses). This can be done in two ways--earning more or spending less. Nothing new there.
Which of the two you prefer depends on individual circumstances. If you're easily capable of producing more, you'll frame freedom as the opportunity to produce more. If producing more requires significant effort, you'll frame freedom as not having to produce more. In an affluent and wealthy society, the latter is much more easily achieved by most, including myself. There was and is no way I could increase my income by a factor of four, but it was certainly possible to reduce my expenses to a quarter of their former level. I think this holds for the greater part of the bell curve of incomes. Unless you're very poor (income < $4,000 / year) or very rich (income > $400,000 / year), boosting income is very difficult. If done intelligently, a little money will go a long way. Unfortunately, in this age money is rarely spent intelligently. So by practicing intelligent asset management, it's possible to live wealthily without spending nearly as much as the average."
Fisker, Jacob Lund (2010-09-30). Early Retirement Extreme: A philosophical and practical guide to financial independence (p. 114). . Kindle Edition.


Felix
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Post by Felix »

@jacob: "The point is not to do everything yourself. ERE is not about being a self-sufficient homesteader. Nor is it about replacing a job-income with a financial independence account."
This seems to be the new ERE interpretation (ERE 2.0?). If you look at lots of the content of the forum in terms of practical advice or simply at the 21 day makeover on the blog, it goes very concretely in that direction. The book's back cover summarizes the book as being about working 5-10 years to retire in your 20s or 30s by spending a quarter of what an average consumer spends and then investing the difference until expenses are covered. The book's subtitle is "A Philosophical and Practical Guide to Financial Independence".
"In practice ERE does not work very effectively if you try to do everything as an isolated consumer unit. ... In any case, I think it's important to realize that you, by virtue of being alive, can never leave the game."
We are in full agreement on that, it was part of my post.
However, the idea that ERE is then somehow different in kind still doesn't click with me.
What you do in practice is you cut down your spending to a fraction of what others need to spend by replacing money with smarts and elbow grease mostly by effectively reducing your standard of living in terms of housing and transportation and preparing your own food (the big 3), allowing you to save massively on a median income. Save the rest. Profit.
You become a different consumer and build some prepper skills along the way. It's a choice between stuff and comfort vs. freedom and time.
Maybe this changes once you've reached FI. THEN you can build new income streams simply doing what you like, spend your time learning new things and - finally having control over your time - build more resilience into your life. All that ERE 2.0 "living without friction" stuff.
But I think that's step 2. Step 1 still is the savings-strategy in my book. Step 2, then, seems to be the goal of the entire enterprise. Reaching the state of higher independence.
Sure it would be nice if you could just do whatever you love and make enough money with that and build your life like that.
But that's pretty difficult, especially when you're still a wage-slave.
Also, some things just cost money. The cruise ship was my example for this. Another example is a high-class hotel visit. That costs money. You can't replace it with a being the maid to clean up the room, even if you still get to enter all the nice rooms and be paid for it. Basically all luxury and comfort spending falls into this category.
For someone wanting these things, not getting them is a sacrifice. On a smaller scale, the same goes for all the niceties of a middle-class life we love to hate on this forum:
A car, a house, vacations, going to restaurants, gadgets, cell phones, etc.
Looking at this without a knee-jerk rejection based on anti-consumerist value-sets raises the question how to respond to such goals and how to reach them. My guess would be to build the earning of enough cash to pay for things that simply need to be paid for into the rest of your life, either by saving enough or earning enough at non-restrictive paid gigs.


jacob
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Post by jacob »

@Seneca - The $200/hour number comes from the law of diminishing returns in paying professional rates for a simple job. Often consumers are paying "first hour+overhead+equipment+office rent" getting a $80 bill for a 10 minute job that they could do themselves with a wrench and 10 minutes of watching a youtube video. This year DW took a job as a Tax Prepper, so I now know the professional rate of what our return, which takes us roughly 2 hours to put together ourselves (after spending more time

initially learning), costs $500+. However, if you yourself make that much at work (and very few do) and you're able to completely scale your own income, there's no economic sense in saving $80 on by paying 10 minutes of your time when you could do your professional work and make $120 in ten minutes.
If you compute the effective cost of having professional work done for you and compare to your effective wage calculated in the YMOYL sense, you will find that in most cases, hiring the work out makes no sense whatsoever, because you're paying a lot more life-energy buying the solution than doing it yourself.
The lower limit (minimum wage) comes from observation that your time is better spent boosting that instead of bringing your other skills up. Maybe you can save $200 on a bill, but spending the 10 hours needed to learn how (the first time, not the subsequent time) is probably better spent boosting your income from $7/hr to $8/hour.
There are of course also diversification issues to consider. Being able to DIY is less risky no matter what the salary.
General rule: If you need something done more than once, learn to do it yourself. For example, I'd learn tax prep since that happens annually, but I wouldn't learn roofing since that only happens every other decade. I'd learn how to change oil and brake pads. I wouldn't learn how to rebuild an engine.
@jezter6 - The best strategy is a gradual approach from (+2,-2,-2,...) to the (+1,+1,+1,0,0....). (See

viewtopic.php?t=3063&page=3#post-49162). Each year, you bring a couple of the -2 to 0. You keep the +2. Your spending should be coming down. Then after a while, a few of the 0s come to +1 (this can be investment income, side income, random income). Also even more will be 0. At this point the +2 job becomes less relevant. So it's a process that takes several years unless you started really young and learned all this stuff as a teenager. Most of us didn't and instead spent our time getting degrees. Also, many have accumulated a lot of -2 things in their life and gotten locked in to a high spending life style. That also makes it harder.
@Felix - Running ERE is like teaching a martial art in a dojo.
Step 1) Learning to punch repetitively. First you learn the correct form. Then you learn to do it faster. Then you learn to do it harder. Then you learn the next technique. Rinse and repeat.

Step 2) After lots of practice you realize that the techniques rest on general principles and that once you understand the principles, the techniques don't matter anymore.
Of course this is a gradual process. Two steps forwards. One step

backward. Learning, then unlearning. One insight becomes the foundation for the next insight which replaces the one that lead to it.
Different people are at different stages and so they're taught

differently. Typically beginnings are pretty hard and boring. Lots of repetition. It's a frustrating process. Eventually, it will all make sense though.
Of course it would be nice if it was possible to go directly to step 2, but I don't think anyone has ever found a way to do this. So the general path is that step 1 acts as a foundation to step 2.
You start with step 1 stuff. Then gradually step 2 ideas are introduced. Step 1 fades into step 2. Eventually it's all step 2.
It is wrong (self-limiting) for people in step 1 to think that step 1 is all there is to it. The students must acknowledge that there's a reason to the madness. That step 1 mainly exists for pedagogical reasons. That there's something behind it.
The reason I started this thread is that I see some failure to acknowledge this (on this forum) and because I think that paying attention to this aspect would be helpful.
Step 1 is probably a necessary first step, but it's nothing more than a pedagogical method of reaching step 2. Of course it also happens to be useful in itself, but I don't really think it's the best way to go about.
Similar to karate, punching harder is useful in and of itself, but

actually understanding what makes karate work is much more effective and you'll find that you don't need to punch hard at all.
If a student thinks that karate is all about punching and kicking, that student will never go further; never go beyond punching and kicking. It will always be about repetitive punching and kicking training. If you insist that punching is all there is to it, then training just make you a harder-punching amateur ... not a martial artist.
In this case, the worst students are those who are already successful punching hard because they're bigger and heavier than average. In their mind they're just studying to pick and choose thinking they know everything already.
Analogously ... thinking that ERE is all about pinching pennies and saving for FI will lead to a miserly life that's always about pinching, worrying, and sacrificing. The worst students tend to be the ones who already earn well and who are successful at buying their solutions.
Part of the reason why there's so much beginner's stuff here is that there are many more beginners here than there are experts and so most of the post volume is about beginner's stuff. This does not mean that ERE is ONLY about beginners stuff. It just reflects the ratio between beginners and experts. The 21 day makeover is obviously also beginner's stuff. You'll find the advanced stuff in the book. Particularly chapters 3,4 and 5. You'll find some advanced posts on the blog. Some summaries on the wiki also tries to nail it. But mainly, it's in the book.
It could be that I'm simply impatient. I had a similar experience when I took piano lessons when I was 10 years old. After 1.5 years of hitting keys [in order], my teacher started talking about putting "emotion" into my music. I had no idea what she was talking about. She gave an example. I didn't hear any difference. Furthermore, I refused to believe that there was such a thing

because after all, I was just playing or rather hitting the piano keys according to what the sheet was telling me. Only much later did I understand what she meant, but at that point I had long given up on playing.
Maybe the difference between step1 and step2 is something people need to discover for themselves.
I'm just saying it's there. And that it's easier to discover step2 if you actually believe it exists and thus try to find it if you haven't rather than argue, like I did with the piano, that it doesn't exist.
And that as the dude in charge of the dojo, I'm fine if some just want to practice their punching, but I'm still going to make noise about the benefits of further study.


Seneca
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Post by Seneca »

@ Jacob- yes, exactly. Part of your theme of this thread has been that ERE is using multiple tools. While the forum tends to focus on savings/reduced consumption (and not without reason as elucidated in Dragline's excerpt from your book), increasing earnings shouldn't be ignored either. I agree when your income hits a certain level, the cost benefit analysis does start to sometimes tilt toward paying for services. Obviously if your best earning skills are below minimum wage, you must fix that.
An additional comment I'll make that weighs in to that calculus. If there is a skillset that is worth learning through DIY to robustify your household, it's worth choosing even if it "costs". We have been gardening since 2004. This will never repay us financially, and honestly I don't have much passion for it (though the food tastes good, and it is an excuse to get rid of hated grass!). But I think it's an important skill to have and to eventually give to our children.
David Rockefeller said in his biography that his parents had the help teach them things like this and other basic housekeeping skills. I think that is incredibly wise.
Crawford wrote in Shop Class as Soulcraft that he recommends people learn a trade before/during college. I could not agree more. I worked for years in, and can always get a job as a cook or in auto or motorcycle repair. My wife was a barrista and worked for years at vet clinics. When the spectre of layoffs looms in our high pay/volatile jobs, we know we can always fall back on those skills and not just savings.
On the flip side, getting to high earnings in almost any profession is bolstered by a broad skillset.
@ Dragline- Since it was brought up, in law you don't earn $200/hr as an associate. You only get there either by owning your own firm, or becoming a partner WITH a big book of business. When you are first promoted to partner in BigLaw you will get a pay cut, you have to build your book of biz to get those big dollars. A partner must have excellent sales/marketing skills, and to be good, you need management skills as well. Just being a good attorney isn't enough. It's also a "war" of attrition. Staying sane on the way to partner is definitely improved by making sure to take active interests outside of law to balance your barbell. My wife's first office had a wall repair where the last occupant had thrown a stapler through the wall and ran out of the building screaming never to return. It's a fair bet he isn't a partner in biglaw today.


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Post by jacob »

As for the cruise ship analogy ... I got a free ride (actually more like 3 free rides, I forget) on a tall ship (99 ton sailing ship) here on Lake Michigan by volunteering as a crew. This meant I had to coil two lines per trip (takes about 5 minutes) and tack a sail a couple of times (unclew, release, clew).
How did I get a $40 dollar ride for free three times?

* I know someone who knows someone (social capital, opportunity)

* I know how to sail (technical capital, not a tall ship, but a yacht was good enough)
Interestingly enough I read a biography (free kindle book) from someone working on a cruise ship as an entertainer/singer. Apparently it involves lots of sex, lots of drama, lots of pranks, interspersed with the actual job (doing a routine in the bar each night). Not a bad gig if you don't mind partying like a frat boy every night for 3 months.


secretwealth
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Post by secretwealth »

I don't understand how the dojo analogy answers the question.
Let me ask a practical question based on an experience I had today. My earbuds broke. Yet again. I had to buy new ones--and I spent about $65 on a new pair.
I want to listen to music on the subway and on the streets. No amount of woodworking skills is going to help me with that.
Likewise, I don't think learning how to make headphones is going to help me out, and broken wires in earbuds are the kind of thing that cannot be easily or sustainably repaired.
Here's a problem that only has one answer: monetary-based consumption. I think there are many problems along these lines. For people who value, say, listening to music while walking around over building a table out of wood, I don't see how Renaissance skills can replace consumption.


Dragline
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Post by Dragline »

If I had a dojo, it would probably be like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzh9koy7b1E
Gotta love those pants. That's what I call "disciplining your image."
I guess I should probably stick with the biglaw thing (shhh -- its actually kind of fun if you can find what you like and avoid doing what you don't, but many high performers trick themselves into believing they have to keep doing crap they don't like so they can earn more than their next door neighbor -- and then drive their subordinates crazy with their own dissatisfaction).


jacob
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Post by jacob »

@secretwealth -
http://www.tested.com/tech/accessories/ ... jack-plug/
It is actually pretty easy to repair if you know how to solder.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLfXXRfRIzY
I learned to solder when I was eight.
I got my current soldering iron on freecycle. The freecycler was even nice enough to throw in a line of soldering tin.
I could quite likely have fixed that problem for free, presuming it was the wire (it almost always is).
This is an example, where if you don't know you either pay $65 or you go without. If you go for the $65, then if they break every other year, you need $65/2*33 = $1072 in additional savings. You'll now worry that much more about running out.
Conversely, if you knew how to solder and that broken wires are easy to fix, because after all, it's just an electric wire, and that it's the first thing to break (speakers are hard to break), there would be no need to throw money at it.
I think this illustrates the difference between step 1 and step 2 pretty well. In this case, the first impulse should have been to google "problem phrase". Then if you didn't have an iron, you could try craigslist or freecycle. If not, they only cost $20 new. Instead the first impulse was to declare that the problem was impossible to solve without buying a replacement.
I acknowledge that the habit of declaring defeat and pulling out the cash as first response is extremely hard to beat. I still fail occasionally. However, not even believing in the existence of solutions is going to make impossible to ever get there. Think of the 4 minute mile (running a mile in under 4 minutes). It was once believed impossible. As long as it was believed to be impossible it took a long time to get there. Once proof of concept was demonstrated other people broke the 4 minute mile in short order.
Dojo analogy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcBf9XUrsJw

Why is the old guy winning all the time? Is he stronger? No. Is he faster? No. Are the other guys letting him? No. The difference is that he sees much more than they do. He does just the right thing at just the right time. The more he knows, the less effort he needs.


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Ego
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Post by Ego »

I had the same problem with my running headphones continuously breaking. I tried everything including surgu. No luck. Then I did some research and found out that Koss guarantees their headphones for life. I bought a pair and have had zero problems with them for about six months now.
http://www.amazon.com/Koss-155475-Sport ... B00001P505
I hope to never have to buy a pair again. Some things are made to break. Whenever I need or really want something like that I typically go for the guaranteed-for-life option if one exists. Second best option is the one that is made to be repaired. High end older headphones that are bombproof and noise isolating but clunky can be found at flea markets very cheaply. I think that would be my renaissance-man option.


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Post by JasonR »

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secretwealth
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Post by secretwealth »

Again, soldering isn't going to solve all problems.
The first time I had a pair of earbuds fail I did exactly that--try the soldering method. Which did indeed repair the earbuds--for about a month. Maybe I need to improve my soldering skills--or maybe band-aid fixes have a fixed shelf life.
Let's change the exercise. Assume my earbuds were stolen, not broken. Should I try to make my own at a fraction of the cost, and will I get the same quality as if I spent money on a new pair?


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Post by jacob »

Nor soldering, nor woodworking, nor any specific skill is going to solve all your problems. However, the ability/desire to solve problems is.
Everything has a fixed shelf life. Including new wires. If the solder was shiny it was good. If it wasn't it was a poor soldering. Soldering has no mechanical strength, hence the thermal shrink tube. Band aid might literally have worked too.
Seriously though, how much of your stuff is stolen on a regular basis? Let's change the exercise ... assume your jacket with the earbuds was run over by a truck? Assume you got hit by a meteor wearing the earbuds? Do you have a regular theft entry in your FI plans? An incidental meteorite account? Where is this going? ;-)
Of course you can't and shan't fix/build everything. I'm not suggesting that we all build microwave ovens out of tin cans and scrap wood. You can't make your own microwave, TV, phone, CD player, blender, tshirt, light bulb, pair of socks, ... for a fraction of the cost. In fact, it's probably gonna cost more. Made in China wins.
You can, however, in general trade, repair, receive, substitute for a fraction of the cost of buying.
You're looking for the sweet spot between making, fixing, getting, trading, combining, substituting, and last but not least buying. The more you know, the more you can pick the right solution. It is certainly not always tilted towards buying.
However, you're still arguing that spending money is the only serious option ...
If you also looked at the options, you could still buy when warranted, but you'd also know if your price point made the thing tradeable or sellable, and if it was repairable when broke.
I'd suggest reading 5.2.2. and 5.2.3 for more info.
PS: Three months ago, I got a pair of earbuds for free. Just sayin' ;-P


secretwealth
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Post by secretwealth »

"However, you're still arguing that spending money is the only serious option"
Not exactly.
I agree that I'm looking for a sweet spot between consumerism and the Renaissance man ideal, but more importantly I'm looking to move away from an ideological and proscriptive judgmentalism against "consumerism" that is, I think, disingenuous.
To take another example: I once read on a blog a post where the writer was mocking a group of cyclists for wasting money on expensive gear, bikes, etc. This blogger had a separate post bragging about the "sweet" gaming PC he had built.
The problem is one man's consumerism is another's investing in quality. I think the real difference is in the eye of the beholder.
Sure, being able to solder and work wood is a value-added skill that will help fix some problems. But not all problems. Money fixes some problems too, and I don't think there should be a moralistic suspicion against buying any more than there should be a moralistic worship for making stuff.
Likewise, tolerating taking orders to be on a ship is a skill that can open some doors. But tolerating that some people would prefer to just buy a ticket could open some other doors, too.


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