The ERE Wheaton Scale

[jacob]

So to summarize the complaints:
tl;dr - cartoon please?

[Miss Lonelyhearts]

Speaking of musical theater- https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rJFz-ucuT ... u.be&t=660

[Frita]

i reframe it as charity

well, you know the advice of not lending money to friends and family and giving them gifts instead?

pretty much like that, only after the fact. a trade that does not happen on the spot is actually a loan, it turns out.

This makes perfect sense, thanks. So, are you hinting that sometimes down the road, a favor is repaid for the welched promised one?

Personally, I would rather just lend someone a hand than barter some exchange. When people make false promises, lie, and/or steal; that is what I find sad. I tend to be trusting unless proven otherwise (“Trust but verify.”). The downside is disappointment; the upside is more overall contentment.

[Alphaville]

So to summarize the complaints:
tl;dr - cartoon please?

no, but after the analysis you need the synthesis.

i get that you get the synthesis.

but if people/readers are getting lost in the savings ratio or withdrawal rates or some symbol it's because they forgot the original plan.

eta: "holzerhood" is a destination, even though it's a fictitious one.

[IlliniDave]

So to summarize the complaints:
tl;dr - cartoon please?

Please don't take my comments as complaints. Criticisms are primarily directed at myself. Combination of originally trying wrest from it what's outside its scope/intent, plus lack of horsepower in cranial compartment.

[Alphaville]

This makes perfect sense, thanks. So, are you hinting that sometimes down the road, a favor is repaid for the welched promised one?

Personally, I would rather just lend someone a hand than barter some exchange. When people make false promises, lie, and/or steal; that is what I find sad. I tend to be trusting unless proven otherwise (“Trust but verify.”). The downside is disappointment; the upside is more overall contentment.

it's not so much that people make false promises, but it's what in negotiation is known as "the call girl principle." a service (or good) is valued more before it's purchased than afterwards (hence call girls charge upfront haha). this is a universal thing. (eg see intro here: https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/blog/go ... -principle )

so if someone with no money asks me for something i own and offer to pay with some future labor... i've learned to either say "no" or " don't worry about it, just take it." otherwise i'll sell for cash at the flea market if/when i have time for it.

finding people to lend a hand is difficult. people try to get on the winning side of reciprocity. e.g. i can count on my father in law lending a hand, but not on my wife's cousins--they need to be paid somehow.

at the same time my f.i.l. has me on call as his i.t. person. or i just find a problem and fix it for him. reciprocity occurs. we don't need to keep tabs.

but when the cousins ask for something... "just take it man..."

[jacob]

but if people/readers are getting lost in the savings ratio or withdrawal rates or some symbol it's because they forgot the original plan.

Basically, this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy

Should probably also note that different fields/professions use tables differently. There seems to be a dominant strain of thinking here that "row integrity can not be violated". This could be a computer scientist issue? Sociology/psychology/educational fields are much flexible in how they think about tables. In math terms, the former may see the table as a matrix with strict indexing. The latter sees it as a list of sorted lists with roughly the same resolution. See e.g. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... edit#gid=0 for an example of the latter. This is also why some fields are intentionally left blank---this happens when the resolution doesn't match.

The way I see it the discussion here is basically as if we were describing school children. There'd be a grade column (1-12), a math column with keywords for what a student would understand (counting, addition, .. basic algebra, ... calculus), a literacy column (alphabet, simple sentences, ... text-analysis, ... essay-writing), a "social development"-column (able to sit still for 30 minutes, ... plays well with others, ... socially adjusted, ... ). Overall, students would be about equally far for a given grade although some may be "arrested" and others may be quite advanced in some particular column. However, a teacher would be able to use the table to guess what grade the student belongs in. This table has the same aim. The one difference is that class is not mandatory and nobody has to graduate all classes. This was easy to understand/accept 100 years ago with the majority only getting 3-7 years of schooling before they had to "get on with life". However, since modern students commonly think of schooling in terms of GPA and degrees rather than what is learned, retained, and used, this analogy might be bust.

[IlliniDave]

jacob, yes, if the subjects independent/somewhat uncorrelated then you basically get a report card or placement exam result--an array of scores. The latter isn't far from one of the stated purposes of using the table to grade conversation partners, no?

ETA: In the context here though the levels are more about what you are doing/applying rather than how you did on a quiz, meaning it's unlikely that an accurate self score would show unused book knowledge.

[Alphaville]

Basically, this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy

hahaha! YES. i've seen this in the forum, the notion that things must get measured or else.

Should probably also note that different fields/professions use tables differently. There seems to be a dominant strain of thinking here that "rows can not be broken". This could be a computer science issue?

hahaha, you're right, that's a good observation. e.g. grading rubrics. https://image.isu.pub/130402122224-1f5b ... page_1.jpg where each column throws a score and the pupil gets a total score but each column is graded independently.

it's still a score, but it could be even made more qualitative.

i don't think it's cs, it's accounting/finance. the excel curse, and people's affinity for spreadsheet formulas.

before the 1980s, spreadsheets were rare. with the introduction of the pc they became a plague and proliferated everywhere. same as the accursed powerpoints

but the perceptual bias is there, whether we like it or not. so it needs to be broken by design.

the clever trick about wheaton's curvy cartoony path is that it evades the spreadsheet framing trap by means of graphic design.

also notice how holzer has no descriptors. he's simply "beyond."

the medium is the message.

[7Wannabe5]

@Miss Lonelyhearts:


@jacob:

I would like to see it as claymation.

[jacob]

I'd like to see it as 10 different memes.

[Alphaville]

I'd like to see it as 10 different memes.

found you the first one:



i'd... be willing to eat unadvertised bugs though

[nomadscientist]

I kinda like the table.

It is pretty accurate to my own development.

Of course, one could have got to the same place from much different starting points and on much different paths. But most people don't.

[Jin+Guice]

My main question is what's at the top of the mountain? Like what is all this building towards? Because the upper levels are pretty abstract and philosophical. What was at the top of Paul's original table? It seems like escaping industrial consumerism might not be the exact thing that you're trying to get to/ inspire people to get to?

My defense of industrial consumerism is that it's pretty good at solving a certain range of human problems. Is going down to no money and totally disconnecting from the industrial economy really what you're trying to do? Because it's not what I'm trying to do and it doesn't seem like what you're trying to do? I get the point of getting really really close to total disconnection, but industrialization and capitalism are just so fucking good at what they do.

Maybe I'm not understanding some part of the table or the upper levels? I started on the 4/5 border and I think I've finally crossed over into WL6. I'm not in any rush to climb the levels, but understanding what the next level is and how I might go towards it has generally been helpful to me. I still don't feel like I understand quite what WL7 is, much less 8 or 9.

My succinct question is, what's the goal of ERE in a few words as possible and has your (@jacob) understanding of it changed since you made V1 of the table?

[jacob]

My succinct question is, what's the goal of ERE in a few words as possible and has your (@jacob) understanding of it changed since you made V1 of the table?

Note that the shorter the question, the longer the answer, and vice versa. The fewer the words, the less accurate the goal description is going to be and the more room there is for misunderstanding. The table already has quite few words.

Overall though, I see the ERE (emergent renaissance ecology, remember that?) project as creating "live players" (not "dead players" who are locked-in[to] scripts (ERE book chapter2), think NPCs) who play an "infinite game" (see Carse) that is also the foundation and human-ingredients of a sustainable civilization. For all the nice stuff industrial consumerism has brought us, it's not exactly sustainable and unless you're one of the ~1B lucky ones (the top 15% of the world), it's not exactly civilized either.

In terms of how my understanding has developed (WL7->WL8) between making the two tables, I have a better idea of what such an infinite game would look like on a grand scale. This was not possible to see well when I was still in the cave(*) or just messing around with my own systems (WL7). To wit, I feel somewhat like you guys don't realize that this is/was a journey for me too. I have the same fog-problem as everybody else. I'd say it went like this

(on the new scale)
2000: WL1.5 (raised on these values) discovers anticonsumerism and resource limits.
2004: WL4 Moved to US and met DW WL1
2007: WL5.5 Started ERE blog, check out early posts
2010: WL7 Finished writing ERE book
2016: WL7.5 Bought house, quit work, made first ERE Wheaton table, DW is WL4
2020: WL8 After adding many technical skills, also COVID, DW is WL6
2021: WL8.25 Went beyond ERE forums for new inspiration, made second Wheaton table

(*) The cave itself is mostly personal finance, so if one stays there one mainly needs to master the tool sets of personal finance. It thus becomes easy to believe that the personal finance hammer comprises the entire set of tool sets. After living without spending much money for a while, it becomes easier to see that the developed world's--- or rather the top 20% earners of the developed world,so about 3% of the humans in the world---obsession with money is rather weird. Hence, "money" becomes one perspective out of many and not even the most important one.

[Alphaville]

Overall though, I see the ERE (emergent renaissance ecology, remember that?) project as creating "live players" (not "dead players" who are locked-in[to] scripts (ERE book chapter2), think NPCs) who play an "infinite game" (see Carse) that is also the foundation and human-ingredients of a sustainable civilization. For all the nice stuff industrial consumerism has brought us, it's not exactly sustainable and unless you're one of the ~1B lucky ones (the top 15% of the world), it's not exactly civilized either.

this needs to be recast in a language that is easy to understand without the background reading and conceptual edifice. the allegory of the cave does it in allegorical way, which was the way of antiquity as you can see in innumerable moral and religious parables and fables and so forth.

here in your path i keep thinking of the idea of liberation. a bit of an... economic zen, or something. i am not proposing this as a definition btw, just thinking outloud about some vague intuitions of what could be offered as the goal/destination.

paul uses "celebrities" (of the permaculture world) as the advanced levels in his development path. those are not easily conceptualized, but are easy to grasp. as @ego said earlier in this thread, "saints." but note also paul considers those folks above his own development, hence does not "itemize" for them.

camille paglia used to say that hollywood celebrities fulfill the same psychological role as the gods and godesses of the greek pantheon: human figures that are "greater than life." catholicism built the same apparatus with the saints. but i don't think you swing that way, so the superhero business is a bad inspirational/aspirational/marketing model for you.

nevertheless: how do you convey your highly abstracted, conceptually abstruse formulation to others? it's easy to understand one's self, but to make others understand is a real challenge. hence, the use of fables, mythical figures, internet memes, etc.

[BookLoverL]

I may be way off base here but I tend to think of the goal as something like "living a fulfilling life while also living in a way that is ecologically sustainable and in balance with the world", with each new level representing a new individual understanding of how to do both of those things at once and why it's a good thing to want to.

Even a WL1 person is *trying* to live in a fulfilling way - they just think that buying things is what will give them fulfilment.

The original Wheaton scale focuses only on the ecological aspect and only on certain methods of solving that (permaculture), and doesn't to me feel like it allows for people with different skillsets and desired lifestyles as much as the ERE scale does. So as has been said above, the ERE one has a broader scope.

[wolf]

why don't everybody propose something for the goal* of the ERE Wheaton Table, framed in a few words? Understanding it lies not only in the responsibility of the sender, but also on the receiver.

I would say the goal of WL9 is to be an "expert in creating a highly efficient and economically sustainable world for oneself and others"

*although it is not clear to me, if the ERE Wheaton Table is a closed or open development theory.

[jacob]

I may be way off base here but I tend to think of the goal as something like "living a fulfilling life while also living in a way that is ecologically sustainable and in balance with the world", with each new level representing a new individual understanding of how to do both of those things at once and why it's a good thing to want to.

Even a WL1 person is *trying* to live in a fulfilling way - they just think that buying things is what will give them fulfilment.

The original Wheaton scale focuses only on the ecological aspect and only on certain methods of solving that (permaculture), and doesn't to me feel like it allows for people with different skillsets and desired lifestyles as much as the ERE scale does. So as has been said above, the ERE one has a broader scope.

I'm quoting the entire thing because I consider this fractally correct, as in correct on every conceivable level.

[Alphaville]

religions have an even broader scope though, and manage to reach their flock with everything from simple little rhyming prayers to children's catechism to lists of commandments to stories and parables to "the kingdom of heaven" to advanced forms of mysticism.

i'm not suggesting to start a religion (though it would be funny), just to consider making this broad scope accessible to "the people" such as they are.