The ERE Wheaton Scale

Simple living, extreme early retirement, becoming and being wealthy, wisdom, praxis, personal growth,...
jacob
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Re: The ERE Wheaton Scale

Post by jacob »

Yeah, Goodhart strikes again! There's quite a bit of what I'd call "table abuse". You see the same in MBTI where people read a type description and try to become more like that type because they think it sounds awesome or because they justify not working on weaker aspects of their personality functions by adhering to the description. This attitude is quite common in INTJ forums. For this reason, M & B tried to keep the test/descriptions a secret for many years. Not that this tendency is not extremely typical ... it's basically a form of idolizing, except the focus is on a table or a test result instead of a celebrity person.

Now, I understand the interest in piercing the fog, but...

There's already a meta-rule to the effect that one can not jump a stage. In the same sense, it's also how to understand anything two stages ahead. It's the "I don't think that word means what you think it means"-problem.

I'd like to add a meta-rule: "Your present way of thinking is your own greatest enemy when it comes to understanding the next stages. They're not hard to understand if not for the fact that something severely conflicts with what you think is 'the right way' to think about things."

This meta-rule is to some degree already reflected in the first couple of meta-rules in that anyone 2+ stages ahead is seen as extreme or insane. It's rather "inconceivable" why one would want to become insane to oneself.

7Wannabe5
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Re: The ERE Wheaton Scale

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@Ego:

Good insight. I think what had me confused is that although it makes eminent sense to view 1Jacob as a measure or rough descriptor on the ERE Wheaton Scale, it may also serve as a target in a game some of us are playing in order to distract ourselves from our relatively recently acquired knowledge of the high grim likelihood that the planet is going to burn in spite of our futile efforts.

This relates to something I once learned from a wise old female INFP, which is that INFPs and INTJs and bordering types (artists and scientists on the enneagram) gain energy towards their purpose through the process of “staring into the abyss”, but ENTPs lose energy through this process.

Like if you took Dick Van Dyke out of Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang and tried to make use of his inventiveness to solve the problem of “Why the Holocaust?” or try to imagine Jordan Peterson as the tap dancing inventor of Toot-Sweets !

xmj
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Re: The ERE Wheaton Scale

Post by xmj »

I've started enhancing the ERE Wheaton Level wiki entry with L8+L9. Can't say it's complete yet.

7Wannabe5
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Re: The ERE Wheaton Scale

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Nodding along with most of the Wiki, but stopped at notion that paying property tax and buying insurance is necessary in order to be good citizen at Chop Wood Carry Water level. One reason why I don’t think this is right because I believe in this Pattern:
On no account place buildings in the places which are most beautiful. In fact, do the opposite. Consider the site and its buildings as a single living eco-system. Leave those areas that are the most precious, beautiful, comfortable, and healthy as they are, and build new structures in those parts of the site which are least pleasant now.
Also, I once read a book on the topic of self-insurance within family/friends group which would likely make sense at this level.

Riggerjack
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Re: The ERE Wheaton Scale

Post by Riggerjack »

On no account place buildings in the places which are most beautiful. In fact, do the opposite. Consider the site and its buildings as a single living eco-system. Leave those areas that are the most precious, beautiful, comfortable, and healthy as they are, and build new structures in those parts of the site which are least pleasant now.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aNaXdLWt17A

7Wannabe5
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Re: The ERE Wheaton Scale

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@Riggerjack:

Lol- Best to leave the wetlands to the birds and gators.

daylen
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Re: The ERE Wheaton Scale

Post by daylen »

Here is a possible topological relationship with the ERE Wheaton Scale using the framework I am working on. I added in some of my own interpretations to stimulate future development.

Image

7Wannabe5
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Re: The ERE Wheaton Scale

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@daylen:

Very cool.

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Re: The ERE Wheaton Scale

Post by jacob »

xmj wrote:
Sun May 02, 2021 1:56 am
I've started enhancing the ERE Wheaton Level wiki entry with L8+L9. Can't say it's complete yet.
I filled it out somewhat. The wiki page should be concordant with table2.0 now.

guitarplayer
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Re: The ERE Wheaton Scale

Post by guitarplayer »

Fun fact: @jacob is the only person who used the word 'Analects' on the forum in its whole history.

oldbeyond
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Re: The ERE Wheaton Scale

Post by oldbeyond »

Here’s my attempt to wrap my head around the levels. Very much an attempt, all feedback is welcome. I don't know if this adds value to the discussion but it was a good exercise for me personally. Hopefully it will aid someone else as wall, even if only because my misconceptions are dragged into the light by others.

WL1:
Money is the crucial resource that is always lacking. It flows away from as soon as I get it (sometimes before). Even when I have couple of good months, some unexpected expense always seems to throw me off balance again. I guess the only way out is the lottery, speculative home runs (but I repeat myself) or somehow becoming famous, because how could I save when I struggle to make the payments on my debt? Life is hard and you try to survive.

WL2:
I found some good strategies to adopt. With an emergency fund I’m not prey to consumer credit anymore and I’ve quit some costly and destructive consumption where I paid money to make my life worse. Like an addict in recovery, I’m very much focused on avoiding returning to my previous chaotic state and protecting my newfound stability.

WL3:
You can’t play defence forever, I’m on the offence now looking to build wealth. The surplus I get from being a smart shopper and the higher salary at my new job will compound nicely in my index funds, making my golden years just that. I have a great career, so I should have no problem pursuing that for the next three decades before I get the terminal vacation I daydream about.

WL4:
It appears that the value I receive from different consumer goods vary quite independently from the price. Some things I spend my money on seem to provide me with a lot of value in return, while others almost make my life worse. It even seems to make sense to buy used items from other people that they where about to discard, or to involve some of my own labour, rather than spend my free time on my consulting side hustle and pay someone else with the wages. I have a lot of ways of saving money that I employ, but I does take quite a bit of mental energy to remember them all. It seems that not everyone appreciates the progress I have made, even though I could pay cash for their leased luxury cars. But I still prefer my used Kia.

WL5:
If there is a difference between value and price, I should be able to minimise price and maximise value systematically for all my categories of spending. Once I do that I guess I’ll have arrived. All these tricks I learned really seem to involve avoiding wasting resources and adding value with my own labour. Perhaps this insight will allow me to come up with novel hacks of my own. My only concern now is that since I’ve fined-tuned my spending to this extent, there might not be much further to go. And this personal finance stuff has sort of turned into my main focus in life.

WL6:
Money is really only a token representing hours of my life, so perhaps it makes sense to look a bit beyond this symbol. Sometimes I can access a good without involving money, sometimes the desire disappears after I turn inward and reflect on my values. I’ve been and oddball for a while now, but it’s only now that I’m beginning to realise that my finances really are a tool to express my personality, and that my spending may have to be very different from the norm. An activity also seem to yield several types of goods. Do I garden for food, health, community, aesthetics or to help the pollinators in my area? It’s a bit of a challenge to incorporate all of this into my spreadsheets. It was relatively simple to optimise my life when I could express everything in dollars, but that kind of thinking is simply an obstacle to me now.

WL7:
It seems that the way to make the most out of all these different kinds of yields is to learn how to create systems that integrate them into a whole that serves the vision I have for my life to the fullest extent possible, while minimising waste like boring tasks or spending. To do that, I cannot isolate different parts of my life, but I have to consider interactions between different activities and attempt to make use of the waste I cannot avoid creating. By making sure that all of my actions are in alignment, I can create positive feedback loops and not having one pursuit undermine another.

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Re: The ERE Wheaton Scale

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@oldbeyond:

Looks good to me. However, I have recently demoted myself to Wheaton Level 2.5, so I might not have the most accurate perspective.

WFJ
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Re: The ERE Wheaton Scale

Post by WFJ »

Late to the discussion, read the last few pages.

Feel like I've been between 6 and 9 depending on domain my entire life (Spending 6-7, all others 8-9). Which brings up the question of nature vs nurture. My parents mostly walked to work, owned one 10+ year old junky car, took simple vacations (mostly when friends or other cancelled their plans and parents would pay the potential lost deposit), rarely ate out. One grandfather built his own house (won the land in a poker game), the other never borrowed a penny (depression era). Both grandfathers' semi ERE's in their 40's but worked periodically in their 50's, parents retired in their late 40's early 50's. My average wage is fractions of most of my peer group, but AUM is multiples.

Know I was inspired by late Stoics and Millionaire Next Door but assume I would have arrived at the same outcome without reading MND.

The main question is if ERE or Wheaton is a description of human behavior, like measuring someone's height or a stopwatch measuring how fast someone can run which can improve with changes in behavior or technique. IRL, I only share my financial status with my parents, sister and one friend who told me about MMM 1-2 years ago. Was already well below 2% SWR when I first read ERE in 2016 (brilliant book, descriptive of my choices up to chapter 6, don't make my own rakes) and why I think this is more like measuring people's height, which they have no control vs a stopwatch which can measure some improvement. IMHO, trying to inform someone to move up an ERE stage is like telling someone to be taller or to understand Calculous. It's just going to piss them off if being taller/smarter (having a better financial life) is preferred.

This was just for me, but wondering if other's find ERE and other FIRE resources as more of a description of actions vs. a manual to follow?

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Re: The ERE Wheaton Scale

Post by AxelHeyst »

I find it more of a manual (or rather, a set of instructions for how to assemble my own how-to manual, per the first chapter...)

The individual has to have some history that gets them to accept the Why - I mean, everyone needs a carrot vector, and there are multiple carrot-vectors to ERE. The book does a certain amount of explaining why someone might want to do ERE, but if someone isn't ready to hear it they aren't ready to hear it.

Take me for example. I've never been a naturally frugal person, ever since I was a kid getting a box of skittles at the movies. They'd be in my face before the previews ended. I was in consumer debt until 2016. My burn rate in 2019 was 70k, only slightly less than my take-home. But I had a carrot-vector (freedom and ecological concerns) - I just didn't know how to align my actions with my carrot-vector. I also has some personality dysfunction stuff to sort out that wasn't helping matters.

The graph of my spending starting in Jan 2020 looks like a ski slope, down and to the right. My skill ecosystem is actually growing. I think in yields and flows now. etc etc. I'm pretty sure I would have kept fumbling along in consumer-mindset hell for ... the rest of my life? Being super at conflict with my actions but not knowing what to do about it (even though now it seems blindingly obvious). I wasn't smart enough to invent it for myself, but I am smart enough to follow the instructions once I found them.

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Re: The ERE Wheaton Scale

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

The other possibility is that it is a prescient presentation of an emerging phenomena. If so, one's position on the ERE Wheaton Scale might be increasingly correlated with other trends related to affluence and population density such as level of education and having fewer children. Since more than half the global population already subsists on less the 1 jacob/year and likely wishes to do a bit better, the question becomes whether the phase where a human obtains a middle-class income and spends it all can be eliminated or significantly shortened?
OTOH, the correlation with growing affluence speaks mainly to the "carrots" of ecologica/environmental concern and desire for increased leisure time and the "sticks" may become more pronounced if/when the trend towards growing global affluence is reversed. IOW, the general phenomena has the odd property of being maximized when actual affluence in the moment is maximized, but perception of affluence in the future is minimized.

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Re: The ERE Wheaton Scale

Post by jacob »

WFJ wrote:
Sat Feb 05, 2022 4:30 pm
The main question is if ERE or Wheaton is a description of human behavior, [...]
I'm pretty sure this discussion already did happen a few times somewhere in this thread.

The WL table was designed to help communication between different levels. It's arranged such that people at WL+1 often seem inspiring, whereas WL+2 and higher seem extreme or outright insane. Conversely, WL-1 seems like they should try a little harder, whereas WL-2 or lower seem downright self-destructive if not also destructive society at large ("It's people like you ... blablabla..")

Thus, if you see someone talking about the magic of compound growth in their index funds while complaining about spending $100/month on morning coffee and needing to find a hustle, which smells a lot like WL3, you're better off approaching them with WL4 talk about buying fancy beans and their own coffee machine than WL6 talk about buying 50lbs bags of green beans and home-roasting for that extra awesome caffeine kick; or worse, try to inspire them with that "cool guy on youtube who has given up money".

The table is based on more than a decade of observing what could be called the main road from consumerism to post-consumerism in hundreds of journals and interactions. There are other roads, such as growing up like this already, but these are less common. The table is therefore not normative. You don't have to use this road. It is pretty rare to see someone jumping levels though. This is because it's not only about what you do but also how you think about what you're doing and that kind of rewiring can take many years. Whether you do it from age 4-16 or from age 24 to 36 is no matter. None of this is particularly complicated. It is complex though. As such WLs also contains an increasing development of internal complexity---more things to think about and more ways to think about them. What e.g. WL7 understand by using systems-theory is not how WL5 would think of it when hearing the word "system".

Also, the table is not intended to be used naively or w/o understanding the point. Early on there was some "well, I did a vacation on WL6 but invest like WL4 but I don't have a budget like WL1, so I must be all of these." No, the boxes are more like external symptoms of a given internal level (more precisely where the gravity is, e.g. WL4.7 demonstrating symptoms from 4 and 5 but mostly 5) ... so a lot of symptoms => you're that level, whereas 1 symptom => probably not.

https://wiki.earlyretirementextreme.com ... ton_Levels

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Re: The ERE Wheaton Scale

Post by WFJ »

AxelHeyst wrote:
Sat Feb 05, 2022 5:57 pm
I find it more of a manual (or rather, a set of instructions for how to assemble my own how-to manual, per the first chapter...)

The individual has to have some history that gets them to accept the Why - I mean, everyone needs a carrot vector, and there are multiple carrot-vectors to ERE. The book does a certain amount of explaining why someone might want to do ERE, but if someone isn't ready to hear it they aren't ready to hear it.

Take me for example. I've never been a naturally frugal person, ever since I was a kid getting a box of skittles at the movies. They'd be in my face before the previews ended. I was in consumer debt until 2016. My burn rate in 2019 was 70k, only slightly less than my take-home. But I had a carrot-vector (freedom and ecological concerns) - I just didn't know how to align my actions with my carrot-vector. I also has some personality dysfunction stuff to sort out that wasn't helping matters.

The graph of my spending starting in Jan 2020 looks like a ski slope, down and to the right. My skill ecosystem is actually growing. I think in yields and flows now. etc etc. I'm pretty sure I would have kept fumbling along in consumer-mindset hell for ... the rest of my life? Being super at conflict with my actions but not knowing what to do about it (even though now it seems blindingly obvious). I wasn't smart enough to invent it for myself, but I am smart enough to follow the instructions once I found them.
Good to know there are examples of change. Most changes I've seen have come after a total and complete collapse, like an alcoholic having a near death experience, but with money. Also, don't go looking for this as I don't share my own ERE/financial status with anyone IRL.

WFJ
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Re: The ERE Wheaton Scale

Post by WFJ »

jacob wrote:
Sun Feb 06, 2022 9:07 am
I'm pretty sure this discussion already did happen a few times somewhere in this thread.

The WL table was designed to help communication between different levels. It's arranged such that people at WL+1 often seem inspiring, whereas WL+2 and higher seem extreme or outright insane. Conversely, WL-1 seems like they should try a little harder, whereas WL-2 or lower seem downright self-destructive if not also destructive society at large ("It's people like you ... blablabla..")

Thus, if you see someone talking about the magic of compound growth in their index funds while complaining about spending $100/month on morning coffee and needing to find a hustle, which smells a lot like WL3, you're better off approaching them with WL4 talk about buying fancy beans and their own coffee machine than WL6 talk about buying 50lbs bags of green beans and home-roasting for that extra awesome caffeine kick; or worse, try to inspire them with that "cool guy on youtube who has given up money".

The table is based on more than a decade of observing what could be called the main road from consumerism to post-consumerism in hundreds of journals and interactions. There are other roads, such as growing up like this already, but these are less common. The table is therefore not normative. You don't have to use this road. It is pretty rare to see someone jumping levels though. This is because it's not only about what you do but also how you think about what you're doing and that kind of rewiring can take many years. Whether you do it from age 4-16 or from age 24 to 36 is no matter. None of this is particularly complicated. It is complex though. As such WLs also contains an increasing development of internal complexity---more things to think about and more ways to think about them. What e.g. WL7 understand by using systems-theory is not how WL5 would think of it when hearing the word "system".

Also, the table is not intended to be used naively or w/o understanding the point. Early on there was some "well, I did a vacation on WL6 but invest like WL4 but I don't have a budget like WL1, so I must be all of these." No, the boxes are more like external symptoms of a given internal level (more precisely where the gravity is, e.g. WL4.7 demonstrating symptoms from 4 and 5 but mostly 5) ... so a lot of symptoms => you're that level, whereas 1 symptom => probably not.

https://wiki.earlyretirementextreme.com ... ton_Levels
Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so.
Galileo Galilei

It appears the Wheaton scale is kind of "preachy" where '9' individuals will virtue signal and feel 4000x^x superior to those at some lower levels as if part of some cult. This does not appear to be the nature of the ERE scale. Using a nominal rank rather than ordinal can alleviate this, A-J or assign letters to each category, Myers-Brigg style or use Roman Numerals, I-X, as few can easily rank these numbers.

I would add/incorporate a "personal responsibility" category as most ERE individuals assume near 100% (assuming legal and property rights are enforced) of the responsibility while others may have a different hope of where retirement income will come from. Expanding "Vacation and Experiences" to just "Leasure" may be more descriptive. Low levels would actually harm their perceived utility of life (air travel to protest carbon use, meet in a bar/casino to promote healthy drinking/gambling) while high levels would be getting paid to do something that is not possible with their own resources.

The high example is a friend who just asked to play on an amazing concert grand piano at a country club, that he could never afford or maintain and was eventually paid $hundreds + tips to play on something he would have paid to do, pilots, race car drivers, pro athletes also fit into this category. My friend eventually started a financial services business and 90% of his original clients came from his extremely rich contacts made while playing piano at the country club, a major systems benefit.

Some possible suggestions

Nominal Rank Ordinal Responsibility (Internal/External) Leisure
A I 1 Mystical (0/100) Air travel to protest carbon use
B II 2 Government (10/100) Purchase tickets to concerts
C III 3 (20/100)
D IV 4 (30/100)
E V 5 Mixed (40/100)
F VI 6 Family (50/100)
G VII 7 (80/100)
H VIII 8 (99/100)
I IX 9 (99/100)
J X 10 1 Get paid $hundreds/hr to practice on grand piano for an audience.

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grundomatic
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Re: The ERE Wheaton Scale

Post by grundomatic »

MMG#2 had a discussion about the ERE Wheaton Scale. I don't know if anything I'm about to write adds value, and it may just be repeating what's already here (including table abuse), but I've decided to post it anyways in the interest of what @AxelHeyst listed as a best practice of the MMGs, which is to make sure we still contribute here on the forum.

One member brought up how focusing on where one isn't, instead of where one is, can make one miserable. I have lived this. I thought the dissatisfaction would be good motivation for change, but I lacked some of the other ingredients needed for change, discussed here: https://earlyretirementextreme.com/fou- ... hange.html

I just finished reading Spiral Dynamics, and my contribution was to note how the vMEMEs only change when given the right Life Conditions. It seems common to look at the table, think it's a ladder, and want to get to the next rung. If there's a struggle to get there, maybe one's Life Conditions just aren't right. The complexity may not be needed.

I also noted how vertical ascension isn't the only growth discussed in Spiral Dynamics. There is also horizontal change--getting better/maturing within a vMEME, and oblique change--borrowing a few things from neighboring vMEMEs while firmly staying centered in original vMEME. Growing within a level should not be discounted.

Lots of other good stuff discussed, but I can't recount the whole meeting. I just wanted to share my realizations in case they help anyone else that is trying to "level up", despite that not being the original intention of the table.

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Re: The ERE Wheaton Scale

Post by AxelHeyst »

grundomatic wrote:
Tue Aug 30, 2022 10:55 am
Nice, and thanks for the reminder to do an MMG update, I'm overdue. We're about to do a dive on Boyle, which I'll be sure to recap for the forum.

To maybe add something to the WL as ladder issue: I think there was a 3-6 mo period when I was really intro trying to wrap my head around the WLs, sketched a bunch of WoG diagrams, etc.

Now, I almost never think about the WL table at all, except occasionally as a communication tool (as it was intended, hah). I didn't make a conscious decision to stop thinking about it, I just lost interest. I might have gotten to the end of it (well, to the end of what I was capable of grokking about WL 5-6-7). Once I stopped generating new insights, my stoke to think about it just faded and I moved on to other things.

I think if you're not interested in the WL scale, fine. I think if you are interested in it, also fine, and it might (?) be good advice to just let yourself go as wild as you want, in a sort of 'the only way past is through' strategy. The trick is to not get stuck inside it, because the table itself becomes a form of external motivation and you're isolated from what you actually desire as your own person.

I'm glad I spent the effort I did with the scale, as I think I rearranged some neural circuits in a beneficial manner, and I'm glad I don't think about it any more.

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