Hristo's FI Journal

[Hristo Botev]

Right now, our savings (not counting home equity or the kids' college savings, or our guesstimate as to what we could sell the car for) would generate $1,600/mo. at the 4% withdrawal rate. With a paid-off house and the kids' schooling paid off, $1,600 would be enough, as housing and the kids' schooling is by far our biggest expenses. Of course the house isn't paid off, and neither is our kids' schooling. So that's the focus. But honestly, I'm no longer holding out any hope for the magical 4% number. So the secondary focus is just getting our non school/housing spending down to as close to $0 as possible.

Regarding overall NW numbers, as of this morning we are 3/4 millionaires, so that's nice. But it all seems like so much make believe.

[Hristo Botev]

FYI: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/kingsnorth/register

This was wonderful. Paul Kingsnorth's writings (and his worldview) are keeping me from becoming clinically depressed right now.

[Hristo Botev]

"Whenever something is wrong, something is too big."

[Hristo Botev]

A fun exercise (and reminder) is looking at how our home values have decreased over the past 5 years, while our debt load has decreased and our net worth has increased, as we've downsized homes:

- Jan. 2016: Home value - $625K; Total debt - $540K (3 mortgages/home loans and 1 car loan); Total net worth - $192K
- Apr. 2018: Home value - $425K; Total debt - $250K (1 mortgage); Total net worth - $488K
- Now: Home value - $350K; Total debt - $165K (1 mortgage); Total net worth - $750K

That said, here's hoping we don't downsize again until the kids are out of the house and we're living in an Airstream. Moving damn near killed me last fall.

[Lemur]

One of the only good things about my 9-5 job is that it keeps the old climate change depression at bay.

Paul Kingsworth is a favorite. I like Rob Greenfield's work as well and overall attitude to the problem.

Individual action...makes sense from ERE standpoint. Example recently - the refusal to buy a leaf blower. Raking leaves is free exercise anyway. My Grandfather asked me why I did it the long way (raked them all...carried them all...) instead of just purchase a leaf blower. Said it was bad for the environment. Grandfather said he wished his generation shared that perspective. Could also just not rake leaves but would have to be 'that one guy' in the neighborhood. I won't pretend I do enough though ...not even close. My own home is producing more kwH then the average American home.

I hope the young people today can usher in a new era of clean energy but I'm not optimistic on consumption patterns. I personally like this part of 'woke' generation. I may not be using that term correctly either....

Edit: Can relate so heavily to your journal...past 2 years has also been the climate change rabbit hole for me too.

[Hristo Botev]

Thanks Lemur. Not familiar with Rob Greenfield, anything you'd recommend as a starting point?

Re the leaf blower, in my old neighborhood my friends constantly dig on this early 20s-something woman who is either home from college because of COVID or just graduated and so is living with her folks as she figures stuff out. Anyway, safe to say she is a bit "vocal" on the neighborhood FB group, and specifically on the issue of her neighbors' use of leaf blowers (mostly in terms of noise pollution, but also CC concerns). I don't think I ever participated in my friends' pile-on--certainly not directly, either in person or through FB, but also I don't think via the private text chain as my old neighborhood friends make jokes about her sanity, about how she's not allowed to complain about her neighbors' yard maintenance activities until she's no longer free-loading on her parents, etc. etc. etc. (As I recall, her father staged some sort of intervention whereby she was told she had to exit the FB group if she wanted to stay in the house.) I'd like to say the reason I haven't contributed in the piling on is b/c I always live out my Catholic Church's moral teachings, and b/c I'm not an a-hole; but let's be honest, neither of those things is true. The reality, I think, is because I agree with her, and have agreed with her instinctively before I knew that I did. I used to question her communication skills and tactics, but now, I don't really anymore. If I was an early-20s something I'd be pretty fired up about the fact that my neighbor is standing on his roof blowing leaves out of his rain gutters with a gas-powered leaf blower because he doesn't want to get his hands dirty.

Anyway, that's a long tangent because: (a) I've found my own 9-5 is doing a much worse job at keeping my attention these days, and (b) the story seemed to be a good anecdote for a lot of things I can't fully explain and haven't fully come to terms with yet (the answer to why Jesus speaks in parables). All in all, I'm just pissed off and trying to come to terms with the damage I've done and continue to do to the world my own kids and grandkids will inhabit; not to mention that I can go days without seeing any real wildlife with the exception of squirrels and, tellingly, vultures.

[Lemur]

I would check out his Youtube channel (Search for Rob Greenfield in Youtube; he has a large channel) but the ERE thread is here: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=11013

There is power in numbers for social reasons. The best way I can describe that phenomenon ...it is like how when the family/friends knows that someone is dieting and trying to lose weight but they try to egg that person on to eat junk food. Its because their dieting makes them reflect on their own health and eating habits.

Continuing education is key. Also helps to read more about potential solutions to take some of the doomsday off the mind. I've lately been digging into Nuclear Energy 101 related stuff. Also been watching some lectures from David Archer. On to do list: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0470943416/

[jacob]

I think I'm the only one in the neighborhood who uses a push-mower as well as a rake for leaves. Of course I probably wouldn't hear them if there were others like me. On the other hand, I don't recall ever seeing one. From my perspective, I can push the mower faster than the self-driving mechanism of a motorized mower. Also, once the leaf cover attains a certain depth, they're way easier to move by rake than by blower. It takes me 5 minutes clear 95% of the leaves in our front yard working at a level that the CDC would consider "brisk exercise". It takes one particularly obsesssive neighbor 3 hours (most seem to spend 30-60 mins---all the front lawns are the same size) to clear 100% with the leaf blower until the lawn is perfect. It stays leaf-free for a few hours until leaves start raining down again.

I think consumer-phenotypes are controlled by very simple algorithms. I only need two lines of simple code to describe that behavior.

[Hristo Botev]

I certainly can't judge anyone, even now. We now live in a townhouse complex that, thanks to some unique circumstances that I won't disclose here, has a surprising amount of community greenspace. And, of course, we've got landscapers, and I swear those guys are at our complex at least twice a week with their team of leaf blowers. I remember one day when I left for work a bit late, after the team of leaf blowers had started in our neighborhood. So I was dodging them to get out of our neighborhood, and then as I walked to my office downtown I encountered 4 more leaf blowers, and then once I got to my building our building "engineer" was in the driveway with his leaf blower, and I swear he spent 2 hours right outside my window just blowing the same 3-4 magnolia leaves around in a circle, out of sheer boredom. I have ear plugs in my office for no other reason than this guy's infatuation with his leaf blower.

ETA: Like I said, I think I always just instinctively grokked my former 20-something neighbor's frustration with the constant leaf blowing. There's something indicative about it.

[Hristo Botev]

I would check out his Youtube channel (Search for Rob Greenfield in Youtube; he has a large channel) but the ERE thread is here: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=11013

I like his blog posts; like reading a really good ERE journal. And this is about where I'm trying to get from a mindset perspective: https://www.robgreenfield.org/fateofhumanity/

[Lemur]

Yes! I almost posted that one here... that post struck a cord with me too. Despite the occasional nihilistic depression in regards to CC, I feel like I'm getting there to stage 5. Maybe I'm at 4.5....

Seems like Rob was at stage 5 a long time ago.

Talking about the '5 stages of grief' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_stages_of_grief

1.) Denial - Climate change is either not real or it is not as bad as 'they' are saying it is. Individual refuses to see the problem and proceeds to make no changes to lifestyle.

2.) Anger - Why won't 'they' do something about this!? World governments need to come together and solve this! Come on now! Individual doesn't think to reduce his own carbon footprint but is aware there might be a problem.

3.) Bargaining - Perhaps this problem is not as big as the environmentalists are making this out to be? Our current system is okay - no reason to be drastic....just start phasing out fossil fuels and everything will be okay. Techno-green revolution can solve this! Individual may or may not start making lifestyle changes.

4.) Depression - We're screwed. IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 C? Yeah doubt we can make this due to [long list of various scientific and political reasons that spell doom for humanity]. Individual begins to make some lifestyle changes but has problems with motivation in some areas.

5.) Acceptance - "I'm doubtful of humanity's fate but I will never give up on us." Individual makes significant lifestyle changes but doesn't beat himself/herself up too much when dealing with various failings.

[Hristo Botev]

Well said with the grief stages. I was at denial for a very, very long time. But I think I skipped straight from 1 to 4, because of my age and worldview I don’t have much faith in “them.”

[RockyMtnLiving]

This exchange resonates with me as I have spent the bulk of my career/life on CC mitigation. I am deep into the CC mitigation silo.

I will make the following observation as the wick of my career burns lower: the challenges and opportunities facing Homo sapiens from AI in the coming decades may shortly make CC considerations seem quite antiquated. For a sobering perspective, see Bostrom, N. “Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies.”

Under all reasonably foreseeable scenarios the line between humans and machines will continue to blur going forward. It is quite likely that by 2100 it may be challenging to differentiate between the two. And if not 2100, by 2200, or some other future date. Heck, even if It takes to 2500 to blur, that will be a remarkable day.

That development will in turn create unimaginable challenges for labor. I would also posit the same for philosophy, religion and the like. Can an AI-augmented Homo sapien be a Christian? Can a machine with the cognitive powers of a human (or greater) accept Jesus Christ as her/his savior?

Then take all of the above and run it against quantum computing, which for all intents and purposes is already here.

As to CC mitigation solutions, the AI-driven machines are on the job. They have been for some time actually. Sorting CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere ultimately is a technology problem (though one deeply imbued with societal/economic aspects).

So mitigating melting glaciers is arguably the “easier” challenge facing humanity, one to which the AI black box can give an answer. The blurring of humans and machines is upon us, however, and creates much more challenging societal challenges.

[Lemur]

@Hristo

One more : https://youtu.be/KPteW0dvOHI Thought it was just relevant that he mentioned the grief stages. Nice also to know we’re not alone in feeling this. Coming to terms with CC has been rough this year. It is always in the back of my mind and has been consuming most of my thoughts this year.

@RockyMtnLiving

Also relevant! Saw this clip where David Archer stated the physical science problem is essentially ‘easy’. Boiled down to getting the greenhouse gases out of the air...the tough problem truly is changing human culture. From what I have deduced...culture won’t change until the problem forces us to change ...and by that time it will be far too late to go back. Maybe the machines can save us?

[RockyMtnLiving]

The societal change I meant was lawyers being unemployed (to bring it home).

Read Bostrom’s book. It won’t be that much longer (certainly measured on geologic time scales, and likely much sooner) until machines are vastly smarter than every Homo sapien who has ever lived.

Sure, that machine can “solve” my — and society’s — problems in a nanosecond, I suppose. But at what cost? Wholesale unemployment? Will machines pay taxes? Will Homo sapiens need education? What about procreation? How about wars — maybe the machine on the other side of the globe views my machine as a threat, and wants to take it out? Why are Homo sapiens needed? Will the machines want us?

And sitting between such machines will be augmented humans. It is already getting hard to discern fake humans from real ones online (textually or via face recognition).

In my view, the AI-driven challenges facing society dwarf everything else, including CC, which ultimately is solvable given enough money. And they are here, right outside the gate, tapping on my door to be let in.

[Hristo Botev]

@Hristo
One more : https://youtu.be/KPteW0dvOHI Thought it was just relevant that he mentioned the grief stages.

Wouldn't you know, I watched this clip about a week ago, and it proved really helpful as I was having some follow-up discussions with an environmental activist who'd participated in that CC common ground workshop with me. As we were talking about education, she'd asked why I'd objected to her "policy" of educating and empowering folks to take action on CC (or some such thing). I told her I'd objected because it wasn't a policy, but a goal or objective (and one that most anyone who has mostly moved past the denial stage will be on board with). But the "how" was important. And, speaking as a conservative who values localism and subsidiarity principles above most everything else, I'm always going to push back on the idea of any sort of federal government propaganda campaign. For one, there's no nationally-applicable optimistic story we can tell. Also, any such campaign would of course be heavily influenced by the heavily-monied techno-optimists of the world, selling their "green" technologies with the promise that we can continue living our affluent middle-class lives; we only need write our congressman or take some token action to make ourselves feel like we are "doing" something. (I'm just imagining a "The More You Know" TV campaign that's actually brutally honest about CC; needless to say, it will never happen.)

But on the grieving process, my main point to this activist was that you have to recognize that the grieving process very much applies to CC; this isn't something like, oh, I didn't realize using aerosol cans was putting a hole in the ozone--let's just stop doing that. Everyone I know is in some stage of denial or bargaining on CC--the climate "deniers" I know aren't stupid or ignorant. Rather, they are smart enough and sufficiently well informed to know that CC is an existential threat to humanity (or at least to their "myth of progress" worldview) and they also know that there really aren't any good "solutions"; so, what do you do with that information? Well, it doesn't seem irrational to me to simply lie to yourself and tell yourself a different story than the one you know to be true; I mean, why not? (See @Jacob's discussion on Plato's Cave in the Conservative CC topic thread.) But one thing you don't do is run a bunch of taxpayer-funded PSAs having Al Gore, or Leo DiCaprio, or Neil deGrasse Tyson, or Jon Stewart, or Kamala Harris/Joe Biden, etc. etc. beating people over the heads for being ignorant and stupid when we don't have any ways to "fix" CC while also continuing to grow the GDP.

[Hristo Botev]

Read Bostrom’s book.

No. I got enough on my plate of shit to worry about at the moment.

That said, does Bostrom deal with the fact that all this AI technology requires energy, lots and lots and lots of it? What's the intersection between the AI horror story and the Peak Oil and CC one? If it's nuclear, then there's sufficient reason alone to not push for nuclear. If it's AI harvesting humans as a power source (The Matrix?), well, then you're right, we're f@%#ed,

[Hristo Botev]

I would check out his Youtube channel (Search for Rob Greenfield in Youtube; he has a large channel) but the ERE thread is here: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=11013

@Lemur, on Greenfield, I subscribed to his blog and it will certainly make it on my list of shit to read when I'm trying to distract myself at work. That said, while I think what he's doing is 100% fantastic; for me, personally, the folks that are going to be more inspirational at the moment are the moms and dads. That's why Kingsnorth (married w/ 2 kids) and Klamus (married w/ 2 kids) are having such an impact on me. I'm sure it's not a good idea to get into the "don't have kids to save the planet" position on this forum (and certainly not on my particular journal); but, as I have kids, and as having kids fundamentally changes your worldview (or at least it should, if you're paying attention), I'm much, much more interested in seeing how the Kingsnorths and Klamuses of the world are dealing with their CC grief.

[jacob]

Before it becomes a habit : Klamus->Kalmus

[Hristo Botev]

@Jacob. That would explain why my attempts to find podcast interviews of him have failed. Thanks!