The Education of Axel Heyst

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jacob
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by jacob »

Jin+Guice wrote:
Thu Dec 02, 2021 12:20 pm
@jacob: I'm confused as to how you're describing isn't blue behavior to some extent? Green should be less susceptible to groupthink? If I understand this correctly, Blue may accidentally arrive at harmony through groupthink while Green may accidentally arrive at groupthink while they pursue harmony. But holy cows and prolonged groupthink should be the province of Blue, no? Green seeks harmony with knowledge of coercive self-interest (Orange) and seeks what's best for the group through group cohesion. But, if I understand this correctly, they should be somewhat dynamic and not blindly adhere to the group just because cohesion is found. Cohesion is the goal, not the religion (as it is at Blue)? Otherwise, how is Green different than Blue?
I think we're on the same page albeit not on the same wording. Cohesive conformity is the primary goal of both blue and green: "Stay in your place". It's just a difference of who defines that place.

With blue (traditionalism), emphasis is on learning and abiding the rules within a god-given context. There's a specific place for you in the hierarchy as a peasant, knight, priest, man, woman, child, ... and your focus will be on learning and executing those rules according to your "god-given" place. You can never leave your position in this hierarchy. You were born to live and die in the life you were born to.

With orange (modernism), the emphasis is on learning the rules within a still fixed context. However, it's no longer with the goal of being the best peasant or man you can be within the peasant or man rules ... but to climb to a better position in the hierarchy.

With green (postmodernism), the context of a hierarchical organization is finally challenged. The new meta-context (unseen) is that any context is valid. Context (whatever rules you have to learn) is no longer established by hierarchy but by consensus-oriented discourse. The only valid solution is now a flat-hierarchy (the holy cow or meta-context that shall not be gored!). Maximum group cohesion is achieved once everybody agrees through a long process of negotiation. Ahh... negotiation, how to do this well? Or badly?

Part of the "confusion" might be due to have green appears as a mature implementation (Japan, Scandinavia) and an adolescent implementation (US). The former have anti-individual proverbs like tall poppy syndrome, nail that sticks out get hammered, law of Jante. All designed to keep people from straying away from the average. The priority of egocentric green is "who you're doing it with" cf egocentric orange's "what you're doing". Maccoby's Gamesmen was written for orange. Green gamesmen are people skilled in backroom politics, popularity contests, ... succeeding in green is about playing the people, undermining, poisoning the well, ... Succeeding in orange is about bending the rules w/o pissing off the people higher in the hierarchy.

Yes, that was a very sociopathic description of how these things can go. A simpler summary is that adolescent green strives to reduce the "variation" by including the opinions of the entire distribution (minorities); whereas mature green strives to consolidate and fortify around "average opinion" by making sure that people don't stray.

More abstract:
Blue - cohesion within a given and fixed hierarchy.
Green - cohesion without a given hierarchy.
Jin+Guice wrote:
Thu Dec 02, 2021 12:20 pm
Also, I never understood Yellow, but is Yellow manipulating groups for their own (perceived) benefit in a way that also benefits themselves? I'm describing it negatively bc of how my thoughts are flowing. An attempt at a more positive way: Yellow is informed leadership that understands the dynamics of harmony, but is willing to break harmony, when necessary, to steer the group. "When necessary" is internally defined and not solely in search of ego gratification (which would be Orange)?
Let me rephrase that: Yellow is informed leadership [by local doing] that understands the dynamics of [global] harmony but is willing to adjust local dynamics when necessary to steer the spiral. Turquoise is informed leadership [by global being] that understands the patterns of harmony and defines it by setting an example.

Tier1 is about survival of the phenotype (egocentric). Tier2 is about the survival of the genotype (worldcentric). Beige ~ Yellow and Purple ~ Turquoise and so on. Thus yellow is interfering with the spiral for the survival/benefit of the genotype.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

Blackjack wrote:
Tue Nov 30, 2021 10:08 pm
Sounds like you’re gonna have an awesome podcast! I’m wondering if you are using the word retroadaptics in the same way as exaptation in this context; I.e. using an existing trait or solution for a purpose which it was not developed for.

So you could (if you are so inclined) move the title to something like: “regrowth exaptations” which (if I understand your intent correctly) would mean something like “how to adapt and expand existing technology/ systems of meaning / culture for the future energy crisis and meaning crisis”. It is, of course, a play on degrowth, which looks like it is going to be one of your core topics, but instead transcends and includes simple degrowth into something else, turning it into a re-growth. Then you can focus on the idea of “regrowth” in terms of shifting meaning and mental models and value systems from orange and green things, towards the direction you are trying to sway the audience with your podcast episodes.
I wasn't familiar with the term exaptation - nice! I mean retroadaptics as a term inclusive of exaptation, but also broader. For example, retroadaptics points to using old/obsolete technologies* in addition to current/existing technologies, and also using technologies for exactly what they were intended for as well as for solving new/different problems.

*I also mean "technologies" here as very broad - maybe techniques is a better word. For example I include Benjamin Franklin's practice of cycling through his 13 Virtues, focusing on one virtue per week and scoring performance, as a form of retroadaptics. Social clubs (Lions, Masons, FVW, etcc) are another. JMG's example of bringing back slide rules (requiring the ability to make a couple of rather straight sticks, as opposed to the ability to make printed circuit boards for calculators) is another example. Pat Delaney's project of reviving the WWI era technique of making concrete-cast metal lathes is yet another.

And yes you hit it on the head - I'm trying to stay away from the gist or "style" of degrowth, which has similar issues that the word "frugality" does, and am interested in re-growth, differently-aimed-growth, etc.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

bostonimproper wrote:
Wed Dec 01, 2021 7:51 am
Wondering whether as a topic you can maybe compare Advanced Retroadaptics to other futurist strategies / adaptations (kind of like the ERE vs. specialization trap that jacob often talks about)? Thinking about the things that keeps me forever in the “before” camp are 1/ difficulties trying to adapt systems of self-sufficiency while simultaneously accruing capital in a hyper-specialized interdependent world (e.g. “inefficient” time and resource use) and 2/ being unable to identify the “assets” of the future (i.e. what are the bedrock things I can rely on). Would be interesting fodder for me as a retroadaptic-curious!
Excellent questions/ideas to grapple with, thanks for articulating them! Yes I'm excited to try to grapple with issues like these.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

A semi normal update, for once. I feel like I'm solidly in WL6 skill-building and yield-and-flow tuning mode. I'm three months (?) into sub-jafi CoL spending, although December will probably be a touch over. Since I got laid off in May my NW has basically just gone straight sideways (well, down a bit, I suppose, if you count inflation...). I'm working on bringing my food cost down to $150 and even $100, which is mostly an application of social and emotional skills since what I eat and what DGF eats is very interrelated, meals and cooking are an important part of our relationship, and she can't digest lentils and hates repetition. :? The calorie-and-$ math is easy; getting us both fed, happy, and happy with each other is the trick requiring some finesse.

I'm building a 8'x16' studio on the family land for DGF and I. It went vertical today:
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Conventional construction methods for the most part - wall insulation will be sheep's wool and the roof is probably going to be a "green" roof (in "" because it's a desert, so it's just going to be sand with a few dead sticks in it). The cool stuff will be the solar thermal heating and cooling I'm planning on doing. I want this build to be pretty quick, because we could really use the extra space.

I've gotten into mending. I fixed up my favorite jeans...
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...and added a hip belt back on to my backpack, which I ripped off a few years ago:
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I'm two weeks in to my Project Analog/Satanic Digital Sabbath experiment. I'm sensing similarities to Buy Nothing [unit of time]. For one, I've no idea why I'd want to go back to my old relationship with screens. Forget Project Analog Month, how about Project Analog Life? My focus is improving, stress is coming down, all the stuff I expected, but the main thing is that I'm more likely to finish a day feeling satisfied with how I spent my time.

It's similar to long term travel, where you live out of one or two duffel bags for 4+ months. You soon forget what it's like to have a closet full of clothes and all your other stuff -- you *live* the idea that humans just don't need much stuff to have good lives. Having a bunch of stuff becomes less important to you, and you might even be annoyed at your house full of stuff.

It's similar with Project Analog. For six days, I live the idea that I don't need screens to have a good life. Realtime news, chat, blog reading, "JIT learning" (aka looking stuff up on the spot to prove I'm right about something), even checking the weather, it's just not that important to having a good life, turns out. I'm now finding most of the information that I used to consume as a matter of course annoying when I encounter it on the seventh day. I'm not at all having a problem with bingeing internet stuff on screen day -- I'm excited to get caught up on the forum, Signal chats and emails with friends, and then I crank through my internet/screen "chores" like looking up DIY Lip Balm recipes and updating financial spreadsheets. Then I shut it down and do anything else.

The one major downside of Project Analog is I'm missing out on the Mastermind Signal chats in realtime. The silver lining is that I'm able to observe the awesome discussions after the fact, and not always be jumping in and giving my two cents. I'm listening more, which is good to do from time to time. I can get... excited about topics and probably kinda railroad discussions sometimes.

Progress on the podcast is good, still working on scripting the first few episodes. I'm very focused on the studio, that's my "big rock", and I don't feel like I have the bandwidth to throw recording on top of it. I'm somewhat planning on starting recording in January, once we're nominally moved into the studio.

My plan for Christmas gifts this year is to roast coffee beans for people and include a nice hand-written note/letter with my dip pen, and possibly to make little journals/notebooks for people -- that's a skill I want more practice in as I could see it as a hobby that throws off $. It's also scratching an itch... there's a lot of handmade journals for sale on the internet, but none of them tick all the boxes I want ticked. So, might as well make 'em myself.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

I think that being able to go completely off the grid digitally is one factor in favor of FI vs semi/FI. I am old enough to be appalled by the fact that even with temporary or part-time semi/professional gigs, my employers and colleagues think it is okay to attempt to communicate with me on a Sunday.

I’ve done experiments and determined that I am perfectly capable of totally slacking off without internet access if I have a fresh pile of books, and I never waste time on Facebook or any site like that, so it’s the push of the digital that bothers me much more than the pull. I am still very unhappy that somebody taught my mother how to text me when I don’t pick up the phone.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

That sounds terrible. I’m fortunate that no one in my life has unreasonable communications expectations like that. I’m guessing it’s not so simple as just ignoring them, or intentionally only responding after a decent 12hr window, until everyone adjusts their expectations for you?

And good point about going fully off digital. I’ve read about the occasional analog craftsperson (jeweler, blacksmith, carpenter, etc) who’ve basically quit digital, which suggests one potential path to a semiERE Deep Analog lifestyle without having to be fully FI…

My problem isn’t that I go on to computers and slack off (anymore), it’s that I go on them to attempt to be productive, because computers are how I’ve been programmed (see what I did there?) to be productive, but I only have maybe 15min of productive stuff to actually *do* on computers these days, but my conscious mind hasn’t realized that yet, so I spend a couple hours poking at productive looking actions but not actually doing much, resulting in low efficiency.

I’m quite in support of slacking off, and I’m actually pleased to find myself spending more high quality analog slacking time now that I’ve throttled the screen access.

Had a small realization. My family does a small but normal American Christmas tradition of gifts, a little tree, food, etc. I want to participate somehow without reverting to just buying crap off Amazon. Last year I didn’t spend it with family so I didn’t do anything, which was my first post-ERE Christmas but my twentieth “I’m angry about consumerism” Christmas.

This year I’ll be spending it with family and like I said I want to do better than angry teenage anti consumerist. It struck me that my nonconsumer options (roast coffee and make notebooks and write a nice note) will suffice, but they’re not very rich. That’s tapping my skill set for this particular situation. I feel like I’m showing up from a somewhat impoverished or scarce place, but that scarcity has to do with my ecosystem of skills, not financial status.

I can see next year being able to show up and supply actually decent wild fermented fruit wine for the feasting, gifts of hand stitched winter mukluks and carved flatware, a few dishes involving creatively acquired ingredients (foraged this, self-butchered that), some really cool and also useful wooden boxes (those were popular gifts in my family three+ generations ago), …

This is something that I could have explained before, but that I now feel on an intuitive level that I think represents an evolving mindset shift. As I work to develop my L6 skill ecosystem, I intuitively see *it* (the skill ecosystem) as my source of abundance and wealth. Events like Christmas serve to challenge or test that system, and make obvious and conscious the richness of it.

This Christmas, I’m feeling lean. Which is an incredibly interesting place, because for many people I think this is a place of potential reversion. I used to make good money and I gave abundant gifts because they were all over $100 or whatever. As my mindset is shifting from $ to #skillz, I’m seeing myself back down at a lower level of the aggregate S curve.

That doesn’t feel great, but also, it’s providing extra motivation to continue the work of gardening and cultivating that skill ecosystem so that it becomes a source of real abundance that I’m capable of being generous towards other people with.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by theanimal »

Inspiring set of posts! I like your outlook. I'm in the same position regarding Christmas. Still mostly skill poor but no desire to pursue the consumer alternatives. Thankfully, my family is not very gift centric. My mom is the only person I still am obliged to gift, lest I face her wrath. I still like the idea of having an abundance and being able to give freely. I'm slowly improving, for her birthday I gave her a wreath I made out of pussy willow buds. I recently gave her some salmon filets and I think will make some engraved coasters out of some birch rounds I have. I would have liked to do a spoon or utensil of some type, but my skill is not there yet in terms of gifting.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by mooretrees »

it's so interesting to read about your project analog. inspiring even, i've started the process to wean myself off of the smart phone. and possibly email? need to think more about email.

i'm at the place of feeling so generous and having a bunch of yummy or handmade gifts for people, and it feels awesome! You'll get there for sure, and I love it. I feel much more generous than I normally do this time of year, and my home made gifts seem more valuable than anything i could have bought.

I do miss you on the signal chat though, but don't break your good habits for chats!

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

This week I realized a subtler effect of Project Analog: a sense of peace / Serenity associated with knowing that I’m almost certainly not going to be interrupted or compelled to task switch by incoming messages or ‘new’ information.

I wake up in the morning and know that the only possible realistic avenues for distraction/diversion are, well, my girlfriend, which is fine. She’s much easier to negotiate functional boundaries with than The Internet. I can set my mind to a project and just do it all day.

I realized that I’ve been approaching tasks and projects in a rush, because I’m unconsciously trying to get as much done before the next impending and inevitable interruption / task switch, which has been a constant in my life since at least 2009. As I’m able to relax into my projects, I’m enjoying them more and am more able to get lost in the enjoyment of executing them well, rather than frenetically trying to bang them out. A tenseness I didn’t fully know I had has been seeping out of me.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by mountainFrugal »

AxelHeyst wrote:
Sun Dec 19, 2021 12:03 pm
A tenseness I didn’t fully know I had has been seeping out of me.
Very cool observations. The data is stacking up for me to give this a try (even if heavily modified for current work situation).

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by theanimal »

Yes, cool indeed and making me have the same effect. Have you found your thinking to be clearer at all? I imagine the effects will compound with more time. It also seems like your interest in perusing the web on your day of satan (digital day) will decrease with time.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

theanimal wrote:
Sun Dec 19, 2021 12:44 pm
Yes, cool indeed and making me have the same effect. Have you found your thinking to be clearer at all? I imagine the effects will compound with more time. It also seems like your interest in perusing the web on your day of satan (digital day) will decrease with time.
Yep, today is a perfect example. I had a 0500 1on1 call with a masterminder on a specialty topic, then I spent an hour or so processing email, chats, and checking up on the forum. Then... it was a sunny, wind-free day, and I've just started sheathing the studio build. Twas an easy call to shut the laptop and spend the rest of the day till sundown building, outside. I'm now doing a bit more comms, updating the ol' spreadsheet, and looking up a couple of how-to's now that it's evening time.

I don't know if my thinking is clearer or not, it's either too early to tell or the dominant sensation is just one of less frustration and more ease. Which seems obvious is a precursor to clearer thinking. But I've been pretty focused on the build, which is a "big rock" in my life, so I'm letting many other "small rock" projects and maintenance tasks go on back burner for the moment. I think my level of thinking will be easier to assess once I've substantially completed the capx project, the holidays are over, and life is a little more settled.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

Project Analog is over. The final epiphany I had was that going analog with my GTD system had a bigger effect than I anticipated.

For about a decade now, the answer to the question “what to do now?” existed in my GTD system, which has been in the digital realm somewhere (Evernote, then Standard Notes). Having to “go digital” to figure out what to do had two effects:

1) It increased the chances of me being distracted my something digital. It was always really easy to take a quick “inbox lap” as long as I was checking my gtd system, since they were all a click or two away from my GTD platform.

2) *Asking* the question in a digital space biased the *answer* to be digital. The medium is the message and all that; I think that asking “what to do?” in a digital space made it more likely that the answer had at least a whisper of “something digital, probably…”. It was easy to switch to a digital task. Exiting the digital realm and going analog took some amount of (de)activation energy.

Now my gtd system is in a 3ring binder, which whispers “do something analog” whenever I go to it for answers now. My inboxes are safely stashed in a cabinet somewhere and take an unappealing amount of energy to go fetch.

Now that I’ve done Project Analog, I feel like it’s a behavioral tool I have in my back pocket whenever I want it, similar to my “no alcohol month” thing I’ve been doing for at least five years now. At least one a year, and additionally whenever I feel like it, I can pull the trigger on a Project Analog month/quarter[/year/life??] without much fuss since I’ve already gone to the trouble of figuring out the mechanics of it.

Permanent changes to my life:
  • Analog GTD
  • A dedicated ‘digital chores’ day, for updating The Spreadsheet, clearing all inboxes to zero, doing the digital components of my Weekly Review, etc.
  • Composing blog post, podcast episode, and emails with pen and paper first, then copying to digital for upload/transmit/use.
  • Hand sketching and drafting for builds first, only going 3d for specialty uses like daylight simulation and materials modeling (e.g. “exactly how shitty will doing OSB interior paneling for the studio be? Oh, hm, quite shitty indeed, okay…”

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mountainFrugal
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by mountainFrugal »

What a great project! Thank you for sharing what you learned. Seems like it would be worth it to at least attempt for most people reading this journal. I like the idea that it adds enough friction to make it less automatic and that you were able to translate your productivity systems to Analog as well. Inspiring!

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by Western Red Cedar »

Are you familiar with the Dirtbag Diaries podcast? I just discovered it a few weeks ago and it seems like it overlaps with Dirtbag ERE or Axel ERE. I didn't want to send you a link while in the middle of project analog, but since you're done for now...

https://dirtbagdiaries.com/

There is a bit more production than I hear in a lot of podcasts, and as a result it reminds me a little more of an NPR program than much of what is produced today. Tons of content here, and maybe a bit of an inspiration for your podcast project. I personally find a podcast or radio in the background more benign than interactive screens. It involves actively selecting what you want to listen to and often a deep dive into a particular topic.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

I love dbd, although I’m not a regular listener. It’s not easy for me to get into a consistent consumption pattern of audio media… I’m easily hyper-annoyed by certain sounds (I’m misaphonic), which rules out 90% of podcasts, and get impatient quickly with the nonvariable speed. Also here are few activities I do which lend themselves to listening to content, although once I ramp up sewing projects that’s liable to change…

If you haven’t yet, check out Safety Third. I met Elizabeth Nakano ice climbing above June lake years ago, super cool person.

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Re: Axel Heyst's Journal

Post by mathiverse »

AxelHeyst wrote:
Sun Jan 24, 2021 3:05 pm
GTD Update
...
There was a sale on Standard Notes which works out to 1.67$/mo for five years, at which point I'll probably be ready to go paper-only for my GTD system.
...
Congrats on the successful experiment! I was looking at some old posts where GTD is mentioned because I was thinking about trying it out and found this. Congrats on switching to a paper GTD four years earlier than planned! It's cool to see things like that develop.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

Ha! Nice catch. Reminds me of the self-challenge “What would it take to pull off your 10 year goals in six months?” (got from the Tim Ferriss Show, but the quote is from Dalio or Chris Sacca or someone like that). Sometimes Just Doing It is the answer.



December 2021 Update
Trying a different thing with my monthly update: giving a snapshot from my gtd.

Active Projects (defined as “projects that have Next Actions”, versus projects that are Soon, Later, or Someday/Maybe):
  • Finish Studio. Just insulated the walls, doing wall paneling today. Ought to be able to rough move in in ~2wks.
  • Fix up Jeremiah. My truck stalled out of nowhere the other day, also the handle needs replacing, there are mice nests in the engine compartment, and the front end is loose as hell. I can tend to be a negligent truck dad, because Tacomas tend to just keep on going. I consider that a character defect which I intend to address.
  • Prep moto for storage. The moto is still non-functional - I determined it’s got spark and fuel. Idk why it isn’t working, but I need time and space to work on it and I have neither. I’m going to cancel the insurance and prep it to sit for ~a year until I can get to it.
  • Get prepared to travel RTW. I’ve resolved that, as long as Portugal will let us in, we’re going. We’ll figure it out from there. This project looks mostly like making sure we’re all vaccinated and documented according to spec, have accommodations lined up for when we land, have our Workaway profiles sorted and some lines out, getting our electronics sorted, and making sure our rigs are good to sit for potentially a year.
  • Sell mountain bike, snowboard boots, and cell booster.
  • Publish a podcast episode. Had my first recording session last night. It was good, but doing it gave me lots of thoughts about what I’m trying to do and how to do it. Mostly around deciding what it is exactly I’m trying to do, and doing it clearly.
  • Keep writing blog posts. This feels mostly automatic.
  • Do 13 Virtues Cycle. Benjamin Franklin had 13 virtues that he worked on, one at a time per week, for most of his life. I’m starting a similar thing…. with a couple of his puritanical virtues swapped out for ones I’m more stoked on (aka I swapped “chastity” for “shadowplay”…)
  • Complete a six week cycle of strength training with no missed days. The dnd system I’m building has helped me get two weeks of consistency already. When I consider skipping, I think to myself “there’s a part of me that is a mf’ing Barbarian Warlord, and that part of me scoffs at the idea of skipping training. That part of me *prefers* it to be cold and windy and to train outside.” I view the XP I get just as a trick to not let the archetypes fade from memory - doing the xp accounting requires that I check in on all the archetypes and see how they’re doing, reinforcing my sense of their existence in my psyche. I’m not thinking “ooo I get 34 xp”, I’m thinking “would Conan skip a workout? No, Conan would not skip a workout, and neither will I.”
  • Some viz studio projects, including learning about machine learning for a wild idea my business partner has.
The cabin build is the “big rock” in my life at the moment. I’m jamming hard to get it done as quickly as possible, and holding off as best I can on small and medium rock projects, because those will all go much more smoothly once the cabin is useable. I’m considering putting a moratorium on big rock projects for at least a year after this (which will be moot if we do wind up traveling long term). I really like the idea of investing time and effort into maintenance and operational projects; getting systems tuned and running smoothly and working well as a system. Dumping a majority of effort into capital projects puts everything else on the back burner.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

JMGs latest is lit:
https://www.ecosophia.net/tomorrowland-has-fallen/

As a former Design Engineer of Tomorrowland, who went through a series of crises of faith about wtf I was actually working towards, this essay resonates strongly and I’m excited to hear JMG is going to pursue more thinking in this direction.

One of the whole reasons for exiting FT work before FI is that I want to be/get involved in building stuff that isn’t foredoomed - I want to be involved in building stuff that has some possible relevance for a future 50,100, 200 years from now. Since there aren’t exactly degrees in this, it takes a large amount of freedom of action/autonomy to figure out what that is and how to do it.

This is what the point of ERE is for me - to allow me the freedom to work on stuff that isn’t worse than useless.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by jacob »

AxelHeyst wrote:
Wed Jan 05, 2022 12:14 pm
I want to be involved in building stuff that has some possible relevance for a future 50,100, 200 years from now. Since there aren’t exactly degrees in this, it takes a large amount of freedom of action/autonomy to figure out what that is and how to do it.
You should talk to Riggerjack. He hasn't been around the forums for a while. However, he is or was working on designing buildings on a century/millennium time-scale and needed some calculations on thermal transport. You might have [existing] tools to solve this fast?

Anyhoo, there's some forum interest in this including a potential willingness to throw money at prototype buildings. Would most likely happen in the PNW.

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