What is ERE2?

[jacob]

Based on that explanation, "multiplayer ERE" is one way to characterize ERE2. However, the multiplayer concept seems limiting because ERE1 doesn't have a fixed objective like a game. Because objectives vary between individuals, it may be more useful to think of ERE1 as an operating system that supports a wide variety of software. (ERE1's web of goals also allows for efficient multitasking.)

I like the multiplayer methaphor. Games don't have to have fixed objectives, nor do they need to have shared objectives. Sandbox-type games like Europa Universalis or Minecraft allow each player to set or change their own objectives. The OS metaphor is also useful in that an OS is essentially a philosophy that runs on a given hardware platform (the paradigm). In that regard, ERE1 is a philosophy, whereas ERE2 would be a new paradigm.

Somewhat related, compare the size of a community to the goal complexity of a representative member. I made this graph for illustrative purposes, using personal finance examples since this is a PF forum. While "mainstream PF" and "FIRE movement" are composed of a number of individual communities, they are grouped as such because the aggregate size of these movements is also the effective network size. Their members' goals and values wrt PF are similar/compatible, and the communities are aware of each other.

Right, and what's interesting is that 15 years ago, these numbers were much smaller than they are here. If we go by the 90-9-1 rule, the "FIRE movement" had only a handful of creators and a few dozen contributors.

Although it has been stated that ERE2 doesn't have a specific goal, I can't help but imagine that ERE2 aspires to operate at a larger scale and/or at a higher average complexity than existing structures. Because it's not worth the extra effort to connect with other ERE1 when the existing structure satisfies the need.

Larger scale and more complexity in connections is certainly a goal. Beyond the jargon-issue, I think that's also where some of the conflict between ERE1 and ERE2 stems from. Some are fine being FI and living within the existing societal structures, that is, arms-length transactions in the market place, membership of traditional institutions, and roles and job descriptions. Others see that as still being in Plato's Cave albeit with the chains off. FI and ERE1 creates a few more possibilities than job-career, but because FI/ERE1 has to interact with the job-career world, the possibilities are limited.

I haven't thought of a good way to explain it yet, but it's like
conventional person surrounded by conventional people ~ 1 x 1 = 1 possibilities
ERE1 person surrounded by conventional people ~ 10 x 1 = 10 possibilities
ERE1 person surrounded by ERE1 people ~ 10 x 10 = 100 possibilities.

ADD: Okay, here's a better way using your LAN party description. At LAN parties, the problem was usually to find others who were into the same games as you. This was fine if you were into Quake, because everybody liked Quake. However, if you were into flight sims, the struggle was real. A conventional LAN party full of conventional people would play 1x1=1 games. An ERE1 person would like to play 10 different games, but in order to do so, he would have to find 10 different conventional LAN parties: The Quake party, The flightsim party, ... Whereas a LAN party with mostly ERE1 types would have exponentially more options to form teams.

[7Wannabe5]

There are a lot of people who live unconventional lifestyles who are not ERE1, and ERE1 is heavily loaded with certain personality types, so, although I grok what you are getting at here, IMO there is some not unimportant level on which interacting purely with ERE1 people could actually reduce options or insight.

More stereotypically unconventional types might be found under Hanzi's triple H of hippies, hackers, and hipsters. But, how do you recruit members of the "precariat" when Step 1 (or pre-Step 1) of FIRE does seem to be Obtain Full-time Conventional Job?

Also, there are a lot of humans who only live conventionally on the surface, but have all sorts of whacko or interesting stuff going on once you get to know them.

[jacob]

Another question: Do we consider the FIRE movement as falling under the ERE2 umbrella? While I can see the parallels between ERE1/FIRE movement and the "keepie-uppie"/soccer example of emergence, I have two arguments against classifying FIRE movement as ERE2.

1. Using the ERE2 computer/network analogy, the "operating system" of ERE1 individuals is not usually compatible with that of mainstream FIRE. If you put an ERE1 and FIRE on the same network, a connection between the two is much less likely than ERE1-ERE1 or FIRE-FIRE. It's a difference in kind; a typical ERE1 feels out of place in FIRE-land and vice-versa.

I consider FIRE a subset or more precisely a side-effect of ERE1+salaried job (median income). Specifically, FIRE is the dominant failure-mode of ERE1 (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MGQgQZHx1Q for explanation of failure modes). It is the quick&easy adaption of a subset of principles for high-income engineering-minded individualists. Many of these principles were already known, only the high savings rate math was missing; this pertains to your second question.

ERE1 "transcends and includes" FIRE even if ERE1 wasn't originally based on FIRE. From the perspective of FIRE, ERE1 looks like a combination of "too extreme", "sacrifice", and "overcomplicating problems when money-oriented solutions exist". From the perspective of ERE1, FIRE looks like advanced consumerism on high-income "easy-mode". Lucking(?) into an insanely highly paid career due to interests or "first career"-choices coinciding with a Kondratieff technology shift and making 100k+ almost right out of college is not entirely different than winning the lottery.

ERE1 and FIRE actually does go on the same network. In particular, FIRE has become the bridge between ERE1 and mainstream. Mainstream can understand FIRE. And ERE1 can talk in FIRE terms (hence the name "early retirement extreme" instead of "peak oil preparation journey #47"). This can be interpreted as a Venn diagram with the three sets on one line. This also explains the difficulty. ERE1 is two shifts of thinking beyond of mainstream. Shift#1 is becoming financially independent. Shift#2 is becoming economically independent.

What this means is that I can talk to FIRE people on podcasts, etc.. They will think I'm extreme and overcomplicating things, but at least they understand the value of independence and they are actually conscious of an alternative to the traditional education-career-retire-die paradigm. They see the water they've been swimming in. OTOH, because ERE1 transcends FIRE---it is much bigger---I also talk or overlap with podcasts that focus on permaculture, philosophy, social sciences, and natural sciences. I'm not aware of any FIRE figureheads who do this on a regular basis.

2. The FIRE movement would have eventually happened given that the E-R forums already had a critical mass, with FIRECalc providing the numerical solution to the FIRE problem. While the FIRE movement would have looked a lot different without ERE providing the mathematical innovation, it is dubious to say that the FIRE movement originated from ERE. Nevertheless, the development and promotion of the "shockingly simple math" undoubtedly accelerated the movement's growth and introduced savings rate as the critical parameter for FIRE.

Theoretically, the FIRE movement was only waiting for someone who could a) do the math (which is freshman business student level); and b) consider the entire range of savings rates. (b) was the sticking point, not because it was technically difficult, but because it was "inconceivable" within the framework people were taught in business school. I agree, "the math" would have happened sooner or later.

In terms of movements, the previous form of the movement, which dates back at least until the 1850s and has had many many different names, had more or less died out again. I think the dotcom bust basically killed it along with Vicki's roadmap foundation and the E-R forums retreating within their own walls due to ... various issues. (I know some of them.) The ERE blog basically lit the fuse again. The MMM blog provided the resulting explosion. (MMM himself has subsequently told me that it hadn't been for the ERE blog establishing a bridge-head, his blog would have remained a low-key effort. So there's that.) I also suspect the QE-fueled boom had a lot to do with its popularity.

Personally, I see how the current situation with around 0.5% of the western population being into FIRE and 1/10(?) at least having heard about it to mostly a result of serendipity in a complex system. The internet and its ability to connect people from all over the world definitely made that more likely.

[AnalyticalEngine]

@7w5 - That's where I think the distinction between ERE1 and countercultures generally is useful. ERE1 is a counterculture, but not all countercultures are ERE, and it would be a mistake to categorize any and everyone outside of the mainstream. What unifies countercultures is they all exist in a state of "not normie," but outside of that, countercultures can be very diverse. Indeed, I know many counterculture people who would hate ERE because the super analytical approach to life would drive them insane. These people can be found in the artsy countercultures, just like "rugged mountaineers" might be another, non-ERE counterculture. I tend to see ERE1 as "profit from the cracks in consumer capitalism while doing anything else you want" counterculture.

Which again, begs the question if ERE2 is meant to just connect people inside of ERE or if it's meant to be "intercountercultural" by connecting people between counterculture groups.

[jacob]

There are a lot of people who live unconventional lifestyles who are not ERE1, and ERE1 is heavily loaded with certain personality types, so, although I grok what you are getting at here, IMO there is some not unimportant level on which interacting purely with ERE1 people could actually reduce options or insight.

More stereotypically unconventional types might be found under Hanzi's triple H of hippies, hackers, and hipsters. But, how do you recruit members of the "precariat" when Step 1 (or pre-Step 1) of FIRE does seem to be Obtain Full-time Conventional Job?

Also, there are a lot of humans who only live conventionally on the surface, but have all sorts of whacko or interesting stuff going on once you get to know them.

ERE1 used to attract a somewhat more diverse set of types. There is an old thread, which I can't find, on what people do for a living. It was all over the map. From airline captains to sex workers. Physicists to football coaches. And so on. Then there was an era (starting around 2010 and ending around 2020) of mainly attracting high-income engineers and focusing on investing because for a while that worked really well, and so ... there it went. But yes, ERE1 as formulated in the ERE book certainly attracts the modernist mind-set ... and ERE2 based on the current forum population wouldn't work even if ERE1 individuals would be just fine on their own integrating with the prevailing environment. However, accepting that also ends the journey where it currently is and that might not be acceptable for those who want to continue. This is why there's all this theoretical talk about colors and temperaments here. I suppose what goes unseen is that putting it into practice happens elsewhere, because it can't happen here. For example, green needs to emote in person or at least on zoom.

So part of ERE2 is to figure out alternative routes into ERE1 beyond the "easy-mode" of a high-income salary that currently dominates the ERE1 discourse.

As to your last sentence, that is the exact problem that ERE2 should solve. There's a bunch of quirky/inventive/... individuals already, but they have to act "square" on the surface because that's what everyone else and society currently do. Whatever these potentials have going on it's still confined somewhere between a radius of a 1 square mile permaculture compound and an obscure philosophical website on the internet. The question is how to unlock this [potential]?

In particular, the solution to wicked problems remains frozen because while many see the problem and form groups and talk about it, they still "need to pay the bills", "go to work", "have children", etc. because that's "how the surface works". Their "whacko" remains at the hobby level because the cultural environment (en)forces that. This of course perpetuates the very problems that they're trying or hoping to solve. And for the most part the irony is completely missed. Instead the problem and solution is psychologically projected onto "they". It's the billionaires. The other-party. Scientists will come up with something.

[Western Red Cedar]

What this means is that I can talk to FIRE people on podcasts, etc.. They will think I'm extreme and overcomplicating things, but at least they understand the value of independence and they are actually conscious of an alternative to the traditional education-career-retire-die paradigm. They see the water they've been swimming in. OTOH, because ERE1 transcends FIRE---it is much bigger---I also talk or overlap with podcasts that focus on permaculture, philosophy, social sciences, and natural sciences. I'm not aware of any FIRE figureheads who do this on a regular basis.

How about Vicki Robin?

[Western Red Cedar]

+1 to both of these thoughts:

There are a lot of people who live unconventional lifestyles who are not ERE1, and ERE1 is heavily loaded with certain personality types, so, although I grok what you are getting at here, IMO there is some not unimportant level on which interacting purely with ERE1 people could actually reduce options or insight.

Indeed, I know many counterculture people who would hate ERE because the super analytical approach to life would drive them insane. These people can be found in the artsy countercultures, just like "rugged mountaineers" might be another, non-ERE counterculture. I tend to see ERE1 as "profit from the cracks in consumer capitalism while doing anything else you want" counterculture.

This is what I was getting at with my question upthread about HOWLIEs interacting with people at lower WLs. There are loads of people who don't fit easily into the ERE WL paradigm but flirt with the renaissance ideal.

I have a large number of working class friends/acquaintances who have a much more diverse range of skill sets than what I've seen represented here on the forums. People in the trades who are skilled craftsmen, hunters, cooks, brewers, and tinkerers. They may also drive a 60K truck and live paycheck to paycheck, haven't read a book since high school, and prefer to spend their weekends drinking beer and watching sports.

[jacob]

How about Vicki Robin?

Absolutely! She's so far ahead on her journey that she's moved beyond the FIRE movement, https://vickirobin.com/my-life-with-fire/ (more followed this one post ...) She's now concentrating her efforts on a series of interviews called "What could possibly go right?" via the Post Carbon Institute. (That's Heinberg and my very very old peak oil hunting ground from the early 2000s.)

Key point is that for both of us FIRE was more of a a means rather than an end. Whether freedom-to or side-effect, it was not about freedom-from order to have fun within the current paradigm.

However, we do have different temperaments and [perspective] is a matter of temperament. My focus is on "what could possibly go wrong". I'm also more focused on theory than human connections. It's just where my (INTj) talents and preferences are and where her (likely ENFP) talents and preferences are.

Key point for this thread: There's been a bunch of people focusing on [a resolution] for several decades or more. However, there's been so few that we've all existed in isolated pockets. We have, therefore, mostly been doing our own thing according to our our temperament [without connecting beyond our own values]... and in turn attracted whoever else with similar values. And thereby created new bubbles or cycles. This particular limbo has existed for about half a century already.

ERE2 is about coalescing these bubbles. ERE1 is flexible enough to do so.

[jacob]

This is what I was getting at with my question upthread about HOWLIEs interacting with people at lower WLs.

An ERE2-society would go beyond individual renaissance-capable individuals interacting within a non-renaissance society doing this or that activity within one specialized area or community at a time (bingo, tourism, soloing mountain climbs,... taking what's on offer but never going beyond buying or selling from others and creating individual solutions for the rest). To use the computer gaming analogy, for WL7+, IRL society presently feels like interacting with a bunch of NPC characters given how locked-in the game is. Humans are trained to act and talk in predictable patterns. Either you see it or you don't, but if you see it, it's like being stuck in the matrix playing the same game over and over.

There are loads of people who don't fit easily into the ERE WL paradigm but flirt with the renaissance ideal.

Flirt, yes. But talking (or complaining and seeking freedom-from) is not walking. The ERE1 WL strategy actually works [to get out of] the mostly orange world. Asserting this is no longer arrogance or even conceit. There's proof of concept. Meanwhile, lots of other people are living lives of quiet desperation/comfortable misery/miserable comfort and hoping for some alternative. However, they're stuck in once-a-week two-hour "talking fests"---alternatively two year alternative living experiments before going back to corporate jobbing---which have been going on for many decades because they're based on hope and not practicalities. While people have been trying many different approaches going back to the 1970s, most of them focused on ideology and wishful thinking rather than the practical process of going from here to there. I think this is where ERE1 stands out. It shows where to start ... Whereas most other attempts have focused on where it might possible end.

[AnalyticalEngine]

I have a large number of working class friends/acquaintances who have a much more diverse range of skill sets than what I've seen represented here on the forums. People in the trades who are skilled craftsmen, hunters, cooks, brewers, and tinkerers. They may also drive a 60K truck and live paycheck to paycheck, haven't read a book since high school, and prefer to spend their weekends drinking beer and watching sports.

This is why I find the distinction of ERE as counterculture relevant. Because how I understand ERE (both 1 and 2) is that you are "hacking" cracks in the mainstream paradigm to make your life better and more interesting. It's entirely possible for countercultures and even mainstream cultures to overlap with ERE but because they aren't about taking advantage of opportunities in the same way, they aren't ERE. Which is to say, ERE (to me at least) is about freedom to some extent, and it's very possible to live a sustainable/"rugged" life in a conventional way depending on your background but in a way that isn't free.

An extreme example is that hunter gathers were all sustainable and "rugged" but would have far more constrained "freedom-to" options.

Which I suppose begs the question if ERE needs to be "intentional" to count. (aka, a counterculture decision instead of a mainstream cultural norm)

[7Wannabe5]

In particular, the solution to wicked problems remains frozen because while many see the problem and form groups and talk about it, they still "need to pay the bills", "go to work", "have children", etc. because that's "how the surface works". Their "whacko" remains at the hobby level because the cultural environment (en)forces that. This of course perpetuates the very problems that they're trying or hoping to solve. And for the most part the irony is completely missed. Instead the problem and solution is psychologically projected onto "they". It's the billionaires. The other-party. Scientists will come up with something.

Yes, this is definitely one of the problems at Level Green. For instance, I got a certain amount of shit from some in my social circle for associating with my multi-millionaire-miser friend, but my "If you don't want him to get richer, then stop buying stuff at Costco, because he owns a bunch of that stock." fell on deaf ears. OTOH, is somebody who, for instance, is just getting by on $20,000/year while living in a city and working full-time as the editor for a small literary magazine really a huge part of the problem? How can she be convinced to apprentice herself to a plumber, so that she can make $40,000, and move out to a rural small town (where the only local book group is reading Michael Crichton's climate change denial novel) in order to reduce her rent?

ETA: I'm attempting to make more general point that the pain/sacrifice/initial "costs" to be overcome will vary depending on direction of growth from where one is currently situated.

[prudentelo]

ERE1 was very simple idea: you can retire in 5 years by becomining smart efficient anti-consumerist.

Some philosophy required to explain why anti-consumerist life is desirable, the missing part.

ERE2 seems like entering space of self-help philosophy which is old, competitive market.

[AxelHeyst]

ERE1 was very simple idea: you can retire in 5 years by becomining smart efficient anti-consumerist.

Some philosophy required to explain why anti-consumerist life is desirable, the missing part.
...

Philosophy explaining anticonsumerism is the first 42 pages of the book.

[prudentelo]

Sorry. I mean to say philosophy is anti-consumerism missing from "save money for X year then retire on low income." Not that its missing from ERE1.

[AxelHeyst]

Ah, gotcha, my bad.

[lillo9546]

What's ERE2? I still have difficulties to understand it

[jacob]

What's ERE2? I still have difficulties to understand it

viewtopic.php?t=12627

[Jin+Guice]

Ok.

Perhaps this is not the appropriate thread. Perhaps this has been solved somewhere else (link plz).

But I am late to the party bc I have been dicking around on WL6 activities for the past few years.

So, did we figure out how we are talking to non-ERE people, or if including people who aren't WL6+ is part of the direction we think we are looking in for ERE2?

Bc I know a bunch of people who are like kind of on the cusp of getting it, like they are me pre-ERE, probably much more free. But they don't quite see all of the connections.

And then I know a ton more people who are just disenfranchised. Some of them have a ton of useful practical skills, like those mentioned by @WRC and some of them have some other skills we could use (good at persuasion/ talking, good at emotions, skilled entrepreneurs). I only know of one other couple doing FIRE, friends of friends and they sound pretty boring.

And I'm still not sure how to square the circle of getting people, even those who are VERY close to "getting it" that there is this alternate way to do things where you can actually work on the problems you care about and greatly reduce contributing to the shit you hate.

But everything is like

For instance, I got a certain amount of shit from some in my social circle for associating with my multi-millionaire-miser friend, but my "If you don't want him to get richer, then stop buying stuff at Costco, because he owns a bunch of that stock." fell on deaf ears.

partially bc the solutions presented here are a combination of things that are all novel for most people and also partially bc

is somebody who, for instance, is just getting by on $20,000/year while living in a city and working full-time as the editor for a small literary magazine really a huge part of the problem? How can she be convinced to apprentice herself to a plumber, so that she can make $40,000, and move out to a rural small town (where the only local book group is reading Michael Crichton's climate change denial novel) in order to reduce her rent?

ETA: I'm attempting to make more general point that the pain/sacrifice/initial "costs" to be overcome will vary depending on direction of growth from where one is currently situated.

[jacob]

Depending on what "this" is, it has definitely not been solved. A more appropriate thread may be: viewtopic.php?t=12146

I think the solution suffers somewhat from the problem of "being unable to cross the same river twice" when it comes to individual perspectives, at least in the top-down sense.

When it comes to Orange this was eventually solved by following a thousand journals and seeing the developmental patterns that eventually distilled into the [orange] Wheaton levels to provide a kind of "statistical set of directions".

As far as I'm concerned, I lack data in the form of the multiple lived experiences/narratives that you have when it comes to Green.

Since many of you are currently "in it", when it comes to the WL5--7 range, and thus still remember the challenge of the transition in terms of what you didn't know, what you now know, how/why/where you changed your mind, ... your inputs are very valuable. This is something I can't do myself anymore having largely forgotten---it's been many years for me already. Your most recent posts starting here were very interesting to read. Would you have recognized or disagreed with your future self relative to 2-3 years ago? I noticed the same with @AxelHeyst here. Is semiERE dead or but a stage on the [Orange/]Green map?

[Jin+Guice]

Is semiERE dead or but a stage on the [Orange/]Green map?

It's not dead, I just ran out of stuff to say about it. I'm still living it. I've been semi-retired for like 3-4 years. The new stuff is what I've been thinking about with a few years of "retirement" under my belt.

Can ERE1 be distilled down to a goal that is not related to retiring early? I think that is what I mean by "this." Figuring out what I mean by "this" is part of the reason I'm rewriting a bunch of stuff you already said. I'm trying to figure out what my non personal finance angle is, because it's very similar to yours but not quite the same. Just like how semi-ERE is a personal finance angle pretty much the same as ERE, but not quite.

Whatever "it" is, the people here get it in a way that none of my meat friends do.

And yet, the meat people are often more alternative or outraged than the people here. I just can't figure out how to get them to put it all together.

I'm not really sure it's an SD Green problem though. I am in some Green spaces but, in general, these people annoy me too*. A lot of the people I know are pissed and doing shit. But they lack a cohesive narrative or movement. They are disenfranchised and throwing shit at the wall.

*I'm still a little sus about how a bunch of people who seek consensus are one personal development wrung above people seeking independent goals and advancement. I guess growing up Orange still has a hold of me?

I know many more people who are disenfranchised but doing less about it. Most of the people I know are not happy with the way things are. Almost everyone I know that is younger than me believes whole-heartedly in a climate apocalypse (most of them blame billionaires). I do tend to hang out with an extremely politically (American) liberal crowd and I also don't have a ton of friends who have 9-5s, in the literal sense. Some of these people are SD Green or at least SD Green aspirational, but a lot of them are still SD Orange, but still don't believe that they are capable of doing anything about what they are unhappy about, even if what they are unhappy about is really just having to be in the status quo school/work/beach-retire paradigm.

Would you have recognized or disagreed with your future self relative to 2-3 years ago?

I don't think so. I gained a lot of therapy language and emotional skills by going to therapy starting 3.5 years ago. I also consciously worked on improving my social skills starting at the same time. Most things I see differently are because of these changes. I don't *think* I would've disagreed with current me, for the most part, it feels to me like things just get clarified the more I think about this stuff rather than paradigm shifts. The reason I think I might not have agreed with some stuff is that I would've lacked the knowledge to focus on the right parts of what now speaks to me, because I lacked the requisite background knowledge and perspectives to not dismiss it...

Which now that I type it out is what I think the problem with communicating to others about "ERE stuff" probably is?