Decentralizing FI for strategic reasons?

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classical_Liberal
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Re: Decentralizing FI for strategic reasons?

Post by classical_Liberal »

@7WB5
Agreed, which is why it is pareto-like. Those in the top levels of compensation (whatever it may be) are viewed as providing a high percentage of benefit. Those provided higher compensation are perceived to be "locked in" to the organizations goal more thoroughly as well. A positive feedback loop commences.

A volunteers compensation (in the sense they are not accepting whatever the compensation may be) is an unknown, while with low compensated humans it is understood and understood to be low, hence the stigma of low value contributions. The volunteer could stop at anytime, for unknown reasons, while the low compensated individual will keep providing (an assumed low amount) of value as long as the compensation continues. So while the "volunteer" may be viewed as more important than the lowest compensated, the unknowns will always relegate them to non critical roles.

This all circles back to the idea that an unfulfilled individual need can benefit a group as much as the individual. It creates the opportunity of known compensation.

ducknald_don
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Re: Decentralizing FI for strategic reasons?

Post by ducknald_don »

I've seen that effect in my work. When I left my last employer I went back to some of their customers and did the same work for them at three times the cost. The difference in the way they treated me was very noticeable yet the only change was the increased rates. People really do seem to value things by what they pay for them.

This is one of the reasons I've been skeptical of the open source movement in software. It really does seem to devalue the work of programmers.

Frita
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Re: Decentralizing FI for strategic reasons?

Post by Frita »

Dovetailing…I have noticed in education and academia that if others do work for lower pay due to lack of skill and knowledge (and desperation?), it creates a low baseline for perceived value/appreciation/respect of more seasoned people. Keep things low cost by churning professional staff, create fear in those who remain (tenured under old system, limited contract/adjunct/work visa dependent upon employment), pretend that none of this happens. This is a huge shift over the past 35-40 years.

loutfard
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Re: Decentralizing FI for strategic reasons?

Post by loutfard »

ducknald_don wrote:
Fri Jan 27, 2023 8:56 am
This is one of the reasons I've been skeptical of the open source movement in software. It really does seem to devalue the work of programmers.
There's no reason a competent IT pro can't earn tons of money working with/on free or open source software. There's a thriving ecosystem around FOSS, with a myriad of proven business methods: dual licensing, customisation, configuration, ...

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Slevin
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Re: Decentralizing FI for strategic reasons?

Post by Slevin »

loutfard wrote:
Fri Jan 27, 2023 11:30 am
There's no reason a competent IT pro can't earn tons of money working with/on free or open source software. There's a thriving ecosystem around FOSS, with a myriad of proven business methods: dual licensing, customisation, configuration, ...
Agreed. I contribute to open source software as part of my job that i get paid very well for (not like the linux kernel or anything cool, just stuff that it is very important that is shared across my industry to maintain coherence). We all depend on open source software to run servers, containers, and other types of infrastructure, and its inherently insanely valuable to be able to keep that shared infrastructure, so that every time a software engineer job hops, they don't have to learn proprietary tool on top of proprietary tool, which would make them unable to contribute for large periods of time. There is also a "monetization" of core open source tools that you will never see, and that's behind the scenes donations, in which a company might donate to some core open source software tools to have hard-to-fix bugs get fixed or have some feature added. You can usually tell this has happened when there is a "Top Sponsors" page on an open source tool. See https://curl.se/ for an example.

mathiverse
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Re: Decentralizing FI for strategic reasons?

Post by mathiverse »

+1. Another programmer who worked on open source software via a full time job. At my old company, there were many teams, including mine, who spent 100% of their time working on open source software that was critical to the company. We were paid typical, high compensation. In my case, 100% of my open source collaborators outside my company were also paid by their day job to work on the open source software in question.

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Re: Decentralizing FI for strategic reasons?

Post by jacob »

AxelHeyst wrote:
Thu Jan 19, 2023 11:43 am
The easiest way to stay on the path I think is to decentralize FI as a goal, to avoid getting stuck in the FI-at-WL5 trap. Instead of putting FI as the goal at the end of the FTE phase after which one's real life begins, put FI as a likely effect somewhere down the road *as a result of having lived your real life for several years already.*
Rewrite the ERE book, but remove chapter 7 and replace it with a chapter that appeals to the desired target demographics, e.g. "awesome adventures", "community development", "prepping", ... whatever carrot you want instead, and change the title to fit accordingly.

I'm not going to do it. Been there, done that. Tension resolved, so it's not motivating to me. However I encourage others with non-fiction book writing aspirations to do so and I'd support such an effort. Having different variations by different people on the same theme with different voices is more convincing that a single monologue much like a set of journals is more convincing that a single blog.

The obvious failure mode for such an effort is that whatever the X attraction is most people will default to the standard/simple approach to X. However, there's a chance that a handful will grok what such a book is actually trying to teach them.

classical_Liberal
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Re: Decentralizing FI for strategic reasons?

Post by classical_Liberal »

@Jacob
A multi-prong book series inspired by critical incident type flow sheets. Then morphs into a choose your own adventure once gross characteristics are understood 8-) .

Does the reader prefer to spend time combating climate change, analyzing financial portfolios, or hiking in the woods? Humm, climate change... follow flow chart... Please start with volume three. Volume three chapter one... You pass a Prius dealership on your daily walk. Do you stop in (pg 34) or continuing walking past (pg 58).

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Ego
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Re: Decentralizing FI for strategic reasons?

Post by Ego »

jacob wrote:
Fri Jan 27, 2023 1:12 pm
I'm not going to do it. Been there, done that. Tension resolved, so it's not motivating to me.
If you hadn't written the book do you think the tension (desire? compulsion? passion?) to write it would have resolved naturally with age? I ask because I am wondering about the intangible value of getting out early enough that one still has a deep well of whatever that tension is.

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Re: Decentralizing FI for strategic reasons?

Post by jacob »

Ego wrote:
Fri Jan 27, 2023 2:08 pm
If you hadn't written the book do you think the tension (desire? compulsion? passion?) to write it would have resolved naturally with age? I ask because I am wondering about the intangible value of getting out early enough that one still has a deep well of whatever that tension is.
I don't really see time as tick-tock clock time but more as a series of moves. A good analogy might be a chess game. It doesn't matter to me whether people have been playing for 3 minutes or 123 minutes. What matters is whether they're on move #12 or move #87. Time is irrelevant to the game as I see it. In quant-finance, this perspective is called volume-time: You're not looking at when something traded at a given price (as seen on the typical technical chart), you're looking at how much was traded at a given price (humans tend to struggle with this perspective, but algos love it).

The tension resolved in writing the ERE book was basically the move from "no book like this exists in the world", so I moved and wrote it, and now "a book like this exists in the world". This is also why I have no interest in writing a "A simple guide to personal finance" by editing the 21day makeover. There are already hundreds of books in existence like that. Writing yet another one would be immaterial to the game I'm playing. To get as far along the game as I can.

The downside of this is the feeling that I've already gone done what most humans spend a good 80-90 years on. I really don't see this as a possible suggestion to slow the pace. Imagine that you visited a Logan's Run kind of world of humans where the typical lifespan was 15-20ish resulting the common belief that life ends upon graduation of high school and that was the epitome of what humans could be. You'd probably disagree since you've experience 20-30 years beyond high school. You would find it silly to drag out the high school experience for a few decades, yes?

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Re: Decentralizing FI for strategic reasons?

Post by white belt »

I think it would be cool to see the 21 day makeover repackaged in another form (whether that’s book, animation, game, etc) but I don’t think Jacob should be the one to do it. Some people excel at coming up with novel solutions to hard problems, while others excel at crafting a message to persuade an audience. Rarely (never?) are they the same person and that’s ok. In the FI sphere, think Jacob vs Mr. Money Mustache. One guy came up with some unique solutions, another guy took those solutions and figured out how to make them more digestible to a massive audience.

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Ego
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Re: Decentralizing FI for strategic reasons?

Post by Ego »

jacob wrote:
Fri Jan 27, 2023 2:43 pm
Time is irrelevant to the game as I see it. In quant-finance, this perspective is called volume-time: You're not looking at when something traded at a given price (as seen on the typical technical chart), you're looking at how much was traded at a given price (humans tend to struggle with this perspective, but algos love it).
Let's say it took you one year to write the book. If the book didn't exist today, do you think you would be equally likely to spend a year writing it now?

I guess what I am getting at is, what is the best way to look at the value of a year of life? The value of one year of life to a seventy-year-old seems more valuable than to a fifty-year old.... 40, 35, 30, 25... simply because they have fewer to spend. Maybe that's not the right way to look at it. Maybe a thirty-five-year-old has double the (volume-time?) energy, physical abilities, enthusiasm.... of someone at seventy, so one year at thirty-five is worth two at seventy.

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Re: Decentralizing FI for strategic reasons?

Post by jacob »

Ego wrote:
Fri Jan 27, 2023 3:24 pm
I guess what I am getting at is, what is the best way to look at the value of a year of life? The value of one year of life to a seventy-year-old seems more valuable than to a fifty-year old.... 40, 35, 30, 25... simply because they have fewer to spend. Maybe that's not the right way to look at it. Maybe a thirty-five-year-old has double the (volume-time?) energy, physical abilities, enthusiasm.... of someone at seventy, so one year at thirty-five is worth two at seventy.
If I was told that I only had a year left to live, I don't think I would change a thing in my daily life. I believe in the idea of living each day as if it was the last but also to live it as if I was going to live for the next thousand years. Someone expressed this more poetically using, I believe, some argument about planting trees. It comes down to living in a way where you're part of something bigger than yourself. Bigger in both space and time.

In terms of the value of a human per se it comes down to how much has been invested (years of preparing) vs the potential for capitalizing on that investment (years of using). Insofar I was confronted with a Trolley problem, I would save the 30-40 year old, all other things being equal.

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Re: Decentralizing FI for strategic reasons?

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

jacob wrote:Writing yet another one would be immaterial to the game I'm playing. To get as far along the game as I can.

The downside of this is the feeling that I've already gone done what most humans spend a good 80-90 years on
I also feel like this, yet quite different, because I am playing a different game, or my perspective on the playing field is different. I think less about "How far along can I go?" and more about "How often can I re-invent myself, or find myself re-invented?"

Frita
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Re: Decentralizing FI for strategic reasons?

Post by Frita »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Sat Jan 28, 2023 10:59 am
I also feel like this, yet quite different, because I am playing a different game, or my perspective on the playing field is different. I think less about "How far along can I go?" and more about "How often can I re-invent myself, or find myself re-invented?"
I get this. My game has been more “How can I live as myself, monitoring and adjusting as I learn new things, and still be part of something bigger?” (Note that this is not about a group membership or status but kicking along something a bit better than how I found the world. Focusing on my immediate circle of influence has been less frustrating. There is a strong spiritual element.)

What game are others here playing?

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Re: Decentralizing FI for strategic reasons?

Post by AxelHeyst »

Frita wrote:
Sat Jan 28, 2023 11:51 am
What game are others here playing?
The game where winning is to get enough breathing space, and enough appropriate perspective on myself, to figure out what game it is I really want to play.

classical_Liberal
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Re: Decentralizing FI for strategic reasons?

Post by classical_Liberal »

More breathing room, more options to consider, paradox of choice begins to rear it's ugly head.

My game is to find something that's "good enough", play it until it's no longer good enough, then find or invent the next game. Anecdotally this happens every 5-10 years.

J_
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Re: Decentralizing FI for strategic reasons?

Post by J_ »

I do not see life as a game.
Life is a given one. And it is up to me to gain as much wisdom to live my life in such a way that it suits me as well as the people I live with and the people I meet.
Jacobs ideas and vision has helped me a lot to get new wisdom, and new insights. As it does participating in this blog and some mm groups.

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Re: Decentralizing FI for strategic reasons?

Post by avalok »

AH's game sounds a lot like the one I'm trying to play currently, particularly to figure out what game I want to play, and by positioning myself to be able to take opportunities as information gathering in this regard.

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grundomatic
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Re: Decentralizing FI for strategic reasons?

Post by grundomatic »

classical_Liberal wrote:
Sat Jan 28, 2023 3:23 pm
More breathing room, more options to consider, paradox of choice begins to rear it's ugly head.

My game is to find something that's "good enough", play it until it's no longer good enough, then find or invent the next game. Anecdotally this happens every 5-10 years.
This sounds about like my game up until now, always framed as career change. This of course means the game is found and not invented.

Been following this thread closely, as I chickened out of "decentralizing FI" last year, and it's about time to make the decision again this year. Now I'm leaning more toward pushing to FI. It may just be that the grass is greener, but right now I'll take the unhappiness from the paradox of choice over the unhappiness of having to make sure my daily activities make money.

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