The Education of Axel Heyst

[jacob]

Loomis and Vescovo deployed tens and hundreds of millions of dollars of personal wealth on their domains of interest. Loomis advanced radar technology, Vescovo went to the deepest part of the world's 5 oceans, for just two examples of what they got up to.

And therein lies the problem ... (the part I bolded). One might say that each renaissance capital comes at different scales. For example, $10k, $100k, ... $100M, ... is trivial to understand. In terms of managing people, it would also be something like 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, ... Ditto technical insight/vision, network ability, influence, ... Even the ability to use/spend money at the high-figure scale is a skill in itself.

Most people (myself included) will quickly be limited in scope by their smallest resource (Liebig's Law of The Minimum) because other kinds of resources aren't good substitutes. There is the possibility to use OPM. A very typical example would be the start-up non-profit that gathers a handful of people with the aim to "save the world". I've been on a couple of those. Here the idea is to use OPM (other people's money) begging others for money. If this works, the next problem becomes how to reach more people and expand. Most ventures don't get further than that: a small one-man operation (like this place) or at best a 2-4-man operation that in my cynical perspective rarely accomplishes more because a lot is eaten by overhead and teamwork inefficiencies. (<- Obviously one of my limits is "managing people"-skills).

The main problem that I perceive is that the skills that worked at one level doesn't easily translate to the next level. As an example, managing 1 person (the well-managed ERE individual) doesn't translate into even 2 people or 2.51 as can be seen in the many discussions on how to deal with family-level issues. It only gets worse.

There are of course exceptions in which someone finds just the right serendipity and it just works out. Perhaps they've had previous successes that can be leveraged and chained in. The first time is almost always the hardest. Insofar one didn't burn out on that (many do), the second will be much easier.

Anyhoo, derping or dabbling in VC activities is not that unusual for conventional fatFIRE people who don't know what to spend their money on.

[AxelHeyst]

My idea of ventureERE is inclusive of taking the venture mentality and applying it to small-scale operations which may or may not increase in scale as success does/does not happen.

Also, I should clarify: I propose this as one Freedom-To pattern to consider adopting and modifying for one's own purposes, as one works on the thorny issue of wtf to do with their lives once they realize that the endless weekend mentality of 'retirement' they had pre-RE is a cul-de-sac. I do not propose ventureERE as 'something we should all start doing in order to Save the World'.

It all comes down to stoke...

[7Wannabe5]

@AH:

For purposes of clarity, I will also note that I meant "coupon clipping" in the archaic sense of depending upon paper-based investments securities for one's life support, not in the more modern sense of "towards saving on frozen pizza at check-out"

I also don't have a more pragmatic and attractive praxis that occurs to me at this point in my life as a means of securing good-enough autonomy

Blah, blah, blah...fast, easy, good...we all take "fast" and "easy" and also don't forget "safe", because "oh, nooooo...." Yeah, me too most of the time.

This may sound a bit harsh, because I am quite over-tired and over-caffeinated, and that it towards my truth serum. But, given the current environment, basing one's finances on stock market returns seems to be very much like basing one's sex life on responding to ads placed by some old guy looking for somebody to get naked and service his younger wife while he watches fully dressed sitting in a chair in the corner. Yeah, there's an upside, but like the fat lady once sang, "God bless the child that got his own."

IOW, I am suggesting that it would be better to make money by challenging the status quo and taking down the old bloated baboons by any means possible. Will it be easy? Absolutely it will not. Will it be risky? Absolutely it will. Will I maybe attempt it myself even though I am quite old, not entirely recovered from severe illness, and extremely bottom heavy? YES!

[AxelHeyst]

IOW, I am suggesting that it would be better to make money by challenging the status quo and taking down the old bloated baboons by any means possible. Will it be easy? Absolutely it will not. Will it be risky? Absolutely it will. Will I maybe attempt it myself even though I am quite old, not entirely recovered from severe illness, and extremely bottom heavy? YES!

Yes, but what actually are some of those methods? Are you talking about things like a totally The System-decoupled permaculture farm? Are you talking about enmeshing one-self in an activist network a la Deep Green Resistance? It sounds like you're teasing a great brief for a venture (literally a risky or daring journey or undertaking), which is literally what I'm all about here. Spill the beans! Unless you're referring to the sort of thing which ought not be posted on the clearnet, in which case, write me a letter.

[AxelHeyst]

Another example of an ERE adjacent venture, which incidentally does not rely on stock market returns: Robin Greenfields long walk and then getting rid of literally all of his possessions.

ETA: Also Boyle's Moneyless Man thing.

ETA2: Also, engagement/cultivation of a distributed-community thing like what's going down in MidsizeLebowski's spot.

[7Wannabe5]

Are you talking about things like a totally The System-decoupled permaculture farm? Are you talking about enmeshing one-self in an activist network a la Deep Green Resistance? It sounds like you're teasing a great brief for a venture (literally a risky or daring journey or undertaking), which is literally what I'm all about here. Spill the beans!

Well, those are both great ventures, but neither of them are super likely to create financial flow away from the dead-eyed bloated. I mean something more like hacking, arbitrage, running a con, or 21st century Robin Hood, but not computer based hacking, because Old Nerds Behaving Like Frat Boys on Crack have too much of an advantage there. Obviously, their weaknesses would be in the Venn diagram overlap of General Social Functioning. Blind Sexism, Alcohol Abuse, Father Fear, and Liking to Spank Each Other With Boards to Earn Insignia. So, the sort of hack that would likely work best is pretty obvious.

[AxelHeyst]

I have 2 questions about your post. 1) My own question for actualization has come down to why we do anything at all? The motivation so often seems to be obscured from what we say it is. So what is the why of ventureERE? (Same question asked differently) What is the personal need that it fulfills for you?

The Why of ventureERE is "because stoke". It falls under my "free 'em all, let Gaia sort 'em out" philosophy.

2) It’s hard for me to get out of my head that the best option for the future, as I understand “best option” is to do almost nothing at all and just try to consume as few resources as possible. The problem is I really don’t want to do that and I can come up with a bunch of compelling reasons I don’t have to. But whenever anyone does something that appears to me to be future leaning, I can’t help but wonder if the best thing is not just trying to divorce from the fossil fuel economy as much as possible?

"Divorce from the fossil fuel economy as much as possible" sounds like a great idea for a venture. You wouldn't be the first, so there are even models to follow for inspiration.

This might be dependent on me living in a city. Rn it seems like I can basically just live off of wasted resources of the man and that seems like it would have the greatest personal impact. To do that, the easiest route would be to basically stop doing much of anything except for keeping myself alive.

I see nothing wrong with choosing to do that. It's a fine option. [eta: to emphasize what I said above - the point of ventureERE isn't to maximize impact. It's a model to consider in the process of self-actualization **for those whose form of actualization is something along the lines of a venture as very loosely defined/pointed at here.** For some (many?) people, a venture would not be a good model for self-actualization and they shouldn't touch this idea with a ten-foot pole.]

I'm suspicious of any statements along the lines of "The best thing for the planet is to..."

I think we just don't know. Like, maybe everyone should just lie flat. But also, maybe a bunch of people (who are stoked to do so) should hustle and drive and try to build, like, a permaculture paradise everywhere. Trying to make permaculture happen everywhere seems like a good venture for the kind of twitchy people who aren't going to lie flat anyway due to nature.

I'm wondering wear stoke comes from and wary of options that are like "I am stoked to do a bunch of stuff," but since stoke is personally defined I definitely can't tell someone what is or is not their true stoke.

I went through like a 5 year period of intense guilt for bring a Striver, and put a lot of effort into trying to be not that kind of person.

Honestly it sucked. Yeah, I know the puritan work ethic and societal programming and blah blah, but also, I like to fucking crank and I've got some evidence I was made that way, so I'm pretty comfortable just accepting it and moving on with my life in this direction now.

I am still having my own personal crisis of "but how do you decide what to do?!?" based on my own personal crisis of stoke. But I think stoke is as close to an answer as I've found too.

My other variable is the ever nefarious "undigested experience" = insecurity = trauma. I'm wondering if that is accounted for in your stoke model? In my mind it's a constant struggle between stoke and undigested experience, but the tell tale sign is something like not being in flow all of the time (which is a problem for me).

Digesting experience and working through micro and macro trauma is a lifelong process. The more experience is digested, the 'purer' stoke becomes. It's an iterative process. Try things with eyes open, digest, tweak, try again, repeat forever, die.

---

ETA: Another reason I'm thinking about this is because some people are wired to want to engage in intense and risky endeavors. "Retirement" and the mellow vibes of "voluntary simplicity" and the soft-spoken minimalist influencers are turnoffs to some. ventureERE is (can be) a means for integrating "intensity and risk-seeking-behavior" into a post-consumer WoG.

[Ego]

Positioning myself as a cog in the system, I allow it to positively determine my actions. Positioning myself as a rebel against the system,
I allow it to negatively determine my action.

I like stoke. Positioning myself so that my stoke determines my actions with the knowledge that they will be mitigated by the system, I take back a measure of control. Not completely. The system still influences my decisions. It does not determine them. Stoke does that.

The Network School is attempting something along these lines, with a different stoke, on an island near Singapore. https://ns.com/

[OutOfTheBlue]

Taken at its inception, at its source, before it becomes particularized. all desire is nondual.

What does this mean? All desire is desire of. Nondual means that the object of desire is one with its holder. In other words, the object is not (yet) separate from the subject. Subject and object are one.

The Sanskrit word is iccha, often translated as will, precognitive urge/impulse. And will precedes both knowledge and action/activity.

So, it can be recognized that desire is a manifestation of fullness, not lack. Fullness is its source. And there is not a moment where that source is not here.

Life, the world itself, is an expression of that fullness and absolute freedom.

Connect this with (following) stoke and "figuring out (who I am and) what I want".

You are pure will, pure consciousness, pure desire, pure stoke, pure fullness. It can take many forms, a multitude of expressions, yet never does it (need to) fall from that state of being full to overflowing.

Listen to what wants to move through you, turn back to the source and do not senselessly worry. It's all good.

“That is full, this is full,
From that fullness comes this fullness,
If you take away this fullness from that fullness,
Only fullness remains”

Invocatory verse of Isha Upanishad

[Jean]

We use non renewable ressources because they are the best within our time preference. Capitalism works and dominate because it is the most efficient system at doing that. Capitalism is driven by our desire.

So we can either change peoples desires or time preference (never done before, could be done by genetic change). We can create a new system,but it need to be more efficient than capitalism to overthrow it (an AI overlord?). Or we can make obsolete the non renewable.
Combination are possible, if a group of humans have at the same time a longer time preference,and enough efficiency domination to prevent other hunans to use non renewable. That would be china and the west agreeing on this.

I think for an individual, the most likely contribution one can do is help make non renewable obsolete. Or make capitalism obsolete trough AI.

But i don't think we can force our time preference and non consumer desires onto others. If everyone chose to improve their IQ trough genetic modification or bionic implants, maybe it will be a side effect.

I think that the progressive natureof of SD makes us forget that to progress, you still need to crush adversaries according to the rules of lower levels. This mean that just going all in on your level value often wont be enough.

[7Wannabe5]

Positioning myself as a cog in the system, I allow it to positively determine my actions. Positioning myself as a rebel against the system,
I allow it to negatively determine my action.

I like stoke. Positioning myself so that my stoke determines my actions with the knowledge that they will be mitigated by the system, I take back a measure of control. Not completely. The system still influences my decisions. It does not determine them. Stoke does that.

I agree, but surely stoke is something that largely coincides with ones values within purpose or purposes? I am descended from three generations of politically independent men who worked in the fields of law and finance in the public service. My great-grandfather became the Treasurer of Detroit as part of the Anti-Klan party. My grandfather fought at the level of the Supreme Court for rights related to low income housing. My father battled against gangs of corporate lawyers to reach settlement on appeals cases, and earned a commendation from congress for his service. When I dissolved my own business dealings with J.Bozo @ Jumbo, the funds that were contractually owed to me were held by @Jumbo for over 6 months, and there was nothing I could do about it, because I do not have the legal power of J.Bozo@ Jumbo. So, my strong, deeply held personal conviction is that if we wish to bring anything of value forward from Level Orange/Modern to Level Yellow/Post-Post-Modern it should be the Rule of Law and Contract that protects our essential Liberty as individuals and as citizens, rather than the ponzi scheme against Gaia and Rule of Law that is unbridled Predatory Crony Capitalism as practiced by the most powerful Elites. If you think they, or more properly IT, can't come for you, because you hold protections above and beyond Rule of Law and Contract, then you are simply lacking in experience.

I am not a human who is easily roused to anger. but one of the few occasion I recall was when the small town in which I was residing voted against the millage and shut down the public library. I owned a house on the main historic drag where all through traffic was slowed to 20 miles/hr, so I made very large signs featuring quotes from the founding fathers on the valued of literacy and libraries and stuck them all over my lawn. I don't know if the had any effect, but there was a revote and the millage passed and the public library was re-opened.

The sincere irony here is that part of my directed stoke in posting as I did above was due to doing an exercise meant to get in touch with my emotions towards gaining stoke and direction towards artistic expression. And the vision that came to me while engaged in this exercise was an extremely large, voluptuous, beautiful woman sitting nude on the Earth in relaxed tailor pose while tiny insects with shiny metallic robot exoskeletons and faces resembling J.Bozo and other well-known Elite Crony Capitalists buzzed around her in attempt to pierce and suck her blood force, as she just swatted them away easily, a dozen at a time with each graceful gesture.

Anyways, something about seeing that the Gulf of Mexico had indeed been changed to the Gulf of America on Google Maps pinged my maternal anger towards protecting the literacy of future generations of children. They grow up so fast and they believe what they are taught. Literacy, Liberty of the Individual(not the damn corporations!) under the Law, and the preservation of the Natural Commons that are not yet enclosed are the values that inspire my stoke and form the core of whatever true Legacy I may assist in leaving behind for all of our theoretical grandchildren!

[7Wannabe5]

Furthermore, my note to those still stuck in reactionary form Level Yellow due to inability to integrate Level Green due to some trauma suffered in childhood such as being made to do most of the work on a school project and not getting any more gold stars than the stupid kids, is grow up and realize that your reward for being the smart kid is that you retain that capacity and may apply it to all aspects of your life. Noblesse oblige is not about Duty, it’s about Grace.

[Ego]

Anyways, something about seeing that the Gulf of Mexico had indeed been changed to the Gulf of America on Google Maps pinged my maternal anger towards protecting the literacy of future generations of children. They grow up so fast and they believe what they are taught. Literacy, Liberty of the Individual(not the damn corporations!) under the Law, and the preservation of the Natural Commons that are not yet enclosed are the values that inspire my stoke and form the core of whatever true Legacy I may assist in leaving behind for all of our theoretical grandchildren!

Absolutely, it is very common for people to use massive problems - the more unsolvable and complex, the better - as a way to avoid confronting things that are closer to home and readily addressable. Choosing an intractable stoke is the ideal infinite jest for the mind in need of distraction.

[7Wannabe5]

@Ego:

Valid attempt, but pretty far off the mark with Peanuts booth therapy. Since I recently completed course work on this topic, I am fairly certain that “project” is the appropriate level at which to determine tractability of scope. Limiting the perspective of ones Truth, Values, Purpose, or Circle of Concern only narrows the possibility to more self-focused intractable distractions such as “How can I collect all the rubber bands in the world into one giant ball?” or “How can I find the nutraceutical fountain of youth that will allow me to live forever?” What youngsters such as yourself don’t yet grok is that you don’t land in Legacy mode until you accept the inevitability of your own demise. Your Legacy isn’t a plaque proclaiming your immortality, it’s just the last of what you have that you have to figure out how to give away in your final rounds of Swedish Death Cleaning.

Also, I am an ENTP, so no shortage of short-term firecracker stoke. I want to just have frivolous, frolicking fun to celebrate my 60th year on the planet, but damn I can’t go anywhere or turn on the internet without seeing toddlers running next to dumpster fires everywhere! I mean, yes, I could choose to focus on Uber-local problem such as my ass being too fat to win Burpee competition, but that’s historically been difficult for me during periods when I am receiving a good deal of sexual attention, and although I do lightly flog and chastise myself as Pillow Princess on occasion, I would probably just giggle if any member of this forum were to apply or imply such a derogatory term to one old enough to be a great-great-grandmother in primitive biological terms.

Anyways, I’ve already narrowed the scope of my anger motivated project to something like Initiate Go Fund Me for the Creation of Zine of Lewd Satirical Cartoons in the style of Hogarth featuring characters such as Conald the Duck AKA Mr. Fullashit, Master Muskrat, Minktasha the Imported Pet, and Minktasha’s South American Guinea Pig servant she recently purchased off the back of a deportation truck, because she is too busy getting her formaldehyde injections to handle her many tasks such as dressing up like a 1960s Country Club Matron and ordering Conald to get on his knees and admire Master Muskrat’s “baby-maker.” So, now poor kind-hearted and confused Sophia the Guinea who just wanted a better life for her children is assigned these tasks. However, farce ensues because neither Minktasha the Imported or Sophia the Deported have grasped English vocabulary to the extent that such avant-garde duties can be adequately communicated, so a working title for this episode might be something like In Which Mr. Fullashit Finds Himself Quite Startled by Carrot Juice Enema.

[zbigi]

Old Nerds Behaving Like Frat Boys on Crack have too much of an advantage there.

I can assure you that this particular stereotype is very far from the truth. Hacking nowadays means two things - either programming, or breaking (into) systems. I've yet to meet a good hacker in either sense who behaved like a frat boy. It's probably close to impossible impossible for personality reasons (INTJs gonna INTJ), similarly how a good theoretical physicist won't be a rabid, drunken Vikings fan on the weekends.
This stereotype probably have emerged from frat-boy-like people who are poor programmers, make a lot of money at FAANGs, but are perceived by outsiders as legit coders. However, these people are usually just careerist, and would have gone to investment banking or law in previous decades. They can't code well at all, and quickly percolate towards management or less technical roles. BTW the stereotype of "techbro" have probably been fueled by widespread envy towards salaries in tech.

(on evil corporations)

I have an insider view into a couple of small businesses that my friends are running. I wouldn't say they are neccessarily better than Bezos' Amazon. They can similarly screw you over and not pay you what you're owed, and you'll have to take them to court, just the same as with Amazon. The marketing they use is as poisonous as what the big guys use. The problem are not large firms, but capitalism in general, which is another way of saying that the problem is human nature (*).

(*) I don't believe in Marxist theory that capitalism was merely a stage of evolution of humanity and thus can be superseeded by another stage. Capitalism launched as soon as it was viable, i.e. there were ventures large enough that they required pooling of capital - overseas trading expeditions, and later factories. Capitalism only emerged in late Middle Ages because there wasn't a pratical need for it before, not because humanity wasn't evolved enough to grok Capitalism before that. We'd need to seriously wind down our economy to make capitalism not viable again.

[7Wannabe5]

@zbigi:

I don’t disagree. It’s just that what I am seeing looks a lot like Revenge of the Nerds meets Animal House in terms of immature dysfunctional masculine functioning. It’s entirely possible for cognitive development to run well ahead of social, emotional, or moral development. Also, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It’s not necessarily a great idea to hand the gifted 8 year old the keys to the Ferrari. This is towards why we are supposed to have checks and balances in our systems. Bureaucracy sucks, but it does provide a cautionary period. Efficiency and Resiliency are inherently at odds.

ETA:

The problem are not large firms, but capitalism in general, which is another way of saying that the problem is human nature (*).

Too pat and simply not true. I recommend Geoffrey West’s book on the topic of scale. I mean, sure there are aspects of human nature that suck, but size also does matter. And it may be the primary factor at play in some situations. Also, this does not speak to the legal status currently afforded to corporations which oftentimes places than at an advantage vs. human individuals. I recommend Tomas Bjork on this topic.

I agree that Capitalism naturally emerged as population and other technologies made it possible. I do not follow how this renders Capitalism eternal. I also don’t think Marx got it right, but the concept of emergence makes Post-Capitalism just as inevitable. I mean even if collapse occurs and Post-Capitalism looks a lot like Pre-Capitalism, it will still be Post-Capitalism. Just like how when species are seen to devolve in complexity, the forms only resemble the primitive. And I also believe that there can be a form of organization of production that entails more complexity and exhibits more intelligence than Capitalism.

[OutOfTheBlue]

"The problem are not large firms, but capitalism in general, which is another way of saying that the problem is human nature (*)."

Can't comment much on capitalism without very soon going down into forbidden territory/danger zone, but on "human nature", Civilized to Death by Christopher Ryan is a book that, while a bit flawed/biased in some respects, does a great job at "debunking" what one could call the (neo-)Hobbesbian view of precivilized past, as "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” and a similar dim view of human nature in general.

@zbigi and @Smashter, read it if you wish to see such a view challenged (we often just like to read what confirms our views/biases). And if you do, don't rely on book summaries. Just read the damn thing.

[zbigi]

I agree that it's more of a feature of civilization than human nature. In pre-civilized times, when the concept of individual private property was much weaker, capitalism didn't make sense. However, I fail to see how we can both have private property and not have capitalism emerge, apart from restriction freedoms in other ways (e.g. the Church saying that making money on captal is a sin). All modern attempts to date quickly turned into dictatorships full of atrocities. I'm not saying it's impossible, just that, with 8 billion people, many of whom absolutely brilliant, we don't even have an concept of a direction of where to look for the solution. As someone put it, it's easier to imagine end of civilization than end of capitalism.

[AxelHeyst]

While I agree that the current arrangement appears to be the worst form of doing things possible, except for literally everything else we've tried to date, I don't think we lack even a *concept* of a direction to turn.

https://thesimplerway.info/
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DCNI8HE?ps ... uage=en_US
https://www.amazon.com/Surviving-Future ... ext&sr=1-1
https://www.amazon.com/Ecotechnic-Futur ... ext&sr=1-1
https://www.amazon.com/Retrotopia-John- ... ext&sr=1-1
DAFS bioregionalism, degrowth, etc etc.

Are any of these concepts viable/plausible/etc? Beats me. Am I an evangelist for any of these particular notions? Not really. Point is, plenty of people out there have ideas ranging in the broad space between business as usual and the total end of civilization. Most of the ideas involve the dynamic of resource constraints (in particular energy availability and cheapness) creating an environment where alternatives have a chance of taking hold. Growth capitalism is perhaps impossible to beat in a phase of society that hasn't yet run up against constraints.

That is roughly speaking my high level model of the future and how I relate it to my own life. Ruggedize self and work on responses/adaptations to a world where constraints start squeezing the logic of industrial consumer capitalist society. Be light on the feet and look for opportunities to implement ideas that can make life easier or at least less shitty as people begin to grapple with the fallout of the 20th-century logistics and infrastructure not working well. Watch out for being right too early, which is approximately as useful as being wrong. In other words, even though I might *think* I know what the world in 100, 200, 400 years 'ought' to work based on my values, trying to leapfrog my own life from 2025 to 2225 logistics might be a massive mistake. Perhaps I ought to relax into 'living the transition' instead, which is maybe much more difficult a task to wrap one's head around.

Who knows. Gonna be interesting, though. There is a not small part of me that is *extremely* grateful to be alive right now (and to have been born into the privilege I was).

[thef0x]

@zbigi - I agree and I find your concerns applicable to my first cursory look at spiral dynamics' end state "turquoise" (reading the book now so I'm sure there's more nuance here, again, cursory look to start).

I think the personal preference fallacy is at play here in this community. Just because we can imagine this outcome and naturally look to actualize it does not mean we represent all, most, or even a significant portion of humans -- quite the contrary, we're the hyper minority. I don't think this is an education / nurture problem either. This is my biggest critique of Marx as well: ~capitalism doesn't make us a certain way, rather humans are the type of creatures to create capitalism/money/property at certain scales. [Insert reasonable critiques of the book "Sapiens" here].

@7w5 -- I don't see emergence post capitalism as given. Asking the question "what's after capitalism" presupposes quite a lot, mainly that there is a state of affairs after capitalism, and that there is a causal, directed nature to history*. I don't see evidence (or accurate predictions) for either so for now I'm agnostic at best.

I'm with @Jean that literal genetic changes are required to bring about these changes. We cannot escape our resource-starved hoarding nature because we are animals and that code is mission critical for gene replication. I do not think nurture>genes.

I'm not excited about my opinions on this topic; it can feel rather gloomy. I think this is why I like Axel's idea of a flotilla, but I worry in a game-theoretic way that the float will sink quickly on open water. Insert your favorite "Waterworld" memes here.

* We can always make the data fit retroactively.