The continued viability of the 4% rule in the US in the 21st century

[Western Red Cedar]

@wrc
I really don't know where this shared impression that someone will just happen to earn money after retirement comes from.
Every money I earned after i retired was from thing I wouldn't have done without bein paid.

I didn't mean to give the impression that one just happens to earn money without effort, stepping outside of their comfort zone, or engaging in some kind of working activity. It may happen coincidentally, but it much more likely happens with some effort.

The example Kitces mentioned in the interview I linked upthread was a social client he worked with who was highly focused on hitting a 4% SWR before leaving his job. Shortly after he left, he got a part time job as a barkeeper 1-2 nights per week because he wanted more social interaction. The income from that job wasn't insignificant, and had he considered an option like this he could have adjusted his SWR and left his job much earlier.

There are a number of journals on here with examples of people who left work and returned, left and picked up incidental income, left and started consulting, or left and cut expenses through some creative lifestyle decisions like geographical arbitrage, volunteering, workaway, or housesitting.

One doesn't just have to consider earning money. Reducing expenses is another way to look at the problem.

*I want to add a caveat that much of my perspective is coming from the opportunities in the US. The US is spoiled for opportunities to leverage waste streams or pick up incidental income. I recognize that isn't the reality everywhere.

[Jin+Guice]

@jacob:

I question your assumptions yet I follow your conclusions.


I think being FI provides more optionality than not being FI. If one can effortlessly become FI, it is better to be FI, assuming one prefers more option to less options.

My interpretation of what you wrote is that FI is a state that once reached is drastically different than when it is not reached. My counter is that as one approaches FI, one approaches the benefits of FI. The relationship between FI and optionality is not a strict threshold reached when one is at 3% SWR, but rather a continuum where optionality increases along with savings.


I don't believe that 3% SWR is a magic number where one puts the idea of money totally to bed. There will always be tail risk and that tail risk can only be reduced. As such the worry never goes away and the number one is comfortable with comes down to temperamental risk tolerance. My point here is that the money issue can not be said to be totally solved for everyone at 3%, for some it will be less, for some it will be more and for some it will never happen.

I also don't believe that maintaining employability or being employed necessarily takes up much space or life energy. There are a number of not that skilled positions where someone with ERE level spending can pay their expenses and save working 20 hours or less per week. There are also (fewer) higher skill positions where a person with ERE level spending can pay their expenses and save at a high rate, working 20 hours or less per week.

Of course my favorite solution is to mix and match, being employed with as low friction as possible for as much money as possible, taking freedom as one wants it. I argue that whether or not someone takes up a lot of mental space worrying about investments or worrying about where the next job will come from comes down to individual temperament, preference and skill set.

I do appreciate that not working for 20 years is a fundamentally different state than working for even 1 hour a week for 20 years. This state change can lead to insight (such as "working for money is actually pretty fucking odd") that people working even 1 hour a week will not see. Thankfully we have several people here who do not work at all to have these insights. I think it is possible to apply this wisdom ("oh, working for money is pretty fucking odd") once on hears it, even as they continue intermittent work

As I said in the beginning, I think being FI is great, in that it opens up more options, which I think is positive. However, FI does have a price and is not a slam dunk guarantee. For some the price to get to FI is small, the methodology of the 3% rule is trusted and the payoff for getting to FI is great. For others the price to get to FI is high, the methodology of the 3% rule is not trusted and the payoff from being completely FI is small.

This comes down to whether one values the kind of optionality FI provides or optionality on the way to FI more.



What makes any path easier is having extremely low expenses. Where temperamental options apply, having a thoroughly planned WoGs will aid in decision making and increase robustness of and confidence in the outcome, which will in turn minimize the friction of having the resources to get what you need and do what you want.

[7Wannabe5]

For people who just want to work for pay until they physically can't, more power to them. My way of doing things works for me, but I get it wouldn't be the most fulfilling life for everyone.

I'm actually pretty agnostic on "work for pay" vs. "work for FITB" in terms of fulfillment. It's just that if you want to do anything that might be described as "work", "project", "trade", and you are reasonably sociable, so you perform your "work/project/trade" to some extent in the company of others, and you live in the Modern world where most people make use of money to facilitate interactions, and it is also the case that most humans do not prefer to accumulate huge social capital imbalances with other humans, it can actually be kind of hard to avoid the flow of money in your direction.

For example, let's say some 12 year old kid who lives near your Dad kept coming over on a regular basis in the winter to shovel the snow on your Dad's driveway and sidewalk. Even if he told you, "No, that's okay, Mr. Dave, I like to help when I can." instead of taking your offer of some cash, you would likely still feel like you kind of owed him something, but now he's made it trickier for you to come up with what you might eventually offer in exchange. The irony is that the more money you have on tap, or the more you fit the stereotype of somebody who has money on tap (silverback male being most likely suspect), or the more ownership you have over "work/project/trade", the less likely it will flow to you as the result of social exchange, because everybody will assume that there is something else you would prefer to receive in exchange unless you make or respond to explicit contract such as a Help Wanted sign at Walmart. Beyond parent/child relationships, humans from most primitive lifestyle up (and even primates and other social animals) keep track of social exchange debts very closely. Money is sometimes just a technology that makes it easier to pay off social exchange debts.

My personal preference, because it hits the sweet spot of autonomy/social-exchange for me is to mostly operate a very part-time varied generalist operation with something analogous to a "Fresh Tomatoes. Pay/Barter as you Can/Like" sign. I don't want to be free from engaging in social exchange, and I have found that even if I am agnostic to form of "payment" received, it is more likely than not that an extremely frugal level of expense can automagically be covered within my social exchange. MMV significantly, especially for those less inclined to be helpful to the persons/properties/projects of others and/or those who signal Silverback Daddy too hard.

ETA: Okay, here's another way to look at it. The problem with investing to get the small amount of income you need at extreme frugal level is that there is already too much money in most of our social circles, just like there is already too much shelter space in most of our social circles. So, any money that flows to you in social exchange from somebody who was otherwise going to spend more than extreme frugal level expense on "stuff" or even "more investments" diverts the flow more effectively. IOW, if you know that you are not going to spend more than 1 jacob, then getting paid that 1 jacob by taking the place of the energy alloted to an affluent human's collection of energy slaves is better than investing in the stock market to secure your 1 jacob, because large publicly traded corporations obviously also make and promote the use of energy slaves.

[Scott 2]

Could you share what you think are the right questions to ask?

I'm asking as someone who is trying to do less analysis because it stresses me out.

The analysis stems from an unmet need. Changing your SWR by 50 basis points likely isn't it. Centering on money is an excuse. It avoids personal inquiry that may upset one's identity.

Exploration ought to be experimental. What do I think is lacking? What can I try, this week, to address that? How does the experience change my view? Repeat. At the very least, flesh out the current understanding of freedom to. The exercise will offer clarity into values. Maybe, life converges into alignment, absent any big financial milestone.

If it's travel, figure out a trip. Family time, an activity to share. Volunteering? Find the nearest charity and sign up for orientation. Do the thing ASAP. Test assumptions and put that nervous energy into identity development. Spend real money on accelerating the inquiry.

There's no final end state, just an iterated series of games. With time away from the work world, this becomes undeniable. Look at journals of those who have retired. They've all changed from their initial direction. It's what fully developed people do. You will too.

Part of me thinks a 10% withdrawal rate is a great milestone for opting out. I don't push that, because it's not what I did. It could go dramatically wrong. But paths close anyways. Either do the things in parallel, or make some dramatic efforts early. Don't wait to learn where you're wrong.

[Scott 2]

I'm still a bit baffled why so many here target 3% SWR even though they have a number of opportunities to produce income or reduce expenses

It doesn't stop with money. See the thread on ERE past 65. What struck me, is the ongoing farming of non-financial resources as well:

viewtopic.php?t=13073

It's not that we find enough and stop accumulating. Rather, we diversify further, for even greater security.

My armchair diagnosis is unresolved fear of death. Even with a 5% SWR, there's only a 1 in 5 chance of outliving the money. No amount is fending off the inevitable. Maybe it makes the path a little more gentle. Maybe not.

[jacob]

@J+G - I don't see 3% or 4% as a break-point that instantly causes a paradigm shift when crossed. Rather, if WR>4% one better steer one's lifestyle and way of thinking towards creating or maintaining money streams. Whereas at WR<3% one has the option to steer in other directions.

The longer one steers in a given direction, that is, the longer one thinks in a certain way, the less one thinks in other ways. This is how actions become habits, habits become character, and character becomes destiny.

I am not so interested in "how much space or life energy" working or preparing to work again is allocated in someone's weekly, monthly, or annual time budget. That's just a difference of degree. The difference in kind is whether this focus on allocation exists at all. You probably noticed how some in the first years of their retirement still map out their day in 15 minute segments. They'll get up at 7:00 sharp. Then spend exactly 15 minutes meditating. Then 2:45 hours writing. 1:00h our in nature. Then back to ... This is a meta-remnant from the meeting-schedule of their working days. They aren't really retired as much as they're working hard at doing retired activities on schedule. They might not have a job, but mentally they're still in employment-mode. Still hustling on a schedule. Friday's achievement was "relaxing for 6 hrs hours straight". Good job!

FI is similar. Mentally, everybody has their own number which might not even be a percentage. However, if someone still worries about money or their ability to make money, they're financially independent in name (or number) only. FIINO. They're still behaving and thinking like a salaryman or a workingman albeit someone who is on a loooong vacation. They do not trust capital income in the same way they trust working income.

So just from the perspective of 1) not worrying; and/or 2) not thinking about life like a salaryman, it is worth it to become FI in a sufficiently independent way that one is also "mentally independent" from thinking about money or worrying about running out of it.

It is fundamentally a different part of the territory that few get to live in or visit.

[7Wannabe5]

@jacob:

Scheduling your time to any extent isn't necessarily about making money. I mean, anybody who has any responsibility to anyone (including themselves) to do anything does this to the extent that they have stuff to do. I mean, are you entirely free-wheeling about when you brush your teeth or change the furnace filters? Sometimes I feel like everybody has forgotten that within the lifetime of many still living, a huge percentage of the adult population was not engaged in earning money outside of the home, and they absolutely did schedule their days along the lines of Monday: Shopping, Tuesday: Laundry, 4:30: get dinner started, etc. etc. I think what you are really getting at, and I agree, is that whether or not you are FI, only taking care of yourself as a middle-aged adult human is really not a very demanding or consequential task.

[Jin+Guice]

@jacob: Ok, I see what you are saying, thanks for clarifying.

I agree that never having to work is different in kind than having to work sometimes. I particularly agree with this:

The longer one steers in a given direction, that is, the longer one thinks in a certain way, the less one thinks in other ways. This is how actions become habits, habits become character, and character becomes destiny

I can see what you're saying that FI is a state that not-FI is not, and not working for a long-time, worry free, is different than working, even just a little bit or working with breaks in between.

What I'm saying is FI has a high price and getting a third or halfway to FI still gets one to a territory that is different than what the average person experiences in terms of freedom and opportunity (to be clear, not the same territory as full FI). It's up to the individual if the FI price is worth it and that can also be shaped by their circumstance.

For me there is a huge difference between doing something I don't want to do as the focal point of my life for 5 years straight and doing something I don't want to do for not that much time per week with some breaks in between. This drastically reduces the amount I don't want to do the thing and also gives me enough time to do what I do want to do. The option is something like suffer for 5 years while I do very little of what I want or be occasionally mildly annoyed for 15 while I do whatever I want at least 90% of the time*. It's rare that I worry about money because I have so goddamn much of it, just not enough to last me forever.

*Also my job is integrated into my WoGs partially (if it were fully integrated I would still do the activity for free, which is not true).

[7Wannabe5]

if it were fully integrated I would still do the activity for free, which is not true

Even if it was fully integrated, you wouldn't necessarily be easily able to do it for free. For example, you can get a certificate and charge money at your hot rock massage studio, but you can't as easily put a "Free Massages" sign you wrote on the back of a dumpster-dived pizza box with a Sharpie next to the van you live in down by the river and expect to acquire clients.

[Ego]

For me there is a huge difference between doing something I don't want to do as the focal point of my life for 5 years straight and doing something I don't want to do for not that much time per week with some breaks in between. This drastically reduces the amount I don't want to do the thing and also gives me enough time to do what I do want to do. The option is something like suffer for 5 years while I do very little of what I want or be occasionally mildly annoyed for 15 while I do whatever I want at least 90% of the time*. It's rare that I worry about money because I have so goddamn much of it, just not enough to last me forever.

I would take it further. Doing only what you want can erode the ability to do what you must. Doing it long enough kills the ability to do "musts". We probably all know a retiree who is incapable of doing "musts". Also, eliminating every "must" drains the meaning from "wants" in the same way that a focus on eliminating uncertainties kills the meaning derived from actual choices.

[7Wannabe5]

@Ego:

I largely agree with your suggestion, but would note that at the other end of the spectrum there is the dysfunction sometimes described as "not wanting to want." This sometimes comes into play when the desire to earn respect or some degree of personal power by not being or behaving "weak, needy, dependent, or impulsive" promotes behavior which constricts the possibilities of passion and pleasure. I suppose in Freudian terms it would be closest to the "anal retentive" as opposed to the "oral impulsive." Obviously, the "oral impulsive" tendency would be more likely to contribute to hedonic adaptation, but the "anal retentive" is also inhibited in the experience of passion and pleasure due to inability to "let go." Therefore, given the predominant MBTI makeup of this forum, I would hesitate to suggest that "doing only what one wants" is an issue of primary, secondary, tertiary, or etc. etc. concern. For better or worse, nobody will ever, ever, ever, ever, say, "Hey, let's go hang out with the wild party girls over at the ERE forum!"

[IlliniDave]

I agree that temperament is a crucial factor. I also think that family and dependents play a large role, as well as ones profession. Some jobs or fields are very challenging to return to after you leave. I think a lot of people recognize the relative level of effort needed to make six figure salaries based on where they are currently at in their profession, and would rather lean into inertia and rely on a fat bankroll that will likely keep growing than leave early and pursue an unknown patchwork of side gigs or alternative lifestyles (even if those do sound like a lot of fun).

Leaning into the safety and security of financial capital via a 3-4% SWR makes more sense to me if one is supporting a family. If one is a lone wolf, it is much easier to take risks.

The tragedy in my view is when I read about people white knuckling it. Telling themselves it is only "7 more years" until I'm free, when they could actually claim their freedom now by taking a different perspective on the math.

I suppose it matters how one frames things. Rather than leaning into inertia I leveraged the momentum I'd built up. Rather than abandoning the momentum and making the ongoing pursuit capital (of whatever form) something to be woven in creatively, I reversed it. I leveraged the momentum and used that creative energy to begin transforming my away-from-work life into my "retired" life. In time not working became a consequence to my life's evolution rather than an antecedent. Something I come back to repeatedly in discussions like this is that time spent understanding yourself, envisioning what you would like your life to be, and auditioning it, is time much better spent than is time fretting percentages. I had a two stage epiphany along the way. The first stage was asking why wait until I'm "retired" to ramp into this vision I was forming for a closer-to-ideal life. There were some geographical challenges I couldn't completely overcome, but otherwise I did fairly well. The second stage of it was realizing that life was life, and being "retired" would flavor that, but it wouldn't transform it into a completely different thing. So in a sense I cultivated a "retiree's mind" while working that was much different than being retired-in-place. I used quotes around "retired" several times because although technically that is my employment status, it was one of the most anticlimactic events along my story arc.

A caveat to my personal experience is the points in my dataset probably aren't typical. I never really considered ER seriously until I was in my latter 40s (freshly divorced and barely recovered from being essentially broke thanks to that). I was a little over 20 years into a career that paid pretty well for corporate minionhood, I was good at it, and it wasn't particularly unpleasant. So the cost of going from marginally viable FI to FI in alignment with my temperament (which is somewhat conservative in that realm) wasn't all that great. In hindsight I could quibble about a year or two I probably could have shaved off, but that doesn't even rise to the level of a regret. I was stubborn about making the best of my time in the office and lab and with colleagues.

I get what you're saying about someone who perceives having an appreciable way to go when maybe they don't. To me that freedom they pursue is more of a freedom-from than a freedom-to, which inherently emphasizes the negative. I was very conscious about abandoning that freedom-from framework. Maybe it was an exercise in self-deception. On some level I saw dependence on employment income as a vulnerability. But I behaved from a pursuit of freedom-to, which included bringing in some of the elements of the destination into the now. Career never fully defined my life and in time it became no more defining than any other daily chore. For my N=1 experiment on myself it worked.

I honestly don't know what to say to someone who perceives employment as life wrecking, especially if that combines with a relatively conservative financial temperament and some rigidity in lifestyle. For the subset of those who happen to be natural improvisers, pursuing one of the forms of quasi-retirement people here enjoy is a great option. I think something that is underappreciated by many with that type of temperament is the difficulty of that for people who don't possess it in their nature. Telling them to just go freewheel for the next 2, 3, 4 decades isn't any more palatable than telling them to just buck up and find away to enjoy or at least neutrally accept your job, and put their shoulder to the wheel for a fraction of that time to improve the math. And for a lot of people even the math is meaningless. I think for a given individual one route might be better than another, but across the continuum of personalities and situations, I don't see any of the options being inherently superior. I did what I did and it's to late to undo it (not that I would). I (repeatedly) share my experience because I think it can be valuable to think about more than a single number in isolation (and/or pushing it in one direction or another), not to promote my solution.

[IlliniDave]

I'm actually pretty agnostic on "work for pay" vs. "work for FITB" in terms of fulfillment ...

Admittedly I don't follow a lot of that. If you've found your happy place and a comfortable risk balance, that's wonderful. I admire everyone who has done so. While I have no innate desire to imitate most solutions I encounter, that shouldn't be taken as a criticism nor as evangelisation for an alternate.

I've yet to encounter any of the problems you mentioned, but I'm probably only about 10% of the way through this phase of life.

I'm where I'm at and don't have any desire to undo it. Each day is an exercise in waking up where I'm at and making the best of it. I get that some people disapprove of my way of solving the "problem". I haven't hit a true regret yet, which is about all I can ask for.

[7Wannabe5]

Maybe another way to think about it is to consider "ERE: A Philosophical and Practical Guide to Financial Independence" in combination with "How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler" by Ryan North. The second book offers instructions on how to re-invent technology based on the technology already available if you were to time travel to any point in the past. "ERE" is meant to be a generalized manual, so at one point in the book, if my recollection is correct, Jacob actually states the assumption along the lines of "you are human living in modern Capitalistic society with the usual associated investment opportunities." IOW, for example, you are not INTJ Isaac Newton taking a large loss in 1720 on the South Sea Bubble, and then saying "I can calculate the movements of the heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people." , because "finance" is an evolving technology or set of technologies. Therefore, "financial independence" can only be defined within the era of financial technology you might find yourself as a stranded time traveler, inclusive of the years 2050 or 2075. And the evolving technology of Finance is dependent upon many other technologies. For example, its development into the Modern era was dependent upon the field of mathematics that was invented for the purposes of the hobby of gambling, in which many of the idle, wealthy of earlier eras indulged.

IOW, there is some more generalized theory of investment that would make clear why both "the house always wins in the long run" and "the well-diversified investor always wins in the long run" are generally true, and, therefore, also make clear the circumstances under which they may no longer hold true. For example, what does it mean to be "the house" and what does it mean to be "well-diversified." IOW, it would deal with the boundary issues. However, a mental exercise along the lines of considering how one might achieve something like "financial independence" as a stranded time traveler could serve much the same purpose. I mean, it is unlikely to be a complete coincidence that the popularity of FIRE roughly coincided with the invention of Index Funds in 1971. Similarly, in previous eras, Treasury bonds or War bonds tended to be so stable in their yield that the Upper Class often described wealth in terms of yield, as in "She has 2000 pounds per year, so her lack of charm will only slightly reduce her options on the marriage mart." OTOH, yields based on estate acreage could greatly vary and would often be dependent upon continuing investment in maintenance and improvement, because a serf or tenant farmer will not be as productive on land that is not adequately drained or absent a nearby functional mill, etc. etc.

The interesting thing is that due to the internet, if one does own stock in a company, it is frequently fairly easy to see the conditions under which its employees and/or the employees of its sub-contractors are laboring, but you really have no power to undertake any improvements that might best serve for the long-run, whereas if you own your own business or collection of businesses, this power and responsibility of stewardship is almost entirely yours. Is it difficult to compete with an entity for whom stewardship is almost entirely abstracted? Of course, it is, for the same reason it is difficult to engage in conflict with a psychopath in the form of an exponentially growing slime mold, but it still might prove a worthwhile enterprise.

[Jin+Guice]

@7:

I whole heartedly disagree with both that general premise and that example. I've received a free massage at an orgy from a professionally trained masseuse and I'm pretty sure anywhere anyone is doling out free massages there will be a lot of takers. In general, if you can't figure out how to do something for free, I argue that creativity is lacking. I'm sure if we consider the large swath of available activities that we can find a few that are impossible to do for free, in which case I fall back on my needs based framework (i.e. can you meet the need with another activity that you can give away for free).

This analysis misses the spirit of the exercise, which is not whether you actually do your work for free, but whether you would do you work for free.

@Ego:

I think I disagree with your premise, thought I may need you to flesh it out more. I don't think one needs to continue to work to keep themselves actively involved in life. However, one MAY wish to pursue this strategy.


I think the background mechanics to all of this is having a well fleshed out WoGs. My point with FI is that, while it may contain some insights, those insights come at a high price. Neither me nor Jacob can tell you if that price is worth it to you, that comes from your WoGs. If you have a perfectly integrated WoGs then, I think, you would only engage in activities which you would do for free (i.e. activities you pursue because they are interesting or helpful). If you have a fully integrated WoGs, then you will be intrinsically motivated to stay engaged with the world at the level which works for you and won't need a job to do that for you (though you may choose to work a job as part of staying engaged in the world).

Having a fully integrated WoGs is not easy though (it was the peak of the old WL chart) so along the way one may wish to use things like having a job to stay engaged or reaching FI in case they want the insights.

[IlliniDave]

...
The interesting thing is that due to the internet, if one does own stock in a company, it is frequently fairly easy to see the conditions under which its employees and/or the employees of its sub-contractors are laboring, but you really have no power to undertake any improvements that might best serve for the long-run, whereas if you own your own business or collection of businesses, this power and responsibility of stewardship is almost entirely yours. Is it difficult to compete with an entity for whom stewardship is almost entirely abstracted? Of course, it is, for the same reason it is difficult to engage in conflict with a psychopath in the form of an exponentially growing slime mold, but it still might prove a worthwhile enterprise.

Still not quite able to see what your point is. If you think investing in stocks is somehow immoral, don't do it. I don't feel as though I'm in competition with anyone or anything except maybe entropy and that's not really a competition, more of a dance/partnership that will end when the music stops for me. I can't be a steward for the whole world, just for myself and my family and arguably to a degree for the relatively insignificant number of people I interact with. I won't dispute an assertion that makes me less-than-noble as a person. It's a valid observation that adaptation to one's environment is part of the equation, it's arguably the must human of all traits, and my great-great grandparents in latter midlife faced a different playing field than I do, and I expect that my great grandchildren will have a significantly different playing field at the same juncture of their lives to navigate. The time traveler thought experiment is interesting, and for those who aspire to be an Isaac Newton of life hacking it seems like it might be a great starting point. I'm fully engaged trying to live a life aided by some biohacking and don't have a ton of residual intellectual bandwidth to try to be a seer of 22nd century life modalities. The 4% rule-of-thumb is something I'm contemporary with and have thoughts about, which I've shared. It and the space around it provide one of many contemporary solutions for a piece of the puzzle--namely that of solving the sustenance part of the equation insofar as money can be extended in that direction. But it's a small part of life as I see it.

[7Wannabe5]

If you think investing in stocks is somehow immoral, don't do it.

I don't think it is immoral, because it is pretty much impossible to avoid at some level. We're all cooking in this pot together. My precise take is more like I truly believe that the power of large corporations relative to the power of individual citizens and smaller enterprises should be more restrained than it is currently for the good of the system which is society in general. Therefore, I do not want to be dependent on the growth or profits of large corporations for my livelihood or security or FITB to the extent that I would experience too much cognitive dissonance if I were to simultaneously vote as a citizen in favor of measures such as limiting their lobbying power or honk my support as an individual for a union action taking place in my neighborhood. I also recognize that there are likely many creative ways in which this could be avoided, perhaps including being over-invested to the extent that one does have a sort of slush band to cover the dissonance; the difference between 6% and 2% might provide the freedom to also vote one's conscience in opposition to narrow self-interest.

To the extent that I have been involved with towards Level Yellow organizations in which the lines between owner/investor/client/consumer/employee/investor/etc. become more blurry, I think it is possible to transcend this dissonance, but it requires mindful engagement, and I also don't believe that simply choosing to invest in a Green Equity Fund or some such would serve. Oddly, I don't feel the same way about, for instance, making short term bets on crypto. I guess kind of analogous to how value aligned I would want to be with a marriage partner vs. a one night stand.

[7Wannabe5]

I'm pretty sure anywhere anyone is doling out free massages there will be a lot of takers.

A kooky eNTP friend of mine literally did this at a neighborhood street festival and he did have no takers, because it is creepy if an old guy does this. There are a lot of situations in which offering to do something for free which otherwise usually comes at a price will be regarded as creepy, suspect, crazy, intrusive or illegal. For example, what if I had a lot of fruit in my garden to process, so every week I brought a homemade pie over to my bachelor neighbor IllinDave's house?

[Jin+Guice]

@7: I misspoke and revise this part of my argument. Massages cannot be given away for free under all circumstances. I revise it to "I'm pretty sure most people could give out free massages under some circumstances."

[7Wannabe5]

@Jin+Guice:

My bad, because for me personally the offer of a free massage is super suspicious. Like you could pull up to me in a black window van and offer me a free candy apple, or you could shoot me a text about free seminar detailing surefire 30% annual return investment opportunity, or you could offer me free sushi with $20 of gas purchase, and all of those would be less suspicious than offer of free massage.