Early Retirement Extreme Forums

Scott 2 wrote:and a polo

So funny, because after my DD33 and SIL took me to see "Hadestown" the other evening, I told them that I was scanning the audience as we were exiting for affluent Republican-leaning men of my generation who had been dragged unknowing of thematic elements to the production by their wives, but it was somewhat hard to differentiate them from the affluent Democratic-leaning men of my generation, except for the fact that maybe the aging liberals wore their pants/belts a bit looser, and my SIL immediately suggested "polo shirts" as more indicative of conservative bend.

In the US, a black woman interviewing for white collar position, needs to arrive with a classy purse, highly professional attire, hair done in specific ways. She will be judged otherwise, especially by other black women, conscious of how she reflects on them.

Fortunately, I believe society has advanced to the extent that this can now be more or less true depending upon the organization/location. For example, at recent event in liberal, affluent, academic realm, I was seated by a young black woman with thick nerd glasses, funky shoes, and tiny pink bows ironically displayed in the halo of her natural hair. However, definitely still holds true for the upwardly-mobile lower-working-to-middle-class black girls I tutored. This is one reason why I so loved Doechii's NPR tiny desk performance. The section of "Black Girl Memoir" in which she yells out "Don't fuck with me." is so true to the trauma so often experienced by these girls; the heavy background noise they need to overcome just to be able to concentrate on something like Algebra. One of her lines in "Nissan Altima" is "I'm a Gucci in a bonnet." which speaks to how the use of Gucci signifier can compensate for the lower-class signal of being seen in public with your "un-done" hair still wrapped in a cloth bonnet, but throwing both together speaks to the reality of being black in America. Also, the way the entire extremely talented all African-American female band is costumed in deconstructed preppy school uniforms. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.

Hell - I could get praise and connect by biking there.

Literally happened to me on one occasion when I was applying for a tutoring job. I also spent most of the interview talking to my new boss (an Asian heritage man at least 20 years younger than me) about permaculture, which I had listed as hobby/interest on my resume. Ever since I read Bourdieu on cultural capital, I have been very aware of the extent to which I float by on it. For example, what would be the market value of my diction?

jean wrote:But also, my gf is slowly approaching 40 looking gorgeous, and all she does, is enjoying her job, not smoking or drinking, not using cosmetic product, and maintain a relationship with someone (me ) that remind her to sleep and eat.

I think you are underestimating the "value" of simply being socio-geo-located quite close to Hanzi Freinacht's mythical mountain retreat. Although I do agree that everything else you listed would likely be contributive (only Brigette Bardot could get away with still smoking at 60) with note that it is actually expensive privilege to have a job you enjoy and a male partner with enough leisure time himself that he can also look out for your health. My sister keeps telling me that I should trade in the grouchy old men for a younger-than-me vegan chef, but I can't afford one.

Jean wrote: ↑

Sat Feb 01, 2025 2:02 pm

This sound more like submissions signal than class signal.

It's the price of living in a society that centers power elsewhere.

Openness and authenticity only work when the power dynamic is not challenged. Those with small power hold fragile positions. They're most likely to lash out when challenged. Start from a position of disadvantage, and you're far more likely to encounter them.


When those individuals control your income, or even safety, the calculus is necessarily different. Sending the correct signals becomes essential.

@Scott 2
I might be oblivious to the possibility that some people don't have the freedom to avoid engaging with assholes.

Scott 2 wrote: ↑

Sat Feb 01, 2025 2:37 pm

It's the price of living in a society that centers power elsewhere.

Openness and authenticity only work when the power dynamic is not challenged. Those with small power hold fragile positions. They're most likely to lash out when challenged. Start from a position of disadvantage, and you're far more likely to encounter them.


When those individuals control your income, or even safety, the calculus is necessarily different. Sending the correct signals becomes essential.

Good point as sharing power requires the leader/supervisor to amenable to that, which requires emotional and financial security. The trapped in dysfunction can be more pronounced depending on the community where one lives within that society. If unable/unwilling to move; rape, pillage, and plunder to get along versus the more pedestrian go along to get along.

(Could this book discussion be metaphor?)

Jean wrote: ↑

Sat Feb 01, 2025 3:05 pm

@Scott 2
I might be oblivious to the possibility that some people don't have the freedom to avoid engaging with assholes.

You have power. Beyond money - education, broad life experience, decades of living well, etc. In a global context you're exclusive company.

Volunteering at a food pantry was eye opening for me. It offered meaningful exposure to poverty. Not in the "little money" context, but true lack of resources. Refugees who'd fled to there as the "better life." The implications are brutal and undeniable. What about those who couldn't???


Elevation of simple living remains a strong answer. If winning becomes a single speed bike and veganism, at least the power brokers slow their burn rate. It also becomes feasible for others to retain status while doing the same.

I'm reminded of the $100k Rivian parked at my local library. At what point do you stop pretending, and quit the virtue signaling?

Not that I'm immune. I identify as frugal, not wealthy. Yet, I might never work again. To look down on those clinging to small power, is equally bullshit. A luxury of privilege.


@Frita - I'm not sure about metaphor, but I'd agree these patterns repeat fractallly, throughout society. I think it's why Jevon's paradox connected so strongly for me. My frame assumed optimization of a resource constraint driven world. That's been invalidated.

7Wannabe5 wrote: ↑

Sat Dec 14, 2024 10:00 am

# Seriously, I just read two of the most recommended novels of 2024 written by young women. The first late 20s protagonist had a PhD in Physics and couldn't afford her Type 1 Diabetes meds, because no health insurance working as adjunct professor at two different schools, and she doesn't have time for a sex life, let alone a baby. The second protagonist was the adopted Manhattanite black daughter of an affluent single white woman, burnt out after teaching kids in the Bronx for a decade, she is working for a billionaire trying to give his money away before he dies, and she spends her weekends looking at apartments she can't afford in Brooklyn; no interest in having children when she can't afford a home.

Those novels sounds really interesting - could you let me know what they are called?

@jayritchie:

Yup, although, oopsie, I realized after this post that one of the authors is actually a man. If you read it, you will likely comprehend my wrong-minded assumption.

The first is of the new genre known as STEM Romance, "Love, Theoretically" by Ali Hazelwood.

The second is "Entitlement" by Rumaan Alam, and would be found shelved in Literary Fiction.

My stacks and lists are a bit of a mess right now, but I have been reading through an assortment of Best of 2024 lists, and some of my other recommendations would be:

"Good Material", Dolly Alderton (Very fun light read. I recommend it for members of this forum, because the stand-up comedian protagonist is a young man with ESFP-ish personality type, so the way he approaches life and love is pretty much the opposite of strategic masculine INTJ approach/perspective. HINT: He just gets lucky and unlucky quite frequently.)

" All Fours", Miranda July (this is the one everybody is reading, I actually had to put it aside halfway through, but happy I picked it up again, because it's one of those novels that only wraps and weaves together into something grand towards the very end, I think maybe I found it a bit disturbing, because it approaches sexual and relationship issues from the perspective of a woman with an experience/perspective that is kind of 50% very similar to my own and 50% very different from my own. )

"The Familiar", Leigh Bardugo (magical historical fiction, not one of favorite genres, but I found this novel to be a highly compelling read, setting is the Spanish Inquisition, protagonist is a lowly scullion with magical powers)

"Creation Lake", Rachel Kushner (this is the novel I would most highly recommend for members of this forum, because the protagonist is an uber-rational female approaching issues related to the metacrisis from a very unusual suspense novel perspective, towards the high-quirky brow, in my top 3 in climate fiction category)

"Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows", Balli Jaswal (this was actually published in 2017, my library doesn't have her newest novel yet, easy, enjoyable mid-brow read with some interesting flavors.)

"Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers", Jesse Sutanto (fun, cozy mystery with Asian-American grandmother as protagonist)

Frita wrote:Could this book discussion be metaphor?)

Seems likely, although maybe the pattern qualitatively changes up a bit once you interject concepts such as "cultural capital"? I'm just confused about why/how I am simultaneously admiring Robin Greenfield's recent video in which he is sitting naked on the grass after giving away all of his belongings, but also trying to rekindle some of the spark of my Modern era youth. I mean, there is no way to get back in touch with my 3 year old, 10 year old, or even 13 year old energy without that energy being set dead plumb in 20th century Modern.( By 14, I was already veering a bit more Post-Modern, so that is a different problem, not requiring deconstruction of "shopping") Barbara Sher suggests that best way to approach how to spend post-mid-life -> retirement years is to forget about all the sex/romance/family-formation hormonally-driven angst you were subject to from puberty to menopause (or similar for men) and focus on what you enjoyed when you were 10 years old, but if you were 10 years old in affluent U.S. suburb in 1975, what you enjoyed when you were 10 is almost certainly going to be reflected on archival consumerist-era documents such as Your Xmas Wish List, even (true story) if one of the many gifts you opened on the shag-carpet of the family room of your ranch style home in new upscale subdivision for Xmas 1975 was a brand spanking new copy of "The Foxfire Book: hog dressing, log cabin building, mountain crafts and foods, planting by the signs, snake lore, hunting tales, faith healing, moonshining, and other affairs of plain living." I may be off by a year or so, but likely my other gifts were Cotton Candy machine, Boggle,realistic size and appearance toddler doll (my last doll), electric race track (my father always gave us some boy toys he wanted to play with), 100 in 1 electronic experiment kit, record player, matching sister pajamas, a great deal of candy, and several other books, maybe "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret", "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH" and "There's a Decorator in Your Dollhouse!"

My point here being that I think Barbara Sher is mostly right, because I can remember what/why I liked about all of these gifts, but to bring those "like"s forward to reinvigorate my 60s, I have to first "grow them up" and then also "un-consumerize" them. For easy example, if I simply "grew up" what I enjoyed about "There's a Decorator in Your Dollhouse!", I could easily spend $500,000 on the project, even though it was a DIY book for making your own dollhouse furniture and accessories. In order to somewhat "un-consumerize" it, I could, for example, choose to "frivolously" spend the $100 gift I received on redecorating the "room of my own" I am currently occupying in my mother's senior community apartment, or use it towards a cute camper conversion of my Smart Car. At core, the desire is "Create objects/display in alignment with my aesthetic." which theoretically could also be achieved for $0, but that becomes a bit trickier, sometimes to the extent that I simply wouldn't do it, which would also be a shame/loss, particularly if I were to project this upon others. Maybe the problem is just my perception that a fairly large percentage of frugal men of my acquaintance possess highly limited aesthetic. For example, the year my parents were separated, my frugal father bought all of us butt-ugly old lady robes from some weird old-fashioned department store or the man I dated who had a hockey poster push-pinned to the dirty wall over his dining table video game center or the multiple horrors of my mega-millionaire semi-miser friend's house of dust, hoard, and sputum ("Yuck, is this a penis squeezing machine!" screamed the woman with whom I co-operated towards his post-death Swedish Death Cleaning.)

Scott 2 wrote: ↑

Sat Feb 01, 2025 12:55 pm

In the US, a black woman interviewing for white collar position, needs to arrive with a classy purse, highly professional attire, hair done in specific ways. She will be judged otherwise, especially by other black women, conscious of how she reflects on them.

I could roll into that same interview - jeans, sneakers and a polo. And probably get preferential treatments. There may even be an assumption of excellence, due to my casual appearance. Hell - I could get praise and connect by biking there.

This. Mark Zuckerberg could get away with wearing jeans and a hoodie. Sheryl Sandberg could not.

7Wannabe5 wrote: ↑

Sun Feb 02, 2025 3:04 pm

I'm just confused about why/how I am simultaneously admiring Robin Greenfield's recent video in which he is sitting naked on the grass after giving away all of his belongings...

I used to have a curious interest in Robin Greenfield but obviously didn’t watch this video. While some things he does are cool (healthy food and long walks, yes, please), I also get an attention-seeking vibe plus something else I can’t quite put my finger on. This is not to judge, but to discern how much time to invest. He’s certainly following his own process, bully.

7Wannabe5 wrote: ↑

Sun Feb 02, 2025 3:04 pm

Barbara Sher suggests that best way to approach how to spend post-mid-life -> retirement years is to forget about all the sex/romance/family-formation hormonally-driven angst you were subject to from puberty to menopause (or similar for men) and focus on what you enjoyed when you were 10 years old. I mean, there is no way to get back in touch with my 3 year old, 10 year old, or even 13 year old energy without that energy being set dead plumb in 20th century Modern…

My point here being that I think Barbara Sher is mostly right, because I can remember what/why I liked about all of these gifts, but to bring those "like"s forward to reinvigorate my 60s, I have to first "grow them up" and then also "un-consumerize" them.

Having been menopausal for going on 25 years, I would argue it’s more about life phase than reproductive capacity. Perhaps the shift is to tap into those energies, not recreate them. That way they can be an adult version with one’s current sensibility to our consumer culture. For example, as a three year old, I had this furry lovey blanket and have my cosy blanket time nightly (sherpa one I got while crewing or borrow my son’s heated one). As a ten year old, I wanted to differentiate with my own opinions and show up as myself. My 13 year old self wanted to appreciate her skills and talents regardless of others’ kudos or insistence I comply with their preferences, and I have that.

Actually, other than the blanket thing, I carry parts of my younger self with me. Perhaps it is also about shedding parts of the younger selves that no longer serve, if applicable. For me, at least, that’s examining and releasing any residual fears acquired during those periods that resurface in present day as sabotage.

Frita wrote:Perhaps the shift is to tap into those energies, not recreate them.

No doubt. I don't know why I keep considering scenarios such as "What did I mail order from the back page of comic book at age 8?" My revolving set of generalist interests have remained remarkably consistent over the years even as my values have changed, my skills have improved, and my perspective has deepened. Coffee and sex are pretty much my only adult add-on activities. Actually, not even those, since I drank black tea with sugar for my asthma as a child, and enjoyed being chased and wrestling with boys on occasion. Maybe I will revert to platonic wrestling when even the Viagra doesn't help any of my partners anymore. Seems more interesting than being half of an old couple that just cuddles, although I suppose the osteoporosis and heart disease might cause some difficulties. Maybe the young folks could sponsor Nude Elder Wrestling as a way to cutback on social security payouts and/or supplement nursing facility gig pay. The jello could obviously be recycled from the cafeteria.

I just finished the book and I did not enjoy it. This is probably due to coming in with the expectation of an analysis of what would happen in and to the world if we all or even enough of us stop shopping. Silly me!

Instead, we're treated to the standard journo-approach of talking to a long list of experts in order to gather a bunch of quotations and presenting it in the standard "Marco Polo"-format(*) arranged by subtopic on the topic of consumerism. People, who have actually attempted to make a difference are finally interviewed for a few quoted sentences each in chapter 18, the second last chapter. What's in all the other chapters? Interviews with academics, random business leaders, and entrepreneurs angled from a perspective of how embedded consumerism is in all of us and how inevitable it is.

(*) I talked to this person who said the following sentence. Then I visited that person and here are a couple of sentences from that. Then I went and talked to another person. Here's someone else you might find interesting...

At the very end---the last 8 pages---we get the "lessons learned by the author" of this project. Based on my estimate of the epilogue, the author went from level 1 (becoming more aware) to 2 (doing a few easy things) on the Wheaton Eco scale. The book would have been more interesting (to me) if this [personal journey] had been expanded to the 284 pages that takes up the rest of the book and those 284 pages had been reduced to an 8 page introduction. At least we'd get an example of the "beginner's mind" that other beginners might take some inspiration from. As it was, it's somewhat sad to realize how the world remains blind to the solution that's been staring it in the face for at least 40 years. Perhaps it's so obvious that it needs a book like this to convince us that humans can't have been that foolish.

But as I said ... I had different expectations.

jacob wrote:As it was, it's somewhat sad to realize how the world remains blind to the solution that's been staring it in the face for at least 40 years.

The solution to population control seemed equally obvious for hundreds of years until it turned out that it was actually something more like "affluence" and/or "education of women." IOW, when humans of their own choice "stop shopping" it's secondary to something(s) else that occurred along their path, which might actually be "more affluence" and "more education" and this may be generally true even though minority of humans choose to limit their reproduction or limit their spending/shopping for other reasons, some of which may be innate.

Clearly the car is going to hit the wall before median global per capita spending hits $30,000 with population peaking around 10.5 billion, but it still remains somewhat unclear how the pain of the impact is likely to be distributed. For example, a lot of young men in affluent realms are already quite unhappy about secondary effects of "education of women."

7Wannabe5 wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 07, 2025 10:23 pm

The solution to population control seemed equally obvious for hundreds of years until it turned out that it was actually something more like "affluence" and/or "education of women." IOW, when humans of their own choice "stop shopping" it's secondary to something(s) else that occurred along their path, which might actually be "more affluence" and "more education" and this may be generally true even though minority of humans choose to limit their reproduction or limit their spending/shopping for other reasons, some of which may be innate.

It bothers me more that something like FIRE wasn't even mentioned despite extracting a sentence from Vicki Robin as part of "visiting Seattle". However, the framing of that chapter [18] was about "voluntary simplicity" (the previous incarnation of minimalism from the 1980s and 1990s) having failed as a movement or at least not lived up to the expectation of changing the world.

The idea that led to earning was strongly coupled to immediate spending was presumed throughout the book. Consuming less implied working less as in "4 days a week instead of 5" or a lower wage. This perhaps was also assumed in the economic simulations that were run as part of the book. However, you can't simulate what you can't imagine just like it's impossible to answer questions that one can't imagine asking.

The word "savers" has 1 entry in the index and that refers to a small paragraph about how saving is futile because it's just invested back into producing for consumer economy---nothing about the systemic effect of how that production would change if demand falls due to saving. The word investor or investing has ZERO entries in the index.

In terms of population control, the smarter, more educated, or less culturally locked-in figured it out rather fast. See e.g. Will Durant's Mansions of Philosophy (from 1920ish) and his rather cringey [by today's standards] discussion of what different women want.

I would have accepted a "these people have figured it out" but 97% of the rest of the population "have yet to figure it out for themselves and their communities". The analogy would be to write a polemic on the obesity epidemic called "The day the world stopped eating junk food" while focusing exclusively on companies producing "low fat twinkies", interviewing a few doctors who mention that "yeah, this is indeed a problem", but ignoring the fact that the solution to a proper diet is known and that there are several movements---not just crazy individuals---that actually demonstrate how it works in practice.

jacob wrote:It bothers me more that something like FIRE wasn't even mentioned despite extracting a sentence from Vicki Robin as part of "visiting Seattle".

Gotcha. Although this may be reflective of the more locavore focus of her more recent book in which I could also sense a bit of a sub-text of reaction against/beyond FIRE. Maybe because it didn't provide her with the sort of community she craved later in life?

jacob wrote:-nothing about the systemic effect of how that production would change if demand falls due to saving.

Well, we rarely discuss these likely macro effects even on this forum. One bugaboo in the room likely being "marketing and sales." I noticed the great emphasis placed on this in "Efficiency" by the Wall Street Playboys when I was recently re-skimming it this practical guide to maximizing Earning. A more general issue being the inevitability of "post-capitalism" in some form.

See e.g. Will Durant's Mansions of Philosophy (from 1920ish) and his rather cringey [by today's standards] discussion of what different women want.

Will do. Added at top of my list. No worries on the cringe, I have yet to encounter a male-authored/led discussion on what different women want at any theoretical level of development that is not cringe-worthy and/or just plain wrong. Actually, the "what" is sometimes accurate, but getting the "why" right is much more rare, and very often either directly misinterpreted from masculine perspective or naively projected from repressed/internalized feminine within the male. IOW, heterosexual men often believe that what/why women want is what/why he would want "if he was a woman" without really self-aware quite being willing to go there. So, the "players" who simply operate at the pragmatic practice/tactical level of "results" often do better.

jacob wrote:The analogy would be to write a polemic on the obesity epidemic

Oh, this won't help at all, because I could type all the day long on how classism and sexism relate to the obesity epidemic. Likely I would start with "Fat is a Feminist Issue" Susie Orbach (1978) or The Weigh Down Ministries approach to the issue (the God ordained power balance of covenant marriage is disrupted when the wife weighs more than her husband) or the stereotypes and reality relating ethnicity to preferred female azz-size, and/or an anecdote about how my third sister who has been the "chubby one" (but also the "cool popular jock") pretty much all her life (I yo-yo and our other two sisters fairly consistently remain thin) after more than a year on Ozempic and a new expensive haircut now resembles a very affluent female Eastern seaboard golfer from the 1920s/30s. Like you kind of expect her to sound like Katherine Hepburn. There was also an extremely interesting article in the NYT recently about how Ozempic is leading to the break-up of many marriages. As somebody who yo-yos, I can totally grok how/why this happens, even the perspective of the husbands who preferred their wives to remain chubbier. IOW, this is definitely not a simple "Gee, I didn't know that lentil soup was more likely to contribute to weight maintenance than plum napoleon." level issue for the majority of humans in our culture. Even on this forum there is the endless paleo vs. vegan debate which is obviously about much more than simple nutrition. Also, due in part to the rush towards Ozempic and similar, the latest medical community update is that anybody with BMI under 38 who doesn't have related secondary health condition and is reasonably physically active should be left to their own devices, because the statistical evidence does not warrant intervention. (My own current take as currently quite chubby 60 year old female not suffering from metabolic disorder, relishing quite enjoyable lifestyle inclusive of lentil soup and plum napoleon (on much less than 1 jacob!) and also experiencing a surfeit or suitors, is towards the post-post-modern "whimsical jaded." IOW, I often feel like rolling my eyeballs in the manner of an older black gentleman being informed for the nth^ time that he is very well-spoken.)