Early Retirement Extreme Forums

7Wannabe5 wrote: ↑

Sat Dec 28, 2024 6:42 pm

My first note would be that a lifestyle entirely alien to the human experience across all space and time thus far is kind of a high bar.

Ha ha. Quite. My "angle" is that I'm an anxious person, or a person with a lot of anxious energy. When I've seen something "cool" in the past, I can put a lot of anxious energy into thinking about it, planning for it, etc. At one point, "retirement" was that "cool" idea for me and I spent a lot of anxious energy thinking about how my life would be soooooo different and soooooo much better if I did this or that thing. As I've become more experienced, I guess what I meant is that in my observations, there are only a handful of "types" of lives and which one you end up with is either a question of inertia / getting in a rut and/or an intentional choice of which shit sandwich you want to eat (what types of problems do you want to be working on):

1) Childhood - school (formal or informal) and play.
2) Workaday - the stereotypical adult life, whether it's in the developed or developing worlds. What "work" looks like is a little different for each person.
3) First world retirement
a) Gentleman farmer - oftentimes generously called homesteading. True homesteading-for-sustenance I would just put in "workaday" whereas hobby farming and/or gardening "for fun" I would put here.
b) Traveler - tourist from one end to slow travel in the middle to expat integrating into a new geography on the other.
c) Return-to-work - this could be the old job; a consultant or other part-time gig in the old industry; or "reinvent yourself"
d) Personal projects - from volunteering to caring for grandchildren to caring for parents to getting a degree to starting a small business
e) Foxnews - sit around and watch tv and get angry

I see (personally, in the news, on the interwebs/youtube) many, many examples of the types listed above. The variations are only mildly interesting, so if there's a new type or genre that I'm missing out on (vicariously) experiencing, I would be interested in opening up that new vista. The one unicorn that I would really want to see is what amounts to a stress-free life, but I've come to accept that that is impossible for biological beings. Hence the Lin Yutang focus on managing my stress better and making small adjustments to a fairly carefree yet not altogether carefree lifestyle.

As I've become more experienced, I guess what I meant is that in my observations, there are only a handful of "types" of lives and which one you end up with is either a question of inertia / getting in a rut and/or an intentional choice of which shit sandwich you want to eat (what types of problems do you want to be working on)

Yes, there is some truth to this, although I would expand by noting that there are also options which engage more or less social capital or communality and varying levels of technology and/or historical re-enactment and/or futuristic enactment. Also, one's perspective on "chosen shit sandwich" is almost certainly the most important variable. For example, permaculture, homesteading, and market gardening may look like the same lifestyle to casual observer, but the associated perspective actually makes the lived experience quite different. And, this is actually towards what you are communicating in recognizing that it is not the lifestyle details, but rather the perspective of "choice" that differentiates the freedom of "self-authoring" from the perspective of being servant to externalities. For example, one could hold the perspective/practice of re-committing to their marriage or parenting on a daily basis. At the nth degree of extreme for this forum, one could even hold debt in this manner (as many businesses do), as a choice or contract with consequences as opposed to a moral or social obligation. The truism "With freedom comes responsibility" is a social construct, not a law of physics.

Ergo, being a Punk and variations or sub-variations on the Punk theme would constitute another range of options not included in your list. Also, if the punk is granted some power, while still not engaging responsibility and/or sensitivity, all the many variations on Villian or Dominator lifestyles could also be included in your list. Of course, increasingly rigid social power structures AKA Dominator Hierarchies often lead to the growth of Punk culture. This is why the Silent Generation, who came of age in last gasp of Traditional era, divorced in such large numbers (most divorce of any generation) in the late 70s/80s. Why the Boomers protested the draft. This is why there might soon be a populist movement to simply stop making unsecured debt payments en masse thereby forcing a degree of wealth transfer and/or socialization of basic services. etc. etc. etc. IOW, the activities which are viewed as necessary developmental resposibilities of adulthood become "choices" at higher levels of perspective. Ergo, Financial Independence is only a necessary or optimal "reponsibility" in balance with "freedom" within the framework of Modernity/Capitalism, as Conventional Marriage/Parenthood/Military-Service are only necessary or optimal "responsibilities" within the framework of Traditionalism/Patriotism. So, for example, a human who steals food from Wal-Mart and trespasses on rare earth mining site (punk acts from Modern perspective, but not necessarily the Post-Modern), might still hold perspective of adult social responsibility balanced with personal freedom, if these activities are towards overall goal of saving several species from extinction caused by the inherent Villainy of Modern structure. etc. etc. etc. My point here being that you have to look beyond both current technology and current value structure to conceive of any truly novel options for intentional shit sandwich choice matrix. However, if anxiety-minimization is primary objective, rule of thumb would be to increase stocks and reduce the rate and variability of flows. If boredom is more of a problem, then do the reverse, at least within a boundaried sub-section of lifestyle design. For example, video games or rough camping or international travel or extreme sports can provide situational excitement within otherwise staid/stable risk-reduced lifestyle and these activities can also serve to reinforce/renew one's realization of overall lifestyle stability. For example, if you experiment for several days with only eating food from your permaculture project or foraged within biking distance and then one of your affluent polyamorous partners picks you up in his car and takes you out for pancakes.

You mean like participating in an (insular) culture associated with a certain lifestyle rather than pursuing it individualistically? I've done the insular culture (mormonism) before and it's just not for me. As John Steinbeck wrote in East of Eden in regard to the army, but I believe it can be applied to any culture or organization:

After a while, you’ll think no thought the others do not think. You’ll know no word the others can’t say. And you’ll do things because the others do them. You’ll feel the danger in any difference whatever – a danger to the whole crowd of like-thinking, like-acting men … Once in a while there is a man who won’t do what is demanded of him, and do you know what happens? The whole machine devotes itself coldly to the destruction of his difference. They’ll beat your spirit and your nerves, your body and your mind, with iron rods until the dangerous difference goes out of you. Pg. 25

So, yes, while I agree that your perspective and even your vocabulary can change in such a culture such that you begin to "think like they do", I don't think I could ever give myself wholly to such a thing any more, regardless of how beneficial such a culture may appear from the outside. Because like the Hotel California, you can check in any time you like, but you can never leave.

I suppose such an attitude relegates me to cultural tourist status no matter what avenue I choose.

suomalainen wrote: ↑

Sun Dec 29, 2024 10:27 am

1) Childhood - school (formal or informal) and play.
2) Workaday - the stereotypical adult life, whether it's in the developed or developing worlds. What "work" looks like is a little different for each person.
3) First world retirement
a) Gentleman farmer - oftentimes generously called homesteading. True homesteading-for-sustenance I would just put in "workaday" whereas hobby farming and/or gardening "for fun" I would put here.
b) Traveler - tourist from one end to slow travel in the middle to expat integrating into a new geography on the other.
c) Return-to-work - this could be the old job; a consultant or other part-time gig in the old industry; or "reinvent yourself"
d) Personal projects - from volunteering to caring for grandchildren to caring for parents to getting a degree to starting a small business
e) Foxnews - sit around and watch tv and get angry

Feeling fortunate to happen by for the new year and catch your list to ponder... now, I know these are not progressive stages, not exclusive choices (one may simultaneously d) care for grandchildren/parents/relatives in almost any of the other options--yes, even e. Foxnews, or how would I be transitively aware of all those urgent warnings, for my own and civic benefit, about FEMA concentration camps without ever quite watching Fox News myself?), and also maybe favoring the brighter parts of the spectra (your list avoids bluntly commonplace roles of: old age senescence, sickness, or dying...)

But it's a marvelous list I've been rolling around a few different ways, and if I could just try embedding these in an ahistorical lifestyle-centric dependency space: you can see these roles as a survey of one's (convex) combination of:

• dependency on direct physical/ecological competence (extremes: Homesteader <> First World Retirement)
• dependency on market economy services (extremes: Workaday <> Gentleman Farmer)
• dependency on kin and caregivers (extremes: Childhood or Senescence <> Workaday)

I'd like to suggest you're always dependent on something (no free lunch) by some "everybody's gotta eat" principle wherein the differentiator is "who makes the sandwich?" Mom? Your fetching farm-mate? Whatever wild brassica grows along your way? The Panera girl? I dunno, it's Doordash?

People I've met who are casually called "independently wealthy" are never, ever (service economy-)independent and I gather really independently wealthy people are not even socially independent (as they discover tapping billion-dollar fortunes to chip some $1M make-nice donation to presidential inaugurations because stakeholders). But a Workaday Salaryman can feel quite independent of caregivers for now, a Homesteader of market economies, and a Florida retirement communiteer surely feels free of ecological consequence.

So, put Punk in this three-dimensional dependency space, the Punk is as renegade as you can get but is not in the same way independent of the market economy (or the Walmart she steals from) as the homesteader. I guess three dimensions isn't enough. I focused too much on food. Fine. But there's something revealing to it. The Punk is renouncing dependency on something, you can tell me precisely what. And I hear the word "renunciation" and it's not that roles repeat themselves (err..), but that that they rhyme..

so if I could chip in a role, how about Monk?

now I know what you just said about insular communities, especially mormon, not being your jam, which well, doesn't give me the brightest start, and just to start, I'm with you there: the monastics in my extended family are off about putting the kibosh on kid's home-made nativity scenes due to sacriligious use of a toy elephant figurine as the Christ child, but I'd probably have to say more of my first-hand knowledge of the monastic life comes from non-judeo-christian traditions and in person they seem to have at least as much uncertainty as certainty and I'd say more like a bunch of wayward self-directing larrikins than insular dogmatists... Some who wander are lost.

But they've got a few useful things figured out: they would laugh at 1 JAFI (meaning I never worry about utter ruin living in the same society as seemingly content individuals that won't handle money), they were early on minimalism and meditation, companion with you on Dark Nights of the Soul, respectable on both permaculture and herbalism, and definitely know a thing or two about appreciating a shit sandwich.

I probably only thought of this because I was reading The Economist (which I read entirely as table-stakes and contrary indicator for making buckets of filthy lucre) and it had an obituary of some Harold Palmer whose website states:

Harold Palmer wrote: This website is a record of what has been achieved at Shepherds Law, and a call to future achievement.

The Hermitage of St Mary and St Cuthbert is probably unique. It is certainly counter-cultural.

"Counter-cultural"? Wait, so you're the punk now? Or is it the other way round? Is raging against the machine just taking your first sanyas?

I dunno.. But if you can navigate 90s style html, you can read his account of his search for stillness, rebelling against the superficiality and workaday conformity of the order he joined, and then a geographic meandering not so disparate from Augustine's nomadic urge in his Confessions, but here from England to France to slow travel of the Orthodox monasteries around Greece, dirtbagging around Mt Athos, and then onto Italy, and back to England, where he decided what he needed to was to build his own soggy skete:

Harold Palmer wrote:On my return from Italy I had some intention and understanding of why particular places had been chosen for prayer by the early Franciscan brothers. Such places were remote but not overly inaccessible and frequently about one hour’s walk from a place of habitation. They were usually but not always in lofty places where there were rocks or a cave. Sometimes there was the stillness of a forest, or the sound of water falling in a nearby cave. A solitary hermitage seemed to attract people, so in the course of time some of the more popular ones became surrounded by houses and other amenities for those who came to visit.

Could such a place be found in England and more importantly would it be available for habitation?

I guess I won't ruin the story, all the more with earthly notions of success and failure, but you can imagine he is never quite as successful or especially agreeable as he wants and I'll return to Suo's starting point and ask: what is this guy? Does it matter he's a monastic? I think in some key aspect or other he touches on every type listed with the only exception of e. Foxnews.. Is this another type or just a baggy monster of the ones already there? Did it matter he was a monastic? I mean, monks like punks reject things everybody else assumes, right? They differ famously on celibacy of course, but given the particular readership here I'll leave out questions over what dependencies lie there. (and mention positively Suo apparently doesn't meet sugar-babies). Maybe I'll just ask instead if monk is a socially-accepted (or let's say like Harold Palmer here was, socially-recognised) easy-in to wandering or sociable hermit? Your life doesn't have to look all that different from Mark Boyle if you like, don't need to concoct some Patreon, and you'll draw donations, cakes, and offerings, and with all that renunciation I'm highlighting, some of your cares have gotta be free.

ebast wrote: ↑

Sun Dec 29, 2024 11:37 pm

Did it matter he was a monastic? I mean, monks like punks reject things everybody else assumes, right? They differ famously on celibacy of course, but given the particular readership here I'll leave out questions over what dependencies lie there. Maybe I'll just ask instead if monk is a socially-accepted easy-in to wandering or sociable hermit? Your life doesn't have to look all that different from Mark Boyle if you like, don't need to concoct some Patreon, and you'll draw donations, cakes, and offerings, and with all that renunciation I'm highlighting, some of your cares have gotta be free.

Spent some time in the 80s in the straight edge scene, an amalgamation of punk and monk, where the bonding element was a hardcore rejection of self-destruction. Rebel through self-control. React with self-respect. Naturally, I view Suo's types with a skeptical eye.

Yes, I suppose monk would be another type of lifestyle that I had not thought of when I wrote the post. Perhaps "homeless guy" is the modern equivalent minus some ... spiritual thread? Siddhartha by Herman Hesse is one of my favorite books, and monk of some description (perhaps of the Dick Proenecke (sp?) persuasion) might have been a lifestyle I would have aspired to in my youth and still occasionally daydream of. Perhaps it shades into homesteader where it's more solitary and less monastery.

ebast wrote: ↑

Sun Dec 29, 2024 11:37 pm

(your list avoids bluntly commonplace roles of: old age senescence, sickness, or dying...)

I deliberately did not include lifestyles associated with war, sickness and dying as, well, you know, those aren't like lifestyles one would choose. If/when any of those happen to me, I will address in the moment (or with senescence, not). In the meantime ...

Ego wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 30, 2024 2:05 am

Naturally, I view Suo's types with a skeptical eye.

So you have another to add to the list? I wasn't being prescriptive; merely descriptive of what I've noticed.

ebast wrote: The Punk is renouncing dependency on something, you can tell me precisely what.

I think of the Punk as dwelling in the Juvenile Masculine quadrant along with Tom Sawyer, Curiosity, Innovation, Initiative. and Freedom. That's why I thought Jacob's blog article entitled, 'The Importance of Not Being a Punk" was a bit inconsistent with its hard focus on Respect, Territory, Authority, Mastery, and Boundaries which dwell in the Adult Maculine quadrant. In sexual context, a Locked Dominant is somebody with a lot of lumber, but little spark. OTOH, a Punk has a lot of spark, but little lumber, because lumber is what you store within your respected territorial boundaries. A Punk does not respect territorial boundaries. For example, in sexual context, a Punk or Brat or Hot Femme might push at the boundaries of a Locked Dominant (or Cold Masculine) by climbing on his lap and loosening his tie, thereby lending him some of her Initiative/Hustle. Similarly, a Punk Entrepreneur might push at the boundaries of an Old Established Firm/Large-Cap Conservative Monopoly with her Innovation/Initiative or Fast-Cycle Trade. A Locked Dominant has to maintain/defend the entire periphery of his Bounded Territory, but a Punk only has to kick down enough Barrier to Entry to squeeze through with lean youthful energy. The Punk is a Deconstructionist, so is dependent upon the previously Constructed, although may also rise to Systems Perspective, and may also vibe more like The Monk when beyond Systems to Holistic. Chop Wood, Carry Water may describe the manner in which simple work or a simple practice can also define a minimalist form of Respected Territorial Boundary, because humans tend towards innately admiring Adverse Possession as opposed to dysfunctional Punk Vandalism. Admiration requires functioning well in both the Adult Feminine quadrant where Social Responsibility and Care dwells and the Adult Masculine quadrant where Respect dwells. Society gives a rats azz about your strong boundaries if you don't care for something beyond yourself within them, and they will cheer when a Punk kicks them down thereby liberating resources for purposes beyond survival of the currently Dominant, because otherwise the human species could not have continued, because when Masculine Energy engages in Hoarding behavior, can't loosen His own necktie, then babies don't get born or fed.

suomalainen wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 30, 2024 9:43 am

So you have another to add to the list?

No, I just saw parts of myself in three of them.

suomalainen wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 30, 2024 9:43 am

I wasn't being prescriptive; merely descriptive of what I've noticed.

Understood. The problem with lists like that is how they are used. It may be useful to create a map (or menu) of your own possible futures, but here people frequently map to Myers-Briggs, Wheaton or others, and then coordinate multiple maps. If I am an INTJ, Wheaton 3 with a dysfunctional adult feminine, then ACT therapy will help me deal with my demons and people who are my type should aim for a Suo 4 retirement.

We do not need to scroll far down the recent posts to find examples where what is supposed to be descriptive became prescriptive with hardly anyone noticing.

The beauty of early retirement is that it allows people to live off-the-menu lives.

Oh geez, yeah, no, this is just me musing in my journal, ffs. No one should take anything I write here as generalizable to anyone else. When I write in other threads I try to be more generalist, but here, it's just my brain worms wriggling around.

As for my list, I wasn't suggesting that a person is "slotted" into a spot and can't get out. It was just a way to group the themes of things that I've seen people do and that I'm pretty well-aware of. I was curious to broaden my exposure, if there was additional exposure to be had. I don't think I've read/seen much about monastic life, so that is something I'm curious about. I think @hristo had a book about a monk/monastery in ... North Carolina? that he had mentioned.

Ego wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 30, 2024 11:38 pm

The beauty of early retirement is that it allows people to live off-the-menu lives.

And on second thought, I wanted to address the implicit if-then in this statement and in the widespread attitude many of us have towards many things in life - if you do this THEN and only then will you be happy.

You don’t need money to be happy or to live an “off-menu” life. You don’t need early retirement. Or financial independence. My whole life / journal is about that struggle. Weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth that a certain external circumstance is needed as a prerequisite to the good life. The good life happens (or doesn’t) NOW. Wherever you find yourself. The process part of ERE can assist in that. The destination part of ERE is largely irrelevant. A can-do, resilient, challenge-forward, volitional attitude is all that is required to make any life a good life.

suomalainen wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 01, 2025 8:01 am

You don’t need money to be happy or to live an “off-menu” life. You don’t need early retirement. Or financial independence. My whole life / journal is about that struggle. Weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth that a certain external circumstance is needed as a prerequisite to the good life. The good life happens (or doesn’t) NOW.

Oh no you don't! There is no way you are going to bait me into arguing against your happiness. I am happy you are happy and I hope you stay that way.

Ego wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 30, 2024 11:38 pm

We do not need to scroll far down the recent posts to find examples where what is supposed to be descriptive became prescriptive with hardly anyone noticing.

Well that's enticing. Which posts?

@AH, Nah, I would rather not pick on anyone, but the easiest way to see less subtle examples is to enter an MB type into the search box and then look for suggested solutions (prescriptions) based on type (descriptions). Maybe it is one of those things that when you see it, you can't help but see it.

Well, given my forum-name, it's pretty obvious that it might seem like I am sometimes moving from descriptive to prescriptive when discussing in terms of these models, but what I would be more hoping to occasionally attempt would be descriptive to predictive. Anyways, as usual, I'm mostly just applying models or slightly modifying concepts that I read in a book in the wild, and I'm always happy to provide reference so others can draw their own conclusions on the spectrum from total bullshit to hmmm-semi-interesting-perhaps. The two books most relevant to extended analysis based on personality typing would be "Personality Types: Using the Enneagram for Self-Discovery" by Riso and Hudson and "Don't Do Stuff You Suck At: Roadmap to your Front Seat Life" by Jessica Butts.

A couple links that do a pretty good job of summarizing models described in these books:

https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/how- ... tem-works/

https://personalitytypingcoach.wordpres ... on-stacks/

So, for example, immature introverted idealistic morality or sensitivity (Fi) (Star Trek movie morality), is predicted to be the defensive position of a human who self-tests/describes as INTJ within the MBTI model, and immature extroverted social harmony or sensibility (Fe) (Tear Jerker movie sensibility), is predicted to be the defense position of a human who self-tests/describes as ENTP within the MBTI model. IOW, these models would predict that it is not likely that INTJs or ENTPs would be the most skilled or capable of approaching appropriate complexity in the realm of moral ("should") functioning, decision-making, and/or leadership. OTOH, it is likely that those who self-tested as either of these types may have unique skills to offer in the realm of predictive functioning, decision-making, and/or leadership. The INTJ self-testing being more likely to offer Perspective towards Effectiveness and the ENTP self-testing being more likely to offer Exploration towards Accuracy. Therefore, if these models are hypothesized to be accurate, then they would predict that those with tertiary Fi function may be somewhat likely to have tendency to occasionally project simplistic moral prescriptive "should" functioning on others who may more likely be operating from either their more mature "exploration towards accuracy" (throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks) functioning OR their less mature defensive "social harmony sensibility" "knee-jerk desire to make other humans happy in the here and now" functioning which may occasionally be triggered when the immature Fi (rules based morality) of an other vibes a bit like "self-righteous" or "prissy" or "priggish" or "pompous." For example, if/when immature Te->Fi communicates, "I am the gold star winner of the Chastity and Burpees Club and therefore obviously most suitable dispenser of "should"s" then immature Ti->Fe might dry-sarcastically->wet-warm-emotively react/reply, "Yeah, that's some big-deal rock-solid individualistic tight-boundary prepping, but you are doing nothing to help the hungry crying illiterate babies in the larger room with us right now."

Ego wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 02, 2025 12:04 am

@AH, Nah, I would rather not pick on anyone, but the easiest way to see less subtle examples is to enter an MB type into the search box and then look for suggested solutions (prescriptions) based on type (descriptions). Maybe it is one of those things that when you see it, you can't help but see it.

Fair enough. What do you base suggested solutions for people on? e.g. when someone is soliciting advice for a particular challenge or circumstance in their life, how do you think about offering advice, guidance, counselling, etc that is relevant to that individual?

AxelHeyst wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 02, 2025 10:00 am

Fair enough. What do you base suggested solutions for people on?

If life has somehow provided me a particular insight that might help someone else, and that person has actually asked for help, then I should consider trying to tailor the message to who they are, where they are, based on their characteristics and preferences.

But truth be told, in a public conversation like this, I often say what I believe to be true even though it may fall on deaf ears, because I know others are listening as well, and they may be more open to the message. They may not be blinded by their desire to believe that preferences are characteristics.

While idiots like me are more easily misled by other people, intelligent people are more easily misled by themselves. We humans have biases, one of which is a compulsion to deceive ourselves about our preferences. We want to believe that preferences are unchangeable characteristics when they are not, and smart people are really good at convincing themselves of it.

Finally, I have a great deal of respect for what Suo said here...

suomalainen wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 01, 2025 8:01 am

The good life happens (or doesn’t) NOW. Wherever you find yourself..... A can-do, resilient, challenge-forward, volitional attitude is all that is required to make any life a good life.

Suo was saying this in his own journal about himself, so it was perfect. If someone else had said it twenty pages ago in this same journal, it may have been a dick thing to say, or it may have resonated with a different forum member... or both.

7Wannabe5 wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 02, 2025 9:16 am

Well, given my forum-name, it's pretty obvious that it might seem like I am sometimes moving from descriptive to prescriptive when discussing in terms of these models, but what I would be more hoping to occasionally attempt would be descriptive to predictive. Anyways, as usual, I'm mostly just applying models or slightly modifying concepts that I read in a book in the wild, [...]

The cause of common misunderstanding is that many (statistics say about 50%) people don't think of the world or what they hear in terms of formal models or statistical/correlation predictions, where "many observations are grouped into clusters and used to make statements like "if you're like A-cluster and B-cluster, then you're probably also like X-cluster and Y-cluster".

The most common type of thinking is rather simpler and more rule bound ala "All A are B and all B are C. I'm A and therefore I'm C." The thinking happens at the classification and labeling level and will in practice NEVER go further except for scaffolded situations. My wife thinks like that despite having a phd and a bunch of other degrees, so it has nothing to do with education but everything to do with how the mind is wired. Specifically, predicate based syllogisms.

As such it's not that one person's predictive assertion (someone who thinks in correlations of statistical variables with a smattering of causal theory on top) assertion is another person's prescriptive assertion. The message is not received as being told what to do. Rather, it's received in a phenomenal construct where there is just no other way of seeing the world. If you label or name someone or something, why that's who or what they are.

This is also why mature postmoderns are so allergic to labeling while immature postmoderns are ironically into expanding the number of labels---the latter just can't think in any other way. Labels can do a lot of damage to those---again ~50%----who habitually think in terms of classifications, rules, and syllogisms. But more labels just might fix the problem

All the discussions we've had where people claim the theory is BS because they never test consistently. IOW, they see themselves being classified in different ways every time they take the test. "This is not what I tested as last time, so the test is BS". While this makes perfect sense in rule-based brain with a memory extending to "what happened last time", it's spontaneously unaware how the results fall on a bunch of variables with a range. My point is that while it's possible to explain this (over and over), it's just not where the abstract/concrete mind spontaneously go in the way it understands the world.

jacob wrote:This is also why postmoderns are so allergic to labeling. Labels can do a lot of damage to those---again ~50%----who habitually think in terms of classifications, rules, and syllogisms.

True. However, there is another aspect of post-modern thinking in which previous predictive models are challenged on the basis of perspective (location on river), field (water swum in), or even paradigm (water or phlogiston??). And sometimes currently held or promoted predictive models can be challenged on the basis of straight-up math or logic. For example, the potential for bias in the medical research conducted in the 20th century due to focus on conditions most likely to affect affuent men in their 50s or 60s. I mean, it's now common knowledge that many of the early innovators in the field of applied or ad hoc statistical methods were also the strident founders of the field of eugenics, but it was their concrete-traditional moral and social thinking to blame, rather than any inherent deficit in their mathematical conceptual skill. IOW, confirmation bias, especially if combined with sunk costs and siloing, can be pretty damn sneaky.

So, I think it is a worthwhile exercise to consider to what extent one may be utilizing a model like unto a turn-of-the-20th-century eugenicist and/or simply in alignment with mild self-interest. I believe Ego was arguing that, for example, even if your MBTI places you as thoroughly Introverted and your genetic results from 23 and Me place you as most likely to experience pain more painfully, you still possess the agency to join a crowded hot yoga class if objectively (in Modern perspective) determined to be in alignment with self-interest/self-aware-self-care. However, the problem here for a post-modern/post-post-modern thinker, which Ego may not fully appreciate, is that Modern Objective Objectives such as Net Worth and Longevity and Conventional Relationship Status are so limited and boring, and the reason why study after study circles around these is in good part because they are available, measurable, and malleable. The tools available pre-determine the tasks attempted, and these tools were invented hundreds of years ago. We are just now barely engaged in applications of math already invented at the turn of the 19th century.

One argument I might make in favor of the MBTI model (and similar) not being particularly smutty with confirmation bias is that humans more often than not don't initially like the results they receive on the basis of this test, because the type you are is not often the type you are directing yourself towards. In fact, it is a bit of a truism that if you do initially like your MBTI results, you may have been "cheating." For example, I almost certainly would have guessed that I would test as Nerd/Scientist/Type5/INTP, but I consistently tested as more towards Enthusiast/Explorer/Type7/ENTP, and I came to see this as essentially more accurate; not because I was mindlessly molding myself to the prescribed model, but because the described perspective and behavior set was recognizably me to me. Further evidence would be that when I recently isolated myself and focused on graduate studies, I tested more iNTP than eNTP, but I was not happy. I often felt like a kid with her nose pressed to the window longing to go outside and play with others and explore. And now that I am immersed in my family/hometown, I am testing a bit more eNXP, because my tertiary Fe (social harmony) is more engaged in current context (field), but that does not change the "reality" that I am most likely to land eNTP across range of possible contexts.

Anyways, what struck me about Suo's OP was that he was touching on the lack of agency available to humans in expanding upon the typical choices for early retirement or "freedom to." I believe that the belief in agency does imbue one with a more cheerful bright emotional field from which to operate, but it is also the case that the more that I learn, the less I believe in personal agency. IOW, I have become somewhat bored with planning due to the fact that I now see many of my own past behaviors/choices as fairly predictable. IOW, my current perspective is that I am only going to be able to find an Evangelical Agency Revival Tent in the form of fairly radically new-to-me model or immersive field or experiment. IOW, this won't likely alter my perspective on the existence of agency (exists in the sense that God exists), but it will likely make me feel more agentic, because my predictive ability will be impaired or reset to "beginner eyes." Pretty much what you are doing with video games, but inherent of my preference for meatier space.

@ego Oh, I wasn't suggesting that *I* could be happy wherever I find myself. Just that all the newbies (who haven't yet burned the ships on the beaches of the new world called "parenting") might just find their happiness before "retiring".

@7 Was I (unknowingly / unsuspectingly) commenting on lack of agency? I don't think so. It's like the spectrum analyzer thingy - you take a bunch of observations and you start to see groupings around certain wavelengths. It seems to turn out that, left to their own devices, humans tend to do a (narrow) certain set of things. It's almost like ... we're the same species.

Back to @ego, do you have writings related to the idea that preferences aren't "characteristics" and are changeable? As I get older, I am tending the other direction - i.e., even if preferences are changeable, where does the desire to change your preferences come from and isn't the object of your desire to change also just a (characteristic) preference? Can you want to want or is there an unchangeable want at bottom or is it just turtles all the way down? This "bias" of mine seems to be strengthened by the latest brain imaging research mapping brain activity against so-called conscious decision making, and so I'd be curious if there were arguments going the other way and what they are.

suomalainen wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 03, 2025 8:48 pm

Back to @ego... i.e., even if preferences are changeable, where does the desire to change your preferences come from and isn't the object of your desire to change also just a (characteristic) preference? Can you want to want or is there an unchangeable want at bottom or is it just turtles all the way down?

Ah, right for the jugular, eh? Free-will.

I cannot believe something exists if there is no evidence of its existence. I wrote about it quite a bit in the free-will thread from way back when.
viewtopic.php?t=8043

We are the sum of our genetics and the nourishment/experiences we have had up to this point. That means my "decisions" are based on the arrangement of my neurons and how they are fed with various neurochemicals, glucose and whatnot.

If I learn something new, my neurons rearrange slightly and I am now making "decisions" with hardware that has changed. I could not possible make a different decision because, in order to make a different decision, my neurons/chemicals would have to be rearranged differently. They are not, so I cannot.

Despite my belief that we do not have free-will, I believe there are good reasons to act as if we do.

This is why I come out so strongly against disempowering beliefs. "Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right." People who think they can't do things that they can do, just need to have their neurons changed.