Basuragomi's journal

Where are you and where are you going?
basuragomi
Posts: 419
Joined: Tue Oct 15, 2019 3:13 pm

Re: Basuragomi's journal

Post by basuragomi »

May 2020 update

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Spending went up a bit as we ordered some kitchen stuff online. We also made some charitable donations in lieu of our pre-pandemic spending. Overall I'm likely to be at 1.4-1.6 annualized JAFI for the half-year. I don't think we'll immediately be going back to the 2 JAFI/person level even if the pandemic ended tomorrow.

ERE-type things I have been doing
- Scavenged a set of weights to augment my workouts.
- Kept investing.
- Still darning socks, though at a much-reduced rate.
- Spending time inventing/prototyping. Lately I've been working on stressed-skin tensegrity structures.
- Bought some big silicone resealable bags for food storage. They're definitely more robust than plastic/ziploc bags and have made some cooking/food storage techniques more accessible. Ridiculously expensive, but it hopefully means one more consumption-replacement loop cut out of my life.

ERE failures
- Working out if you don't enjoy it is basically an ERE failure. An optimal lifestyle would incorporate exercise at every level to maintain the desired level of physical ability. I went the opposite route and trained myself to enjoy working out. Something to think about.
- Installed the air conditioner for the summer. After reading the thread on refrigeration schemes, I keep thinking about diverting some water through a coil to dehumidify and cool air. We're burning neutrons to condense moisture from the lake but flushing very cold lake water down the drain. Seems like I could cinch the loop a bit tighter.

Things considered
- Started reading The Wealth of Nations.

Things to consider
- Pulling my old journals and the like into some kind of knowledge management system. ZettelKasten looked interesting, but this whole endeavour seems like it might be too much navel-gazing to help with anything.
Last edited by basuragomi on Sun Nov 21, 2021 2:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

ertyu
Posts: 2893
Joined: Sun Nov 13, 2016 2:31 am

Re: Basuragomi's journal

Post by ertyu »

basuragomi wrote:
Mon Jun 01, 2020 7:26 pm
I ... trained myself to enjoy working out.
Lots of awesome stuff in this update, but this in particular stood out to me because it's a challenge i am struggling with. Would appreciate a post on your thinking and method in designing your routine and how you went about learning to enjoy it. I dislike the feeling of having a task, routine, or habit be something I need to force myself to do. There is something about forcing myself, regardless of what it is i'm forcing myself to do, that i particularly rebel against and dislike -- but one of the most common pieces of advice when developing an exercise habit is, "just force yourself until you're fitter and it's easier / until it sticks."

The other common piece of advice is, "just pick something you like" - which strikes me as particularly ridiculous; surely if there is a type of exercise a person enjoys they'd be doing it already? Plus, even if there were something I liked, if I am forcing myself to do it, this takes the joy entirely out of it - people have written about this in the context of monetizing their hobbies, I think it's the same process at work. The moment you inflict discipline, structure, a schedule, and a set of goals on your hobby, all joy is gone.

I have asked many people for advice on exercise many times, but so far, only you appear to maybe have overcome exactly what I'm struggling with

basuragomi
Posts: 419
Joined: Tue Oct 15, 2019 3:13 pm

Re: Basuragomi's journal

Post by basuragomi »

@ertyu:

I think people give that advice because the motivation that drives a habitual exerciser to exercise is so different from a couch potato. Habitual exercisers have trained themselves to the point that that the exercise itself is inherently rewarding, and can't remember what it's like to be on the other side of the cusp. That advice is common because those strategies work very well for someone already trained to enjoy exercise, but your brain isn't trained and life isn't arranged for it to work for you.

Theory:
It's 100% operant conditioning. First, I'm sure you maintain some kind of habit. At a minimum checking this forum counts as one. So you're obviously amenable to some kind of scheduled positive reinforcement.

Basic tools:
A big part of conditioning is figuring out what works as positive reinforcement and what triggers punishment. Positive reinforcement is easy: sleep, caffeine, novelty, runner's high, sugar, sex, money, positive social contact, performative displays. Lots to work with, our society has the pursuit of happiness down to a science.

Punishment is much trickier. The vast majority of punishment here is internally generated - i.e. stressing yourself out over perceived social judgement, or failing to compare to some imaginary standard. This is what you need to very carefully manage.

With respect to external punishment: Pain is another externally generated punishment. Not much you can do about that beyond avoiding risky behaviours. Public shaming does happen but it's pretty rare, and you've been trained in a hundred coping methods - the most obvious one is dismissing low-status people, and being fit is in itself a status symbol. That's a self-reinforcing coping system. I'm sure you can think of many others.

Method:

1) Start with a neutral or positively-associated context.

Since most punishment is internally generated and you've hated exercising before, you probably need to start by avoiding whatever negative associations you've built up with exercise. Certain clothing, equipment, places, people, whatever. Don't try to overcome them yet, just avoid them. You can shape your behaviour to be more efficient after it's become automatic. Exercise in casual clothes. Get a shitty beater bike. Work out on a beach rather than a gym. Tell your neighbour pushing you to become a gym buddy to fuck off. Whatever it is, you need to start with a context that at a minimum doesn't prime your brain for punishment. I started getting fit by running in my neighbourhood, but seeing my relatives was triggering social anxiety, then just running in the neighbourhood started triggering anxiety as well, and I stopped. Going to a gym and running there worked way better - my brain was still generalizing the anxiety to the gym, but the level of fear was not nearly as high since it was an entirely novel environment. I later shaped my behaviour back to being able to run in public without any issues.

2) Always pair exercise with a reward and ensure that reward is only available with exercise. Remove the means to obtain the reward otherwise.

When I started weightlifting I put my favourite songs on my mp3 player and removed them from my home library, so that it was the only way to get good music. When I later moved to this area I didn't even have a fixed internet connection at home, the gym was literally my only option to stream videos. I would watch action films and comedies, things designed to evoke a strong positive emotional response. I so strongly associate films with cardio now that I can't bear sitting through a whole movie anymore. Now I only watch films or TV shows at the gym. After my sugar fast, I started using candy as a home workout reward, and only consuming it in that context. The association eventually gets strong enough that the reward minus the exercise seems wrong - enhancing your natural contrafreeloading instinct. At that point you can reintroduce the reward back into the rest of your life.

3) Set up your reward system so that your rewards reinforce each other.

Luckily exercise is a strong mood enhancer, so long-term you can start seeking it out for itself. In the meantime you can make everything surrounding exercise rewarding as well. Basically, develop rituals oriented around exercise. Performing the ritual should itself be rewarding, and ideally head off negative triggers as well.

Ideas cribbed from a post I put in @Hristo Botev's journal:
- Clear your schedule at the same time every week for exercise. Force people to defer to your exercise time.
- Sleep at a certain time or sleep in only before/on exercise days.
- Eat rewarding foods or extra amounts exclusively before/after exercise - e.g. Every year I do a 160 km bike ride and 95% of what I end up looking forward to on the ride proper is a burger and ice cream from this one specific restaurant. Doesn't matter that I can have ice cream any time, I've built that strong an association with the reward.
- Prepare music or podcast playlists exclusively for your exercise.
- Lay out or change into exercise clothes.
- Turn off phones, activate blocking software, or unplug monitors the night before.
- Visualize what specific routes/lifts/activities you will do.
- Solicit praise from people you respect, i.e. exactly what Facebook is made for.

4) Shape your behaviour.

Once you have enough positive reinforcement flowing in, you can start extinction of undesired associations. Try to introduce a negative trigger only in a strongly positive context. If you hate the gym, go during an empty time, bring candy or focus on only using a piece of equipment you already use elsewhere.

Stoicism:

At the core of it, exercise is not an inherently negative experience. Being tired doesn't feel bad if you have the freedom to rest. Compared to other pastimes, you can experience basically infinite novelty, set and achieve constantly increasing goals, and get a strong chemical reward on top of it all. Many social systems reward both being in shape and exercising. On a conceptual level, it should be much easier to create a system where your exercise is rewarded at practically every level than it is to do something much more heretical like ERE.

mooretrees
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Re: Basuragomi's journal

Post by mooretrees »

Great post. I'm reading Atomic Habits now and he echos a lot of what you suggest. One tip he suggests is the two minute habit. He recommends two minutes as such a low bar that one could put athletic shoes on and walk two minutes. The key isn't that the habit ends there. The hope is that as time and repetition occur, more time/complication can be added to the two minute habit not that you are consistent with it. Anyway, likely you have read this so no need to continue. Really appreciated your examples of pairing habits with rewards. I'm trying to be more consistent with tidying up. I think I need to figure out the reward to help me with that.

basuragomi
Posts: 419
Joined: Tue Oct 15, 2019 3:13 pm

Re: Basuragomi's journal

Post by basuragomi »

I've never actually read Atomic Habits! I love reading about cognitive science, behavioural science and anthropology though. I'd like to say that's where I developed my strategy, but it was mostly refined from reading after accidental success.

Here's a reading list of the works I found most interesting/useful in learning about understanding and managing human behaviour:

Non-fiction
Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson
The Most Dangerous Animal by David Smith
The Emotion Machine by Marvin Minsky
Jane Austen, Game Theorist by Michael Suk-Young Chwe
The Art of Not Being Governed by James C. Scott
The World Until Yesterday by Jared Diamond
Sexual life of primitive people by Hans Fehlinger
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin (though The Voyage of the Beagle is much more entertaining)

Maybe add part of Early Retirement Extreme on there as well, since I think the explanation of heterotelic and homeotelic goals is useful in understanding how societies and value systems have evolved to influence your behaviour. And various papers on neural networks, dynamic systems, and game theory.

Fiction
Reasons to be Cheerful short story by Greg Egan
Blindsight by Peter Watts
Existential Comics
Embassytown by China Miéville

basuragomi
Posts: 419
Joined: Tue Oct 15, 2019 3:13 pm

Re: Basuragomi's journal

Post by basuragomi »

How much to save/budget for healthcare?

A pretty common objection to early retirement is "what will you do for healthcare benefits?" with the assumption that dental, optometry and drug expenses covered by a typical white collar job can be far beyond an individual's ability to pay. The typical counter-argument is that working for benefits alone is basically working for sub-minimum wage, and work is itself a major cause of health issues. So how much are these benefits actually worth?

Note that I'm in Canada and drugs/treatments administered in hospital (e.g. cancer treatments, MRIs, etc.) are fully covered by our provincial insurers.

Workplace benefits, if available, generally cover prescription drugs, dental care, optometry, and life insurance. They don't always cover 100% of each. I performed an exercise of determining the present value of each of these healthcare categories.

So I want to figure out the present cost of prescription drugs for the rest of my life. Obviously this is an incredibly rough estimate, but I found it to be a useful exercise.

From this link, average public medical spending is around C$1,100/person in Canada. Public drug spending is about 43% of all prescription drug spending, so total average prescription drug spending is around C$2,534/person/year - $1,100 public and $1,430 private.

However, ~39% of public spending is on 2% of people. So the high-spending category averages about $21,450/person, and the remaining 98% average about $685. The lower 62.7% of beneficiaries average about $118/year of public spending.

Let's assume that all private prescription drug spending has the same distribution as public spending. Seniors in Canada typically have drug coverage which will lower their proportion of privately-bought prescription drugs, but also consume more drugs in general. So I think the assumption of private drug spending distribution is reasonable.

From these figures, we can generate some averages:
$118 public, $154 private for 0-62.7% of people.
$1,665 public, $2,171 private for 62.7-98% of people.
$21,450 public, $27,974 private for 98-100% of people.

The weighted average total is about $2,500/year.

Younger people (<65 years) tend to have lower drug costs. From the same source, 60% non-seniors in Canada use about 44% of spending, and 40% seniors use about 56% of spending. Let's assume this split is uniform across each percentile of private and public spending.

This lets us further split the previous estimate into seniors and non-seniors:

Code: Select all

Range	Non-seniors	Seniors		Total
	Public	Private	Public	Private	Public	Private
0-63%	$87	$113	$165	$215	$118	$154
63-98%	$1,221	$1,592	$2,331	$3,040	$1,665	$2,171
98-100%	$15,730	$20,514	$30,030	$39,164	$21,450	$27,974
Now we have costs on a per-year-of-life basis. We can generate a table of net present costs.

Starting at 30 years old, transitioning to a senior at 65, dying at 90 and at 5% discount rate. Prescription drug inflation in Canada was about 3% last year, so a 5% discount rate seems reasonable.

Code: Select all

Bracket	        0-63%	63-98%	98-100%		Weighted avg.	Sub-98% wt. avg.
NPV5, Public	$1,839	$25,949	$334,296	$16,999		$10,523
NPV5, Private	$2,398	$33,841	$435,971	$22,169		$13,724
Total	        $4,237	$59,790	$770,266	$39,168		$24,248
We can plot this out with further wild assumptions:

Image

So in Canada, less than $500 in capital (@ 5% return) will likely be enough to cover private prescription drugs for the rest of my life, ~50% of the time. At the 95th percentile, $250,000 would be enough.

Note that this includes living as a (presumably retired) senior which few workplace benefits would cover. If years at 65+ are excluded then the 95th percentile is around $180,000.

My personal drug cost NPV is probably lower, as I am at lower risk for the various most-expensive diseases (Hep C, Crohn's, etc.) which together make up about 40% of all public drug spending. This all assumes that diseases of the future aren't much different than today, of course.

Next, dentistry.

Average private per capital spending on dentistry is about $355/person/year. I'll assume that this is equal to the median. This corresponds to a NPV5 of about $6,720. In terms of variance in costs, I'm not sure. There must be an upper limit since eventually one runs out of teeth to do things to. Someone getting a root canal every year and cleaning followed by progressively larger dentures would probably be the worst-case scenario and that would be about 4x higher. Maybe 2x higher, $13,500 at the 95th percentile?

Optometry - no idea. Let's say a third of dentistry, based on my own personal experience. So a NPV5 of about $2,250, $4,500 at the 95th percentile.

I will ignore the value of work-sponsored life insurance, since it only really matters if you're dead and payouts are pretty low if you survive disabled.

To sum up the present costs of each workplace healthcare benefit category, at the 50th and 95th percentile:

Code: Select all

Percentile:	50%	95%
Drugs: 		$  500	$250,000
Dentistry: 	$6,720	$ 13,500
Optometry:	$2,250	$  5,000
Total: 		$9,500	$268,500
At 5% return, that's worth ~$500-$13,400/year or about $0.25-$6.71/hour worked. Is that worth 40 hours a week? Is a 5% chance of not budgeting enough for healthcare worth it?

Each percentile decrease in health (wrt costs) equals about 14% higher expected cost. Going up a quintile equals an order of magnitude difference! At the 50th percentile, a 1% change is about $70 of additional future costs, but at the 95th percentile that's $35,000! There are many health factors out of one's control, but it becomes clear that doing what is possible to maintain good health can pay itself back many times over.

My main conclusions from this exercise are:
1) Working to prevent lifestyle diseases (and flossing+brushing teeth) probably has a higher return on effort than working for health benefits, especially if that work degrades health.
2) Health spending in Canada is wildly variable, but for the majority of the population it is a fairly small part of a typical budget.

This ties into my earlier musings on how exercise fits into an ERE or semi-ERE lifestyle. I think a physical low-hour job/hobby like dog walking, geological prospecting, cleaning, bike delivery, or gardening must be a key part of my post-retirement life. At the same time, it seems prudent to reserve enough budget slush to cover a decent part of the distribution. I'd probably aim for the 90th percentile.

basuragomi
Posts: 419
Joined: Tue Oct 15, 2019 3:13 pm

Re: Basuragomi's journal

Post by basuragomi »

June 2020 update

Image

And since it's a half-year, an update on what I'm calling the Carrot of Freedom:

Image

Things have been relatively routine under lockdown and I've been using it as a time to mentally consolidate and reorganize. We took a week-long vacation in place and it was nice, doing the same things we normally do but just more of it.

ERE-type things I have been doing
- Refining my bean sprout technique to maximize yield. It seems that initial soak time is the greatest determinant of growth rate with 16-20 hours being a local maxima.
- Continued fixing up my bike paintwork. I use an oil-based paint pen which has been really useful since it's very easy to start and stop when I get some clear weather and time to work. I'm almost done covering all the scratches, then it's on to touching up our appliances.
- Ever since my sugar fast I've stayed on a low sugar diet. I started using candy as a reward for doing dishes and it's been a fairly effective habit-builder so far.
- Still darning socks. There are only ever holes in the same few spots. Maybe there's something that can be done to my shoes to reduce or even out sock wear? Maybe the answer is wearing sandals year-round like a university professor.
- Ended up filling some buckets with cold water to augment the air conditioner and mitigate a plumbing condensation issue at the same time. A more suitable geometry could actually make a decent air chiller, if one had a use for all the water.

ERE failures
- Rent is dropping in the city but we've settled in and modified the place enough that it's not worth it to move. We're too tightly coupled to our current apartment (in order to live in <400 sqft) to behave efficiently here. I like @Alphaville's approach of not having furniture.

Things considered
- Started using TiddlyWiki to organize my records and notes. TiddlyWiki is actually really easy to use and has been immediately useful. The utility of organizing is maximized when things are maximally disorganized, so I hope I can make it a habit before diminishing returns are noticeable. It has been most useful in a work context though, since I work on a fairly complex project with lots of minutely varying details.

Things to consider
- Facing the pandemic head-on as lockdowns end with the virus still spreading. I am trying to run some numbers on what level of risk I can tolerate and hence see how I should behave. I want to limit my chances of catching COVID-19 to 1% per year. Right now about 1/3,500 people are infected in the city. So I can be in close contact with roughly 35 people a year as a limit... not good. Some strategies will have to change after lockdown ends, like taking the bus or biking long-distance instead of the subway.
Last edited by basuragomi on Sun Nov 21, 2021 2:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

ertyu
Posts: 2893
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Re: Basuragomi's journal

Post by ertyu »

Maybe there is a thing that can be done to socks: you know how suits used to have elbow patches in the old british movies? do that. If you attach a piece of fabric over the sock where most of the holes happen, the holes would take longer to develop. old jeans fabric can be used (e.g. if a pair has been cut into shorts). Or the cheapest possible pair can be purchased from the second hand store expressly for this purpose. Doesn;t have to be jeans, any piece of clothing can do.

Holes in the same places is usually down to the way you walk and how you spread your weight more than the shoes

will check out tiddly wiki

basuragomi
Posts: 419
Joined: Tue Oct 15, 2019 3:13 pm

Re: Basuragomi's journal

Post by basuragomi »

I ended up researching foot cloths and the like. Seems like socks are preferred since they're seamless and stretchy, so a patch of tough woven material might not be very comfortable as it would have a definite seam. Darning seamlessly incorporates woven material into the knit which is probably why it's the preferred method. I've tried armouring the darn with a second layer of loosely-purled floss before and it didn't last very long, but I will try again with heavier material.

I also thought of some kind of hybrid sock with a woven sole and knit upper, but it seems like there would be a trilemma between moisture handling, flexibility and washability. It did make me think about what a bespoke sock would look like though - presumably the one-size-fits-all aspect is one of the reasons knit socks are so popular. Tangentially, this no-adhesive modular shoe concept is pretty neat too, though looks kind of ugly.

basuragomi
Posts: 419
Joined: Tue Oct 15, 2019 3:13 pm

Re: Basuragomi's journal

Post by basuragomi »

Small Hacks 2

Image
The swivel for my work lamp broke. I used the same trick I used to fix these plastic lids to repair it temporarily with fishing line.

Image

I weighed and measured the lamp, calculated the expected force on the line at that point, and added a safety factor to find out how much fishing line I needed. I found that three 20-lb lines should be enough to withstand accidentally whacking the lamp head, so I stuck in five.

Image

If/when it breaks again, I should have access to a 3D printer again to print a tougher replacement part.

Here's a heavily-darned sock with several layers of darns:

Image

I experimented with "armouring" the wear spot with yarn instead of floss like I did previously. Forgive the poor/inconsistent knitting, I was knitting with bicycle spokes and forgot that it would result in extremely dense line:

Image

I've washed it a few times now and it holds up really well and supports my feet right where I need it. Putting it in place was much faster than darning too. I think I'm going to incorporate this into all my sock repairs going forwards.

basuragomi
Posts: 419
Joined: Tue Oct 15, 2019 3:13 pm

Re: Basuragomi's journal

Post by basuragomi »

July 2020 update

Image

ERE-type things I have been doing
- Continuing to experiment with bean sprout growth rates. Like with my watermelon sweetness prediction project, the more I learn, the less I think I know.
- Darning lots of socks. I darn (or doodle) during boring work calls to help me focus, in case anyone was wondering if I just Eleanor Rigby'd it up.
- Bubbles! I've been doing these for years. A great summertime hobby, very flow-inducing. It takes practically no money to do on a simple level as well. I've got my special formula that I get to constantly refine.
Image

- Bike rides! Another summer mainstay. This year I couldn't go to Niagara Falls like usual due to the trains being shut down, so I went up the Humber Valley alone, 80 km. I don't get the people that drive an hour hauling their bike, bike around flat land for two hours then drive an hour back, it seems kind of silly.

Image
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ERE failures
- We completely blew the grocery budget this month, $400 vs. $200 budget. Previously we were averaging $180/month. Mostly since I stopped doing the shopping, and my wife is more impulsive when it comes to grocery stores. Can't complain too much about ripe local produce, though.

Things considered
- I have a plan of action for responding to COVID-19 case numbers and minimizing exposure. I try to be mindful of the privileges that let my potential exposure to the virus be under this degree of control. 82% of cases in this city are racialized people.

Things to consider
- I turned 30 in early July. Looking back over the last decade, from the financial perspective it's tempting to call it simple: I saved 70% of my employment earnings for 8 years and I feel like I've managed to keep a level head through it all. But those years bridged some major lifestyle changes and a lot of learning. Even though I spend much more than back then, I feel like I've gained more general skill in living as a result of adding more breadth to my life.

Here's a plot showing what my withdrawal rate would be had it covered my twelve-trailing-month average spending at the time:
Image

I feel like it demonstrates at least some improvement in living skill - considering I went from living with family to living alone, then living with someone far saner than I. At the very least, if I was asked 6 years ago to achieve my current lifestyle with my current budget, I simply wouldn't be able to, despite spending more than doubling. My low spending was enabled purely by my family and my employer. It's a hard road away from the salaryman quadrant, but I'm excited to see how far I'll get in the next decade!
Last edited by basuragomi on Sun Nov 21, 2021 2:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

mooretrees
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Re: Basuragomi's journal

Post by mooretrees »

I'd love to try your bubble recipe if you didn't mind sharing. There's something so magical about bubbles, especially the big ones you were making.

Congrats on the big birthday!

basuragomi
Posts: 419
Joined: Tue Oct 15, 2019 3:13 pm

Re: Basuragomi's journal

Post by basuragomi »

Bubble Formula v4:

Makes approximately 1 litre of bubble solution, about an hour of bubbling.

Ingredients:
1000 g hot ~40C water - the hotter the better as it lowers surface tension.
50 g Dawn Ultra dish detergent - detergent base. Dawn seems to be the most effective brand tried so far.
3 g Guar gum - can be found at health food stores as keto thickener. It's also useful for cooking as it thickens without heating, unlike cornstarch or gelatin.
2 g Baking soda - Do not use baking powder as it includes acid.
10 g Polyethylene oxide containing, water-based personal lubricant - Do not use glycerin lubes as they degrade performance or don't work at all, since they are shear-thickening.

The lube can be omitted but performance suffers - though if using smaller wands the degraded performance is not as noticeable.

Gear:
Bubbling bucket - 2-4L, flat-bottomed and wide-mouthed, with a lid and handle if possible. I use a plastic kitchen compost bin.
Bubbling wand. I use a three-string braided polyester yarn, forming an equilateral triangle about 1.2m on a side, supported by collapsible fishing rods. For a smaller wand, chopsticks or regular sticks are sufficient.

Method:
Thoroughly wash bubbling bucket to remove debris and residual oils.
Measure out detergent into a ~100 mL container.
Measure guar gum. Add directly to detergent and mix until finely dispersed. I usually use a sheet of folded paper as it pours easily. Do not add guar gum to water or lube directly as it clumps very readily. Try to do this step quickly as both guar gum and detergent seem to be strongly hygroscopic.
Measure baking soda. Add directly to detergent and mix until finely dispersed. I usually use the same sheet of folded paper.
Measure lube, add to detergent and mix.
Pour detergent mixture into bucket. Stir continuously while adding hot water until thoroughly mixed. Use some of the water to wash out the container holding the detergent mixture into the bucket.
Go out and enjoy!

basuragomi
Posts: 419
Joined: Tue Oct 15, 2019 3:13 pm

Re: Basuragomi's journal

Post by basuragomi »

My take on the ERE Wheaton levels

I've been thinking about the personal finance Wheaton levels. I was specifically intrigued by how many people interpreted the higher levels as necessarily requiring eco-hippy/permaculture/caveman communing-with-nature type lifestyles. I was trying to figure out if that lifestyle was necessarily required and what underlying ideas are present in the levels that makes it seem this way to so many.

In my interpretation, the lower levels think about everything in terms of money, the middle levels think in terms of a broader array of resources, and the highest levels are only about time. With higher levels comes increasing alignment of time spent with desires, ultimately requiring modifying desires to reach full coincidence.

I explored how each level looks from the following perspectives:
  • Central lifestyle issue/tension
  • Role of monetary capital/resources
  • Role of non-monetary capital/resources
  • Role of labour/time
  • Capital and labour efficiency
I feel like some of the levels can be condensed if seen from this perspective, but there are some fundamentally different issues between the tiers (1-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8).

It looks like there are a lot of others grappling with progress lately as well, so I hope this offers some fresh, albeit limited perspective. Here is the original table for reference.

Investor tier. The central issue in this tier is that some problems cannot be solved with cash, but cash is the only known problem-solving method. As a result, cash is constantly depleted. This issue is central through levels 1 to 3.

1: Negative or no monetary capital - perpetually broke or indebted. Non-monetary capital is largely unused, or valued only with respect to cash. E.g. a non-core family member is only valuable if they provide cash, or things that would otherwise cost cash.

Labour generates cash and little else. Cash is the only useful resource, by which all problems are solved and desires are met. Planning revolves almost entirely around immediate cash flows.

2: A cash reserve is maintained in order to bridge interruptions to cash flow, so the focus is on capital preservation. As a result, risk tolerance is very low - any equity or fixed-income investment is regarded as suspicious.

Labour provides cash, which is still the single useful but constantly depleted resource. The same central issue is present as at level 1, so the existence of a cash reserve is inherently a sacrifice in the name of stability. Unspent cash in the reserve represents unfulfilled desires or unsolved problems.

3: Monetary capital exists to yield more monetary capital.

Labour provides monetary capital, the single useful resource. The same issue is present as at level 1, but now a strategy exists to overcome this: the ability of capital to produce more capital. Through sufficient sacrifice, as unspent cash still means unfulfilled desires, enough capital to solve almost every problem can be accumulated.

Everything is still seen through the lens of cash, and social relations are no exception. Favours are valued and paid off with gifts of appropriate monetary value.

Looks crazy to level 1 people because having that much cash without spending it is inexplicable. The level 3 person might find that to be a constant tension as well.

DIYer tier. The central issue of levels 4-5 is that labour used to produce capital generates negative side-effects or additional desires that requires capital or more labour to counteract. E.g. exposure to toxins from welding repairs, or burn-out from a job. At level 4, the time requirements and learning curves to have labour replace spending can be onerous.

4: At this level, non-monetary capital starts to be valued. All forms of capital yield useful resources which can be used to replace spending cash. E.g. yard space can be used to grow fresh vegetables, or a set of tools can reduce car maintenance costs. The idea of payment in kind starts to be valued.

As less monetary capital is being spent solving non-monetary problems, capital efficiency improves. The demand to constantly spend cash decreases, so the investing focus switches to maintaining income.

Labour is used to produce capital and improve utilization of capital. The efficiency of labour at directly matching desires/needs is low as a result, and a capital reserve is still valued as a replacement for labour.

Looks crazy to level 2 people because doing unpaid work when able to pay someone else to do it is inexplicable. The level 4 person might find that to be a constant tension as well.

5: Some labour is now embraced as part of the target lifestyle, and methods of labour are chosen/designed to better match desires and needs. E.g. learning traditional food preservation/recipes as a way to both connect with heritage and live on cheap seasonal produce, or biking to places to both stay fit and get around. Less labour is spent undoing the effects of other labour (e.g. an active hobby job, instead of gym exercise to undo damage from a sedentary job), so labour efficiency improves.

Labour is used to generate capital and fulfill desires. Many problems which would be solved via cash at lower levels can now be solved or avoided with non-monetary capital or increasingly-skilled labour. Capital efficiency is Pareto-optimal as a result, as additional spending would not improve fulfillment of needs/desires.

Looks crazy to level 3 people because choosing labour over potentially more monetary capital is inexplicable. The level 5 person might find that to be a constant tension as well.

Designer tier. The central issue in levels 6-7 is balancing capital and labour flows in such a way that desires are sustainably fulfilled - e.g. over a project timeline, for one's family, one's lifetime, or for the Earth's resources. The approach to any problem must include assessment of the long-term fit of potential solutions and consideration of higher-order effects. As one gets less alienated from the products of their labour, cash starts to be seen as a inefficient medium of exchange.

6: Growing mastery over self allows some manipulation of one's own desires. As a result of better skill or shaped desires, labour-capital systems (like a job, or a garden) can more directly fulfill desires/needs.

Monetary capital exists mostly to attenuate stresses resulting from natural variations in results - e.g. a poor harvest, or a tenant moving out. As monetary capital exists to solve mostly monetary problems, capital efficiency is extremely high.

Non-monetary capital in the form of skills and social connections has more impact than land or tools. Non-monetary capital generates desired/needed resources, and requires mostly fun/fulfilling labour as an input, e.g. fishing as a major protein source or coaching for income. As a result, labour efficiency is high as it directly fulfills desires and needs - instead of having to translate labour into cash then back into fulfilling experiences. The existence of a monetary capital reserve represents flexibility and the ability to adapt to changing conditions. Depending on how resilient current conditions are, an adequate reserve can be very small.

Looks crazy to level 4 people because labour is seen as an input to be minimized at all costs, with desires met through use of capital alone - living like this is just too much work to be happy.

7: As labour-capital systems become more finely tuned, labour is mostly used to redistribute the resources required and generated by capital. Desires are fulfilled through this labour, e.g. constructing bespoke clothing from bartered cloth as a hobby. Mastery over self allows shaping one's habits to instinctively fit into these systems, e,g, learning to enjoy identifying edible mushrooms. Participation in other common systems like tourism, socializing or single-family housing may decline or stop as a result - depending on what is dropped, one may appear very eccentric. Money exists as a byproduct or a way to regulate outside interactions, e.g. setting high prices for work to select for audience. Skills are developed to a high enough level that they can be heavily relied upon to provide for needs.

Looks crazy to level 5 people because only "fun" labour is desired - the idea of shaping desires to match one's values seems inauthentic or at a minimum unsatisfying.

Guru tier.

8: At this level, complete mastery over self means that desires are strictly bounded in accordance with one's values. The combination of high skill levels and ability to control self means that world-class skill levels are attainable. Capital is almost entirely non-monetary at this point and the resources generated overwhelm what cash could buy. Time spent is Pareto-optimal as this person does exactly what they want and nothing more - doing anything else would be making their life worse.

From this person's perspective, they are living a life of "ponds: booze; trees: meat" with everything they want within their grasp. Monetary capital is similarly easy to produce but is immaterial to the system, as confidence in skills, and the usefulness of those skills, is so high. Critically, this level is a move away from the Renaissance Man ideal and towards being a Master - the resilience of the multi-pronged Renaissance Man provides less utility than Master-level skills have to the world.

The difference from level 1 and level 8 is mostly mental, despite both having potentially no monetary capital. The level 1 person wants everything and gets none of it, the level 8 person wants only one thing and gets everything in the process.

Looks crazy to level 6 people because dependence on skills, social capital, or local environment appears to lack sufficient redundancy or diversity to maintain a resilient, sustainable lifestyle - they appear one disaster away from ruin.

JenAR
Posts: 76
Joined: Fri Jul 10, 2020 9:46 am

Re: Basuragomi's journal

Post by JenAR »

Very interesting breakdown of the ERE Wheaton Levels.

Based on these descriptions, I'd guess I'm a lower level seven.

The ability to shape my own desires to match my goals and values is now standard praxis for me, but is not yet effortless or total (preventative/corrective maintenance of physical and mental environment and social inputs are still necessary).

Level eight doesn't look crazy to me, but I'm definitely not there yet.

basuragomi
Posts: 419
Joined: Tue Oct 15, 2019 3:13 pm

Re: Basuragomi's journal

Post by basuragomi »

Web of goals issues

I've run into a few issues trying to actually construct a web of goals. They all revolve around there being way too many connections to represent in a flat graph if constructed as per the ERE book.

1: I think one has to make a core distinction between representing resource flow and representing goal attainment. Otherwise you end up with the issue where your goals are connected to every other goal - e.g. is generating cash a goal in and of itself or just a process that converts a resource like labour into another resource, in the support of "actual" goals?

A web that represents resource flows as paths and processes as nodes would have difficulty showing how goals are attained since many goals would be improvements to the processes/nodes themselves. E.g. getting a promotion being greater yield on the labour -> money/satisfaction process.

Similarly, a web that represents goals as nodes would have difficulty showing resource flows since everything uses the same stuff, and the paths between goals are already being used to delineate modules.

Maybe the answer is that the resource flow web is primary, with goals a secondary web layered on top of that. But the goal web has some topological issues, so this approach ends up with some kind of 5-dimensional manifold.

2: Some goals are almost universally common: things like expressing creativity, seeking novelty, living within means, etc. It gets to the point where it's absurd to connect everything else to them - they're basically omnipresent. I think treating them like core values and dropping them from the web (or forming a secondary/tertiary web?) makes more sense.

3: The module-goal format stops working very quickly, since modules can't overlap. The simplest example: Try to make three n-sided polygons in 2d space simultaneously share 3 vertices. It's impossible. This gets worse as more goals get shared between modules. The only ways around it are to duplicate goal nodes, switch to a 3-d web - more like a foam at this point - or abandon the no-overlap criteria, at which point it's more like a routing table of goals than a web.

So that's where I am, hacking around trying to get something useful and pretty. Maybe this is why actual webs-of-goals examples are pretty rare in this forum.

basuragomi
Posts: 419
Joined: Tue Oct 15, 2019 3:13 pm

Re: Basuragomi's journal

Post by basuragomi »

Pick pocket

Final product first:
Image

I had an old pick "strap" pinned to my guitar strap which sucked. Using elastic sounded like a good idea but made it really easy for picks to randomly fall out. I also was acquiring too many picks - meaning that I had to double up picks in the strap, which defeated the point of always having a selection available.

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So I came up with the idea of a little pocket with a snap closure that could hang on to my guitar strap, close at hand.

Prototyped until I was happy with the size and arrangement - the sides are a 45-degree parallelogram so that many picks are visible when opened.

Image

Cut out some scrap suede:

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Sew up and embroider for prettiness (and to cover the stitching for the snap):

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Works great! Spent a long time on it, but I'm much happier with this solution. Hopefully it will last many years.

Image

ertyu
Posts: 2893
Joined: Sun Nov 13, 2016 2:31 am

Re: Basuragomi's journal

Post by ertyu »

This is cool. Was thinking something similar for laptop case but with recycled jeans fabric. nice.

kpa
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Aug 14, 2020 9:15 pm

Re: Basuragomi's journal

Post by kpa »

basuragomi wrote:
Thu Nov 07, 2019 3:30 pm
- I didn't include unrealized investment gains in income as it would completely swamp any other income. It would also sometimes be negative.
How do you calculate realized investment gains? In your after-tax brokerage account, is it the same as realized capital gains? If you sell stock at a loss, do you just leave the cost-basis where it was? I'd like to calculate some measure of capital growth, but I haven't thought of any meaningful way that would avoid going negative.

classical_Liberal
Posts: 2283
Joined: Sun Mar 20, 2016 6:05 am

Re: Basuragomi's journal

Post by classical_Liberal »

Sorry I missed this Wheaton level breakdown before. Obviously you put a lot of work and thought into it. IMO, the big difference in your breakdown vs what has been discussed recently in other places is this new, mastery over self, domain. Higher wheaton levels require that one adjusts preferences(not sure if that's a good word?), in order to fulfill overarching goals in a manner that is consistent with values.

Feel free to correct me if you feel that is a bad interpretation.

I find this interesting because it add a few dimensions to progress towards moving up the levels. For one, someone has to really understand their overarching values. Which, I think, is no small feat in today's world of run, run, run. Then adjust actions in accordance to those values, even if this means doing some things labor-wise, that they otherwise might not find pleasant. Or at least learning to make them pleasant, which is maybe a better way of looking at it. IOW, if one of someone's core value is food independence, it's pretty hard to get there if you don't learn to grow or forage. If you don't like either, you need to learn mastery of self to learn to like them.

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