Early Retirement Extreme Forums

Way to let the cat out of the bag re: the forums

That was excellent. The best interview with you that I've heard.

Great podcast! I always enjoy hearing your thoughts in a long-form interview.

+1. Really enjoyed this one. Each time you become better and better at getting the message across in a clearer and more concise manner.

Nice conversation

I think this one was good because the interviewer had good background knowledge of ERE, so you could go a little deeper than the typical mainstream interview. I thought the host might go more into the renaissance man/learning aspects since I know he’s been doing some ultra learning experiments, but nevertheless I enjoyed it. We’ll see if the forums get overrun with mainstream FIRE adherents, but I suspect we’re too weird of a group with our talk of lentils and how to use humanure in a closed loop system.

Edit: I think it would be cool to hear a much more advanced philosophical discussion with Jacob and other WL6+ thinkers (Mr. Money Mustache, Rob Greenfield, Mark Boyle, etc). I’m not sure that there’s really a target audience for talking WL6+ other than this forum though.

Very nice pod.
I noticed a couple things:

1/ your accent is more american than a few years ago.

2/ not sure it's intentional or not, but you seem to be making efforts to become more "accessible". For example: I have absolutely loved the dry humor in the book, but I know to some people it sounded condescending. You also mentioned in the interview that, should you write the book today, it would be more "open" to other perspectives.
To put it in simpler terms, you seem more like a guy that could enjoy a beer outside with a semi-large group of people, while hearing you in your first interviews you sounded much more like someone who felt most at ease alone or within a very small group of well known people.

3/ as always, the quality I find the most impressive in you is your mental clarity, the ability to analyze things objectively. I guess it's part personality and part your upbringing as physicist (one example of this is when you say "but this being more open to other perspectives is maybe reducing my ability to condensate thoughts. In a sort of way other perspectives clutter the mind")

...

Very much enjoyed the podcast/interview. Also, +2 on how interesting it'd be to hear Jacob have some sort of long-form discussion with an WL6+; especially one that's not coming from an ERE perspective, necessarily. Agree that what made this podcast so good was that it wasn't an hour of "intro to ERE"; the interviewer was quite familiar with ERE and the interviewer also seemed to assume most of his listeners knew something about it already as well.

I wanted to plug this post by Jacob on GRS. It was linked in the podcast notes and I had never read it.

https://www.getrichslowly.org/early-retirement-extreme/

Thanks for that. MadFientist, if you're reading this, great moderating!

@Jacob Re the answer to the 'would you change anything about the book' question. If the ERE book is the introductory textbook and the forum is the gradschool, then I think the fact that the book is 'edgy' and 'clutter free' is a positive, wouldn't change it. Leave presenting a more comprehensive view that takes into account other perspectives for your next book!

This moderator was well-prepared, familiar with ERE, focused on Jacob (versus thinking of what to say next), and asked good questions. That makes a huge difference! Interviewing is a skill, although some moderators seem to try to wing it and fail to differing degrees.

I enjoyed it, thank you. I've been following Mad Fientist for a few years now and he's a great interviewer. This particular interviewee is quite special though too

Additional thoughts:
1/ yes mad fientist was great
2/ let’s start a go fund me to buy Jacob a new mic
3/ agree with the others that it would be great to her Jacob go a bit deeper with someone closer to his level. In general, hearing more from Jacob would be cool as he’s a very fine thinker with unique ideas
4/ the book is absolutely perfect as is in my opinion

I've figured out the way to have a great interview with Jacob:

1. Ask an open ended question
2. Let Jacob talk for 5-15 minutes until he runs out of steam
3. Return to 1

Seriously, I liked the long, train of thought kind of answers, which interrupting interviewers normally preclude.

Re: edgyness - I wouldn't change 99% (well,86% ) of the book, but I would tone down chapter 1 (and maybe a bit of chapter 2) a little bit.

My favorite quote (rough transcription):

Sometimes it seems like half of our economy exists to create problems for the other half to solve.

Good discussion! Glad I listened in.

Hristo Botev wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 21, 2021 5:38 am

My favorite quote (rough transcription):

Yeah that's right. In the way that somebody smashing windows and somebody else fixing windows increases GDP above windows being peacefully left as they are.

I think there is a common hypothetical analogy in economics of one group digging holes and another group filling them in. Somewhere I read about how that kind of already happens with the sugary food and drink industry causing diabetes and then the pharma companies making drugs to cure it. Can't remember if that was Jacob or somewhere else in the FI blogosphere.

In case anyone is wondering: The extended video interview is 1h 11m (which you can access for $5). The free audio version is 55m.