Early Retirement Extreme Forums

I'm going to take the liberty of plugging this new, ERE inspired podcast here. I'd encourage @AxelHeyst to post an update here when new episodes are available so folks who aren't tracking his journal or blog can find out when new episodes are available.

AxelHeyst wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 21, 2022 1:32 am

I finished the first episode of the podcast.

The first ep is pretty short to get the ball rolling. Trying to figure out how to communicate [one of the failure modes of] ERE to people who aren't interested in RE without totally going off on a wild tangent of ERE-specific jargon is, uh, challenging. In an earlier take I started rambling about consilience, resilience, and loose coupling, and realized I was getting way too ahead of myself. I am going to talk about ERE explicitly, in no small part because credits gotta go where credits due, but I'm trying to spill those particular beans at the right time, in the right way. It feels like a really intricate challenge of organization of information through time, what information supports other information, what information should be presented in a "failure" mode that is understandable, with a leveling up of that information planned later...

Monologues for now because it's easy and I need as many small wins as possible early on in this project to build momentum, but I do intend to do interviews, co-hosts, and otherwise play around with format.

I really appreciate the comments I got on this project earlier, and also a huge shoutout to the ERE Mastermind Group for their support and encouragement. You folks are the actual best.

You can check out this post for future topics:

http://tylerjdisney.com/blog/2022/1/20/ ... odcast-now

Oh hey, good idea, thanks wrc.

I’d like to start doing a QnA session to some of the episodes. I give my email in the podcast at the end, but also if anyone wants to chuck a question for the podcast in this thread that’s fine too.

I enjoyed the first episode. You have a good voice for the medium.

Enjoyed the first episode as well and subscribed. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of communication. It was approachable enough that it seems like this could be a promising thing to share with some people I know who start from a similar "society is collapsing" sort of place but from there take the route of "so I'll work full-time and spend all of my salary now to have fun while it's still possible."

I'm very excited for future episodes. Don't let me down!

I agree with @7WB5 and @Canoe. I was pleasantly surprised by the professionalism of the podcast presentation. I'm not sure if @AH has done voice work before, but he sounds way better than many podcasters I've heard who have been doing it for years (the audio quality and voice presentation are both top notch). One thing that always irked me about the Madfientist's podcast was that he always seemed to speak in a monotone.

I'm a big fan of longer form podcasts (e.g. 30+ min) because I think they provide more time to explore complex ideas, but I think the short intro episode is a nice easy win to get the ball rolling. I also listened to it at 2x speed.

Have you thought about incorporating video as well? I see a lot of podcasters post video recordings of episodes to reach the youtube audience. I think there are pros and cons to incorporating visual aspects, but I also think many people these days are visually oriented. Videos would also help when presenting complex ideas that require charts and diagrams.

Very easy to listen to, nice job on your first podcast! I subscribed too.

Thanks for the positive feedback! I’ll get right on ep002.

@whitebelt, I have thought about video. It’s on the “someday/maybe” list. I’ve done enough video to know that it’s a lot of work to make not suck, and I’m focusing on getting a minimally viable product shipping, work on the fundamentals of verbal storytelling, etc. Once I’m feeling comfortable shipping good audio consistently, I’ll consider putting effort into adding video. (If at some point the opportunity presents itself to work with someone who knows how to shoot video that doesn’t suck, I’d jump on it.)

I've now listened to an early draft and the published and polished first episode. I got three minutes in, stopped and copy and pasted it to a few friends that are passionate about climate change and have not yet understood what the hell I'm doing with this ERE stuff. Then I finished listening. I'm a big fan of AH, so I'm definitely biased to like his work. However, I really liked it. I thought the audio was good and there was enough naturalness to his voice that I could see easily connecting to him if I was a stranger. It was polished, but not overly so. I hate meandering conversational style podcasts and this felt like an efficient use of my time. I also really could see how this could draw people in to the logic of reducing expenses in a new and different way. Which is what I've failed to do as I've talked about ERE over the years. Now, I feel a little better armed to avoid all the ERE jargon and still pass on the message.

I was surprised at how hopeful it was, without ignoring the present and future calamities ahead. I subscribed and am passing it on to folks I think are ready for it. Thanks AH!!
Good intro music too and I liked the pause between the first and second parts. Is that going to be the usual intro or will it change with each week?

Thanks @mt! Planning on 100% fresh words every episode for now, sticking with the same music. But you've got me thinking of how to start each episode to keep the narrative threaded after the first few. Like how weekly tv shows that had a continuous arc used to do a recap of last episode/whatever was relevant...

Axel has a lot to offer. I am interested to see where this goes.

The inclusion of co-hosts and guests is a great idea. For me - what ultimately makes a podcast is the conversation. Listening is like hanging out with a couple like minded friends. The virtual sense of community is more important than the specific topic. I can read a book to learn. I listen to a podcast because I want to belong.

Just gave this a listen. It's so neat to hear one of the forum member's voices. It's easy to see you folks as just names on a screen. Great job AxelHeyst that was great.

Just finished Episode 002: Claw your freedom back from the maw of consumer culture.
Priorities: 1) Record cleaner audio, and 2) Figure out how to better edit mouth noises when they do happen. I'm not satisfied with the audio quality, but not unsatisfied enough to not publish this. Each ep ought to be an improvement on the last.

Thanks for the comments. I'm definitely excited to bring on co-hosts and interviewees soon.

Because I'm so "deep" in my own thoughts and perspectives on ERE and lifestyle philosophy, I have a hard time discerning if what I'm saying is making any sense whatsoever to people not conversant in ERE-ese. I feel like I'm sort of... beating around the bush a bit. Trying to figure out how to explain what I'm getting at concisely in a way people can pick up on. I guess if it were easy a bunch of people would already be doing it.

I think you outlined it well. Each point builds on the next and there is essentially no jargon. The only word I think someone wouldn't understand, who is not Green or familiar with ERE, is "meta-crisis." Well done.

I understand the desire for better audio but I wanted to say it's been good so far, better even than some episodes of high level podcasts. Jacob was exploring some diy options on here regarding a pop filter, I don't remember what thread that was.

Part of it is self preservation... my own mouth noises amplified through headphones trigger my misaphonia and make me want to slam my head through my laptop. This is only going to be sustainable for my own broken brain if I can eliminate more of them in recording.

Here's my DIY pop filter.
viewtopic.php?p=236731#p236731

The new episode was good, thanks for sharing.

The Skill Ratchet | Episode 003
Youtube (<--has a couple images/slides in it)

Nice work building up each stage and offering a path with regards to skills. I'm really enjoying the podcast. You have a knack for this, looking forward to the next one.

Thanks @animal!

Also: #facepalm. So, I credited jacob with the intellectual foundation of the whole episode, because obviously. But at some point I said something about "you'd pretty much have to spend all your money on diesel fuel, pour it into a hole in the ground and light it on fire", which I thought was oh so clever of me. And then I just now saw Slevin reference this post, which I clearly read back in May and then forgot about:

jacob wrote: ↑

Wed May 26, 2021 7:56 am

E.g. if you spend $6750 on nothing else but burning diesel fuel in barrels, you're part of the problem.

Sigh. I wasn't trying to rip @jacob off that blatantly.

I haven't listened to the podcasts yet - but have subscribed. Based on the blog posts which I read several of just now - I know I'll enjoy the podcast episodes.

I'd encourage everyone to check out the blog as well.