"How to Drop Out"

[7Wannabe5]

There's also the concept of "old money absent money" which runs somewhat in alignment with Jacob's take on being a "poor aristocrat." I've been reading Barbara Tuchman's "The Proud Tower" in which she describes society just prior to WW1. The first chapter is "The Patricians" and concerns itself with the aristocracy of Victorian Great Britain. I noted similarities (fox-hunting =mountain biking)with the philosophy/practices of the forum to the extent that I wondered whether a photo of Jacob posed as Lord Ribblesdale, yet in Refrigi-wear, might simultaneously serve as marketing and barrier to entry to the forum.



I've also been reading Lewis Lapham's "Money and Class in America." Lapham (also his first cousin William Ophuls, "Immoderate Greatness: Why Civilizations Fail") is of the Silent Generation and also the class that best passes for old money aristocracy in the U.S. I've had a mad literary crush on Lapham (former editor of "Harper's") since my teens, and he epitomizes the antithesis of the "stupid man's smart men" currently rife upon the editorially-challenged internet.

https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/energy

I "inherited" the practice of frugality from my father, because his paternal line was towards "old money without money." My great-grandfather was the Treasurer of Detroit during the same era Lapham's grandfather was the Mayor of San Francisco. My great-grandfather's great-great-grandfather came over on the second voyage of the Mayflower and was the first settler/owner of some of the land upon which Thoreau tramped. I think the three main differences in philosophy/practice between "ERE" style "poor" aristocracy and the Classic Patrician style would be the focus on Family/Estate/Public-Service-Government.

It qualified them for government, considered in England, as nowhere else the proper and highest profession of a gentleman...Military service in one of the elite regiments of Guards or Hussars or Lancers was an equally accepted role for men of wealth and rank, although it tended to attract the weaker minds. The less wealthy went into the Church and the Navy; the bar and journalism provided careers when earning power was a necessity. But, Parliament above all was the natural and desirable sphere for the exercise of "superior fitness."

-Tuchman

Even in the Victorian era, the Patrician class was already centered towards intellectual Agnosticism, so the Academic realm came to replace the Church as fitting venue for the "less wealthy" aristocratic. Emerson was associated with the Unitarian church in the U.S. and its largest congregations overlap with many University centers. It's actually currently one of the fastest growing "religions" in the U.S. and my DD32 and her husband are members of one of its very Level Green/Yellow congregations, as was her paternal great-great-grandfather. They celebrate Christmas and Earth Day with equal sincerity (irony.)

My point here (beyond the fact that I am clearly becoming increasingly locked in Si loop in my current semi-decrepit state) is that, as Ophuls notes in his chapter on moral decline of great civilizations, "The Arts" and/or "Sporting" has been forever historically recognized as the "decadent" edge of profession for Old Money/Patrician male members. What you are supposed to do with yourself when freed up from need to earn money is become a Leader in Government, or at the very least over those who inhabit/work your personally owned property. IOW, according to Ophuls, if/when you observe the members of the Patrician class mainly engaged in playing at cards or video games, that is a sign (chicken/egg) that the end/collapse of your civilization is near at hand.

[daylen]

Because orgies and drugs weren't sign enough in the 70's right?

Or maybe humans are becoming less useful for supporting humans. There are still plenty of humans that want to continue doing human scale stuff.

[Ego]

The article doesn't answer the question of how these people spend their free time and their life in general. It spoke about how having a trust promotes long term thinking and prioritizing value and what that might look like in practice *when it comes to financial assets*.

Those two principles that result in sustained assets are pretty fundamental to becoming FI or ERE for many people.

Absolutely agree.
'
I read the original How to Drop Out post again and then followed it with The Old Money Book post.

One of the things Ran Prieur emphasized in his original post....

The main thing I was doing during those years was de-institutionalizing myself, learning to navigate the hours of the day and the thoughts in my head with no teacher or boss telling me what to do. I had to learn to relax without getting lethargic, to never put off washing the dishes, to balance the needs of the present and the future, to have spontaneous fun but avoid addiction, to be intuitive, to notice other people, to make big and small decisions. I went through mild depression and severe fatigue and embarrassing obsessions and strange diets and simplistic new age thinking. It's a long and ugly road, and most of us have to walk it, or something like it, to begin to be free.

Transitioning from work to early retirement can be incredibly challenging. Those in my orbit who were born with trusts that made them early retired from the start all seem to perpetually struggle with the things in that paragraph.

[7Wannabe5]

@daylen:

I'm entirely willing to be made to believe that the old-old guys are also wrong, in whole or part, even/especially given my take on the nouveau-old guys.

Before civilization became universal, the consequences of decline and fall may have been catastrophic for a particular society and for many or even most of its inhabitants, but they were not fatal to civilization itself. There were always others to keep the flame alive. Or a lurking horde of barbarians poised to bring fresh blood to a tired and moribund society. But now that a highly interdependent, global, industrial civilization extends its monopoly to the ends of the earth, there are not others to pick up the baton, nor any barbarian reservoirs to replenish its elan. "Collapse, if and when it comes again, will this time be global,' says Tainter.

- Ophuls, my emphasis.

As I believe classical_Liberal mentioned somewhere above, "Fight Club" likely represents my generations attempt to re-engage with the internal Barbarian towards replenished elan. And it is certainly the case that video games are loaded with what Deida refers to as the "Killer" masculine energy. So, maybe (re) engagement will take place in the virtual, obviously inclusive of the quadrant of "killer" masculine energy in the "noosphere" that was occupied by many of those born female by the late 20th century. Because I am stuck in Si anecdote, I think in particular of my youngest sister whose style of practicing the law was once described as "Bad Boyfriend."

Therefore, since at Level Yellow, the concept of gender is held objective and re-integrated, it also remains possible that The Barbarian may be revitalated in therapeutic context. Dunno.

...the best psychological critique is still Sigmund Freud's Civilization and It's Discontents...reveal(s) how difficult and painful it is for people to live in complex civilizations that frustrate basic human needs.

-Ophuls

[suomalainen]

Sorry. Catching up here, so this is not responsive to the latest.

I've always thought of "FI leading to SI" or "dropping out" as a first world privilege. You can see it in the data of household density (poor = higher, probably multi-generational; rich = low, probably limited to one or two generations). I think the literature sometimes speaks of it in terms of "American individualism", but I think it's born of two things: 1) when you have closed systems (families, churches, work camps, tribes, whatever) presumably due to (competition for) scarce resources and/or the "need" to work together for life and safety and you *can't* leave, it fosters a sense of belonging. You might be the leader, you might be the town drunk, you might be the one that gets abused, you might be the abuser, but each of these people "belong" because they *can't* opt out or they'd die upon expulsion. They find their role in the closed system and the system chugs along - happily for some, unhappily for others. And it's true that in such scenarios, it's the strong that get to be "selfish". I don't mean selfish in a value-judgment sort of way, but just in the sense that a leader gets to decide things and even gets to decide how to decide things. He only has to consider himself and/or the things that he finds consideration-worthy (i.e., so a "good" leader may be one for whom listening to others is important; a "bad" leader may be one that is "selfish" in the value-judgment sort of way).

But when society or an individual becomes richer, and by no means does this have to be FI, you have options. You can move away from your group, if you find it to be a shitty group or if you have low status in that group, and you can even shop around until you find your "tribe". There's freedom in that, but the cost is that the mobility afforded allows people to come and go as their needs/wants/interests change and so community / belonging decays even among these voluntarily-constructed groups. See, e.g., all those utopian compounds that have lived on in perpetuity ever true to their founding ideals.

Conservative belly-aching notwithstanding, whether that decay is to be mourned is a different question (i.e., if you were a leader and lost status as your "followers" fled, you probably mourn it; if you were the abused, you probably celebrate it). But in the larger sense, what's happened is that societal richness has democratized selfishness - now everyone can embrace "you be you" rather than just the old men using "you be you" derisively against those that dare to leave.

And extending that further, now that we have the internet and we're further balkanizing, while still being a fabulously wealthy society by historical standards, we find that we have to compete in the land of ideas for which idea is the "good" or "correct" one while any other idea is "evil" or "wrong". Democratization of selfishness run amok. Would I take an abusive system to which I belong over a "free" system where I'm constantly trying to shore up my eroding base? Some days I really don't know. It's nice to belong. It's in the dna.

[ertyu]

I'd argue that democratized selfishness has imbued pro-social behavior with actual meaning. I give and help because I genuinely want to and like you, not bc "but faaaamily." It also encourages people to see the beauty and value in this one moment, when two strangers meet and connect, without burden or expectation.

Democratized selfishness has also created one hella brutal incentive to be a good human - or few would be fucked with giving to you and spending time with you. Many are left behind and whine from various basements or from "but why won't my child talk to me after all i've done, so ungrateful!" forums, and tbh I have little compassion, esp because most choose to double down on their prejudice, hatefulness, and close-mindedness -- it's a failure to take personal responsibility.

It's nice to belong, but only when belonging is building people up. Hell, ERE can be seen as too fringe and at the expense of "belonging." Is that a bad thing? I don't think so. I don't see anything bad in dropping out/democratized selfishness being at the expense of forced belonging. Forced belonging isn't belonging, it's bondage.

[xmj]

Those two principles that result in sustained assets are pretty fundamental to becoming FI or ERE for many people. For example, YMOYL was particularly focused on teaching people to understand value vs cost. One of the prerequisites of reaching FI (early and/or at non-ridiculous income levels) is lowering your discount rate (= thinking long term).

If those two principles result in an unfulfilling life in general, then what are we all doing here?

I think that those two principles promote good financial positions and good decisions in multiple areas of life (eg health, fitness, knowledge, etc). Generally, you can apply the principles in the financial realm without that resulting in stagnation in other parts of your life. Probably getting to the systems thinking level is the way to prevent the problems resulting from being too cheap. Noticing that something that is good value for you in one dimension is low value for you in the big picture (eg because it alienates your social network or will result in long term health consequences, etc) is something that is important to learn to do.

Good points and I agree with it -- "homeotelic actions may yield better outcomes than heterotelic ones", etc. Stands to reason that understanding value and having low time preference leads to the assets from scratch, or maintenance of an old money principal. Both are not incompatible and rather; two sides of the same coin -- which this forum tends to value (otherwise yes, what are we even doing here)

There's also the concept of "old money absent money" which runs somewhat in alignment with Jacob's take on being a "poor aristocrat." I've been reading Barbara Tuchman's "The Proud Tower" in which she describes society just prior to WW1. The first chapter is "The Patricians" and concerns itself with the aristocracy of Victorian Great Britain. I noted similarities (fox-hunting =mountain biking)with the philosophy/practices of the forum to the extent that I wondered whether a photo of Jacob posed as Lord Ribblesdale, yet in Refrigi-wear, might simultaneously serve as marketing and barrier to entry to the forum.



I've also been reading Lewis Lapham's "Money and Class in America." Lapham (also his first cousin William Ophuls, "Immoderate Greatness: Why Civilizations Fail") is of the Silent Generation and also the class that best passes for old money aristocracy in the U.S. I've had a mad literary crush on Lapham (former editor of "Harper's") since my teens, and he epitomizes the antithesis of the "stupid man's smart men" currently rife upon the editorially-challenged internet.

That one is interesting, I came across it by way of a podcast.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1EgpL5 ... dc8f3742c7

Something I'll point out is that no, you cannot be `old money` without having any funds left; you'd have to get a job, like the rest of us (before FIRE/ERE)... which reduces you to mere middle class status.

[7Wannabe5]

Something I'll point out is that no, you cannot be `old money` without having any funds left; you'd have to get a job, like the rest of us (before FIRE/ERE)... which reduces you to mere middle class status.

Yes, I concede. What I meant by "old money without money" was really something more like "high on the Gentry ladder" in the Labor/Gentry/Elite 3-ladder model. For instance, the Alcott Family held a great deal of Cultural Capital, but not very much Financial Capital. So, somebody who held a great deal of Cultural Capital, and was also involved in power-brokering through politics, might be fairly indistinguishable from 4-generations-removed Old Money.

I was questioning myself on this matter, so I asked my mother if "Patrician" would be a word she would use to describe my paternal grandfather, and she was immediately strongly affirmative. Maybe, it's one of those things that is a bit like "porn", you know it when you see it? OTOH, anybody who was born in 1899 was likely to seem more Patrician-like than anybody still alive and dressed in unisex pajama-clothes in the 21st century.