ERE1 vs ERE2, forum culture

[unemployable]

But, on that note, I think what @unemployable said about baby steps is right on. The first practical step of ERE2 isn't going to be "Right, everyone, pack your bags, we're all moving to a ranch in Montana it's going to be great, if you don't come you're out of the club."

I'd be in favor of this! Otherwise there's too much to read here. Whatever y'all decide ERE2 is I hope it involves getting out more.

[Mister Imperceptible]

The people who deleted their posts in 2020/2021 are being told they ruined the forum for turning it into Swiss cheese.

The people in 2020/2021 who deleted their posts had very real concern that a totalitarian play was being made. It is probably still being made but we are in the eye of the storm after major pushback.

Whether you want to discuss it or not, we perceived the lockdowns and vaccine mandates as absolutely draconian. And to disagree is one thing, but we were lectured to, called idiots, gaslit, and dehumanized. And we know an apology is not coming.

I get it. “It has nothing to do with ERE.” I want that to be true. I want to believe that ERE is a Gray Man, and that when @MI makes an inflammatory post, that Dr. Fisker has to cover the post with something that defends the institutional narrative because otherwise the Eye of Sauron will descend and shut down the entire forum. And to be fair, Dr. Fisker could have banned me long ago.

Unfortunately, it felt like that as we were being crushed, that there was far too much glee being expressed by those doing the crushing. I am not going to link to old posts, because I think it would be embarrassing. No one want to looks like an an actual Nazi. Remember almost half the country thought 50% of people should have been put in concentration camps.

It is a charade to continue without pointing to that elephant in the room. Because we know an apology is not coming. That is the source of the hostility.

I honestly do not know if reconciliation is possible. I emotionally disconnected from the forums 2 years ago, and since then I have merely been an artful troll, sharpening my sword. I am glad I stayed, so those who left could come back.

What does a green NF do when someone powerful points a gun to their head and says “KILL classical_Liberal and Mister Imperceptible?” How would the green NF “emote” at that time? “Holy shit I feel scared, and I will do whatever you tell me to.” Do you think the “NT’s” and your so-called “Orange” types do not have feelings? We are summoning all of our will to remain composed.

“Do not write anything down that you do not want the government or the corporations to know about.” I have an alternate proposal: Tell the government and the corporations to fuck off, all of the time.

What do you think? That you are going to revolutionize the world without ticking people off? “Make sure you get a permission slip from George Soros and Klaus Schwab before you really shake things up.” ROFL They don’t want things to change.

And I have no problem with people running off to a monastery or a hot air balloon, but it is really puzzling to race back to defend the institutional narrative at every motherfucking step of the way while doing so.

For fuck’s sake.

[unemployable]

MI, keep in mind the owner here exhibits religious faith in a method of personality typing that has been roundly denounced as pseudoscience.

I'm on two borders in MBTI, which makes me feel like a protagonist in some sort of dystopian young-adult sci-fi novel universe.

[classical_Liberal]

keep in mind the owner here exhibits religious faith in a method of personality typing that has been roundly denounced as pseudoscience.

Interesting comment. I think most people would be unhappy to be "pigeonholed" into a certain mold. If models are incapable of providing insight to real differences (eg not capable of predicted behavior of individuals ), and if the model adherents see a singular group from the model as "different", despite failure to predict behavior.... maybe the model is incorrect? or worse? prejudice

[Mister Imperceptible]

Don’t Box Me In

The fish will not fight if given room.

[Slevin]

MI, keep in mind the owner here exhibits religious faith in a method of personality typing that has been roundly denounced as pseudoscience.

I'm on two borders in MBTI, which makes me feel like a protagonist in some sort of dystopian young-adult sci-fi novel universe.

I’ve been staying out of this thread because I find it trivially easy to not read threads I’m not interested in over the 9ish years I’ve been around / lurking / afk and thus don’t get the whole hullabaloo, but this is an interesting claim.

If you are going to make this argument about it being debunked, can you actually make it or post links to the criticisms you are referencing here? I’m finding one systemic meta study from 2017 here (https://www.proquest.com/docview/2094370470) that seems to indicate it is decent in many dimensions maybe other than the TF dimension, but struggling to find a way to actually access the paper to do further reading. I’m not finding too much in the strictly “debunked” camp so I’m interested to see what you have been reading on the subject.

[Crusader]

If you are going to make this argument about it being debunked, can you actually make it or post links to the criticisms you are referencing here?

Not the original poster, but here you go:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2% ... #Criticism

[guitarplayer]

I don't know, I did an MA in Psychology and it is my opinion that psychology suffers from physics envy in getting to all the nitty gritty of reliability and validity of psychometric tests. I sort of designed (well, adapted) and published one psychometric test and it is still used so it's not like I know nothing of this stuff.

I would say please let's remember that we are measuring occurrence of man made hypothetical phenomena (or monads if someone likes Leipniz) and insofar this is the case for physics too, the psychological phenomena are fundamentally subjective in that they are measured most often by the subjects reporting on them. I am not even start going into the potential for bias in such situation. Psychology is also young enough not to have too many confirmatory studies where certain phenomena are (dis)proved to exist again and again and again, and in this sense it is still a field very much open to exploration.

[macg]

I just don't understand what people are so worked up about.

If you come across comments in a thread you don't understand or care about, ignore them.

If you come across threads you don't understand or care about, ignore them.

If you don't like how the forum is being run, used, or the direction it's heading, leave. Go make your own. It's the internet. You can make your own world(s) out here. Ones with more or less rules, whatever. There's no need to troll or attempt to ruin someone else's world.

[Frita]

This leaves me with an aftertaste similar to that of when I finished watching “The Banshees of Inisherin.” These two formerly fast friends get into a fight of what may be a dealbreaker or nothing. In the end, each loses what is most important to him to make the other suffer.

BTW It takes place after the Irish Civil War; hence, the futility of war theme. I actually enjoyed the movie and didn’t fall asleep per my usual.

[steveo73]

prejudice

I'm not sure what the right words to use are but it's completely obvious to me that a bunch of stuff on ERE is cultish. Wheaton levels are the best. Whenever you say something stupid you just say well I'm at Wheaton level 5 and you are only level 1 therefore you don't understand what you are talking about. It's so stupid. To be clear it's just a way to hand wave away rational criticism.

ERE2 is about manifesting that cult in reality. I'm no cult academic but I bet cults use exactly the same practices. Tell everyone the world is ending and we can do something about it. Come and follow the great leader. If you don't like what the great leader states that is because you don't understand what is being said because you are only level 1 or whatever.

[steveo73]

I just don't understand what people are so worked up about.

If you come across comments in a thread you don't understand or care about, ignore them.

If you come across threads you don't understand or care about, ignore them.

If you don't like how the forum is being run, used, or the direction it's heading, leave. Go make your own. It's the internet. You can make your own world(s) out here. Ones with more or less rules, whatever. There's no need to troll or attempt to ruin someone else's world.

There are other responses as well. There is nothing wrong with stating your point. You've just done this as well.

I don't have an answer though. I suppose I think this forum can be a great form of support for people who want to spend significantly less money and retire early. The problem is that the cult like behavior makes that harder. I've seen so much bad advice on here just because people want to stick to ERE orthodoxy.

Jacob and people who blindly buy into the ERE cult are the issue but the thing is it's also Jacob's forum.

I actually think it's sad. @Jacob - if you ever want to talk let me know.

[C40]

Yes, if this mess shows anything it shows how extraordinarily difficult it is to create a resilient, evolving, post-fire reason to get out of bed in the morning. A solution may work for a few years. Eventually the passion fades or the world changes. Without ten others vying for attention it is easy for the person to fade as the passion fades.

It is fragile to be dependent and have no choice but to do what others demand.
It is equally fragile to be independent and have to do nothing.

Back in the early 2000s we decided our solution. Never be fully dependent. Never be fully independent. Never retire. Always have something that we have to do. Always have ten things we want to do.

In other words, make sure my life is full of real things competing for my time and attention rather than pastimes.

Edit to preface this - after posting this and having some other things pop into my head, I realize I should go and read a couple of the 'what is ERE2 threads' more.

To me all the recent ERE2 discussion feels like it has a high barrier to entry. I suppose to some extent that is normal and the way we have participated here at the forum for over a decade. For example: needing to read the ERE book, needing to read Please Understand me II or some other good resource to understand the MBTI references, etc. I feel like the recent change was a lot, or too fast, or too confusing for me. But perhaps that's because I read the forums less lately.

I do feel like all the discussion we are having would benefit from having more specific examples and discussions related to our own lives and goals. This quoted post from Ego is pure gold. I feel that he is doing really well at what he mentioned (plus other things), and could share a lot more great advice among more discussion like what he might have been trying to start here.

For me, retiring has allowed me (or it could be said, forced me) to work on the much more important question of how to align my life in a way that brings long-term fulfillment and joy for myself, plus positive impact for others.

Is ERE2.0 is an attempt to shift some more of the focus here to the 'positive impact for others' part?

We have wonderful examples of behaviors accomplishing that. Over many years Ego (and Randy vining) were among my ERE heroes, partly because of how they arranged their lives for themselves, but also largely because of how well they connect with other people in positive and beneficial ways.


Thinking of this in another way, for me, my Web of Goals are very heavily focused on myself and the various links/relations of goals are related to myself and my own other goals. Whereas the Web of Goals of Ego contain many more links to the lives and goals of other people. I'd like to learn more about how to do that, and more importantly, how to get myself to do it, because while I think I mostly understand the importance and reasons for it, but I still don't do it much.

We've written a ton here lately about ERE 1/2 jargin, MMG, politics, politics, news, how we're mad that someone didn't apologize or say the right thing(!?).... and I think we are missing out on discussing actual real life examples and methods

[IlliniDave]

What I've gleaned from following this particular discussion is there is a fair amount of simple misunderstanding going on along with unintended consequences. From my perspective the most prudent thing to do is to allow each other to follow interests/passions without judgement or resentment. I don't think ere2 is meant to be exclusionary in terms of its charter but it inadvertently leans towards esoteric by its nature. Seems like one of those things where simple acceptance is the best approach.

I think the situation is particularly difficult to navigate for those of us who are either on autopilot during our final approach or are already as retired as we're going to get, but aren't put together in a way that makes ere2 the natural next step in our personal evolution. I'd like to think that having a diverse bunch of approaches to the "so, now what?" crossroads would be of value. But when I look at myself I start having doubts about that. My motivation all along has been fundamentally selfish in the sense that my focus from the first germ of ER thoughts has been self preservation, pursuing the best life I can for myself, and being an asset to my family/inner circle. I'll have to contemplate that in the days ahead. In principle I'd like to be more of a contributor, but I don't see an obvious path forward where I stay true to myself beyond just chronicling my experience "on the other side" in all its mundane tedium.

But none of that--my own personal shortcomings--should be taken as being anti-ere2 in any way. I don't agree with the view of anything here being cultish. Aside from a few wisely verboten topics that overlap with truly cultish domains (we all know what they are) that inevitably swirl down the toilet bowl, this community jacob has fostered is robustly tolerant. As individuals we just have to accept that what is central to our own interests at a particular juncture might not be central to the group at large, as well as the converse.

[ertyu]

For many, there isn't a difference between ere 1 and 2 in the sense that many people aren't like us virulent recluses and already live as part of families and communities. For them the two evolve together. My mind goes to @M as an example, though I'm sure he's not the only one: he's pursuing ERE and his goals and objectives(ere 1) are necessarily intertwined with his wife's goals and objectives (a large, happy family). They share some modules: children, house, etc. It's probably due to Jacob's personal make-up that ere1 evolved as an individual process -- and because it did, it created the conditions for other people of similar make-up to gravitate towards it

[M]

For many, there isn't a difference between ere 1 and 2 in the sense that many people aren't like us virulent recluses and already live as part of families and communities. For them the two evolve together. My mind goes to @M as an example, though I'm sure he's not the only one: he's pursuing ERE and his goals and objectives(ere 1) are necessarily intertwined with his wife's goals and objectives (a large, happy family). They share some modules: children, house, etc. It's probably due to Jacob's personal make-up that ere1 evolved as an individual process -- and because it did, it created the conditions for other people of similar make-up to gravitate towards it

This is true. I don't see any particular difference outside of new concepts and terminology. I almost wonder if this has arisen partially because @jacob, who like many high iq individuals is easily bored and craves new intellectual stimulation (dopamine flushing ), has gotten bored of ERE 1.0 concepts and isn't sure what the next great endeavor should be.

With a family of six and a seven figure networth, at times I ponder if my lifestyle even qualifies as ERE these days. There was a time when our per person expenses were around $250/person/month, but these days I am just as inclined to do things to save time or improve health or experiment or be more social as I am to save money or be more self sufficient.

Eventually one really understands the idea that literally everything is temporary and changes constantly, even your own mind and cognition and health, and that security is an expensive illusion to maintain. Perhaps I am selfish - but for me ERE was just a way to live a good life with minimal effort or focus on traditional 'work'.

One should see ERE as complimentary to life, not as the purpose of life.

[AxelHeyst]

We've written a ton here lately about ERE 1/2 jargin, MMG, politics, politics, news, how we're mad that someone didn't apologize or say the right thing(!?).... and I think we are missing out on discussing actual real life examples and methods

More real life examples and methods discussions (in addition to the lots of good stuff people already share with slapping it with an ERE2 tag) would be great! We've got at least one thread for that specifically as it relates to ERE2.

I am looking forward to easing off these meta discussions and getting back to more nuts and bolts discussions and actions around living our EREx lives.

[jacob]

Take any specialized interest that is pursued to the point where it attracts enough attention and some will call it a cult or worse at some point. However, the actual definition of what a cult is requires bit more than "a group of people using words I have to look up". Otherwise fan clubs, gyms, or car clubs would also be cults. Indeed, career-employment meets most definitions of a cult.

Part of why some of us are flabbergasted about the pushback is that if one takes a few steps back, ERE1 and ERE2 only look different in kind, not in degree.

To wit,

FIRE (and ERE1)

• Typical jargon used: FI, RE, SWR, 4%-rule, SRR, EMH, ETF, ROI, asset allocation, yield, savings rate,... (add WOG and WL for ERE1)
• Professional verdict: unrealistic, numbers don't make sense (few pros have actually taken the time verify them), reckless without $5M, a possible threat to society if enough FIRE'd, ...
• Public/media verdict: A cult of antisocial techbros and neckbearded bums who live in a van down by the river. You're not meeting your duty to work! Some psychologists consider frugality a mental disease, any comments on that?

ERE2 (and personal development and managament consulting spaces)

• Typical jargon used: NT, SJ, TiNe, AQAL, MHC, MBTI, orange, green, intersubjective, interior, stages, states, vmemes, circling,...
• Professional verdict: patronizing, colonialist, useless pseudoscience, not supported by academic research (yet also used for decades in business and alphabet agencies where results actually matter), ...
• Public/media verdict: A cult of internet astrologers and spacy hippies who have lost contact with the ground and the real world. They need to get out of their head space and spend more time talking to real people.

Something something about not judging others lest one be judged by the same standard. But more precisely, being tolerant of other people's interests and having the self-awareness to see how one's own interests, like FIRE, still looks weird from the normie perspective. I take the observation that some get defensive about [unfamiliar ideas] as a compliment rather than a rejection. If people just ignored these ideas, I'd worry more. First they ignore you, then they fight you, ...

[7Wannabe5]

A cult of antisocial techbros and neckbearded bums who live in a van down by the river.

I think it's somewhat ironic that one of the primary puzzles I was trying to solve by delving into ERE2 theory/terminology was how to talk about ERE1 to the members of my social circle who might best be described as broke-azz artsy Bohemian uber-liberal types without triggering instant allergic reaction to whiff of "antisocial techbros." Almost like I was imagining being the matchmaking matron hostessing a party where some financially secure young folk from this forum might meet some hippie permaculture types and magically mate and morph up to higher Wheaton Level.

Otherwise, when I think about a neighborhood inhabited by a member of this forum in every other house, I immediately go to the fact that on average any household member of this forum is likely to be more normative and more social, so they will likely make contact with each other first, and next thing you know there's a SOs and Adult Children of ERE Forum Members Support Group meeting at Applebee's every Thursday night to bond over shared experiences such as "Refrigiwear suit for your last anniversary present? Me too!!" , "My Mom stored rolled oats she bought at a food auction in a garbage can she found on the curb." , "Mine gave me "The Knowledge: How to Recreate Civilization After The Coming Apocalypse" for Christmas present!"

[M]

Yeah - I mean - I don't completely understand what the big deal is exactly.

People will talk about what they feel like talking about, and many fields have their own terminology. esp. STEM, medical fields, etc. This is not uncommon.

My bigger concern these days is the ongoing existence of the forum in general.

I've been a member of a few forums over the years and have noticed a similar pattern emerge over the years. One pattern I have noticed is when various forum members go in a different direction of the dear leader, and dear leader eventually gets frustrated and simply shuts the whole place down. It takes time, energy, and even some financial resources to run a forum, and there is often a very small return, if anything, outside of the personal satisfaction of helping other people.

Usually I know the end is near when dear leader starts speculating about shutting down at the end of the next year, there are excessive abuse of forum rules, more threads and posts are getting deleted and locked, and some members start sending private messages about their frustrations with dear leader actions, dear leader becomes more and more defensive, etc.

Everyone gets more and more defensive and eventually dear leader is like "eh, fuck it" and locks everything and puts the forum in read only mode.

I'm not saying that will happen here - just saying the forum seems to be following a similar direction these days, and it's slightly concerning.