Meeting, Engaging and Seducing non-ERE Allies: Carrot Vectors

[jacob]

PS: Despite growing up in a rather Green culture, it is difficult for me to channel the collective mindset of being part of something for the sake of being part of something. I went with carrot=(3).

My impression of Danish culture, which is 60% Green and 40% Orange, and its response to ERE is that people are mainly attracted to:

• FIRE or more accurately just the FI part which is technically an Orange regression. Previously it was rather taboo to openly talk about wanting to become a millionaire. Now, this value is increasingly often adopted as protest against the demands of the welfare society. (Cf. Red vs Orange in the US)
• "Back to the land" through simple living which is mainly motivated by Purple values like more time with the family, cooking food from scratch, ... (Note that Blue religion is not really a thing, especially not amongst the trend-setting demographics.) This was the theme of a recent bestseller.
• Doing your part for the environment, especially climate change (like because this is a global problem with worldcentric solutions). This is a Green value (in the SD sense) and people literally identify with this cause in a walk-the-talk way. Conversely, the "form community"-trope is rarely observed. This is likely because it's already the water the fish swim in.

I'm not sure how helpful this is. Danish-Green is in a post-transition state wrt Green whereas the US is in a pre-transition state. Acolytes therefore focus on very different aspects of the green hyperobject. (By implication, I don't think Hanzi is very applicable to the US?!?) This means that Green carrots in the US are different than Green carrots in the Nordic countries.

[7Wannabe5]

Also, this may be me projecting or anti-projecting my shadow, but I think "Fe" is very important to Green.

Well, for somebody like me with a tertiary Fe, it's mostly just about the hugs and the cookies. Fe is just warmth some humans and human groups exude like squid ink. I like to have some other people in my life who exude Fe*, but I also enjoy the company of "cool" people.

I would also note that Ti (which comes along for the ride with Fe) asks "Does this make sense? (inclusive of context)" while Fi asks "Does this match my ideal? (exclusive of context)." So, on some level, or for some people at Green, it's less about "anyone with a pulse" social inclusivity and more about intellectual rejection of rigid ideals (which only smells like moral relativity from perspective of Blue/Orange.)

[7Wannabe5]

Shame is the social equivalent of debt.

The point I was trying to make with my series of alliterations is that "debt" is also a social construct associated with shame/guilt*. And humans at Orange are as concerned that the economy will collapse if nobody honors their debts as they are that it will collapse if everybody limits consumption.

Economists call the risk that debts won’t be taken seriously “moral hazard,” a phrase that, tellingly, appears in Debt only once, dismissively. Graeber thought moral reasoning had no place in discussions about extending credit. If debt is today associated with “an abiding sense of guilt, and guilt to self-loathing, and self-loathing to torture,” Graeber argued, that’s only because the world’s great religions derived their moral and spiritual teachings, at least in part, from preexisting financial practices. Jesus Christ is called the “redeemer,” Graeber noted, and “redeem” means “to acquire something by paying off a debt.” Therefore, “the very core of the Christian message, salvation itself, the sacrifice of God’s own son to rescue humanity from eternal damnation” was “framed in the language of a financial transaction,” he wrote.

- review of "Debt" by David Graeber

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/ ... eur-447090

I might argue that the dual nature of money as both extension of debt script/notation* and means by which to facilitate barter/trade ergo production/consumption might need to be rendered more explicit at Yellow. For instance, wouldn't some kid living in a shanty next to a scrap heap, be born-in-debt (the "sin" of Level Orange) relative to kid born in upper-middle-class U.S. household?

[chenda]

I'm surprised there are not more Christians actively working to eradicate debt based financial instruments. Islamic banking provides us with a workable alternative.

[jacob]

@chenda - People are at different stages wrt to "the invisible hand", which Adam Smith noted would only work well on an ethical foundation of doing the right thing. Thou shalt not screw over thy neighbor despite the whole thing about arms-length transactions. This part is, not surprisingly, long forgotten but it made sense in the century when the idea was introduced.

FWIW, Islamic banking also found a workaround to the usury ban. Lend using a depreciating asset while demanding payment in a non-depreciating asset. It's the modern equivalent of a currency swap that doesn't break the rules of traditionalism. Islamic banking works well but it's more due to Islamic bankers following the traditional approach to establishing a very strong relationship to those they invest in. Whereas the modernist approach is to hand off relationships to statistics (you don't need to know anyone as long as you diversify). Conversely, a Christian faction flipped the game and found a solution of the (1)-kind. Prosperity gospel and Calvinism is basically the solution for Blue->Orange: Those who succeed under the new values are simultaneously blessed under the old values. It's a clever argument. It's likely that all transitions need some leniency for the letter of the value-methods (e.g. law) vs the spirit of the value-methods.

[7Wannabe5]

I'm not arguing in favor of abolition of debt-based financial instruments even though Graeber's anthropology tightly links them to human bondage. Humans would very quickly re-invent them on the black market.

I'm just mulling a bit about how different aspects of Orange and Green, etc. can be integrated into different models at Yellow. For instance, limiting individual consumption to world population/world resources (inclusive of waste sinks) is one "fair" or ethical way to accommodate 21st century existential threats, but what are some others? The jolly liberal-anarchist in me thinks that no boundaries to immigration would be a solution that is better in alignment with "the invisible hand." Of course, this might just be reflective of my take that it is much more "fun" (congruent with optimism) to live in a low-income locale with hordes of immigrant kids swarming in than a low-income locale of kids left behind post-collapse.

[Jin+Guice]

I don't think SD is going to get me where I want to go. It feels more political or cultural than one-on-one social. Perhaps that's just my personal style speaking.

The discussion did get me thinking though... I'm talking garden variety salesmanship or persuasion. The two golden tickets of this world are knowing what someone wants and having solutions to their problems*.

*I think this is what is being described with the SD model, it just labels too broadly. For example, what does the person I'm talking to who I've identified as Orange who is motivated by (2) associate with life, liberty and happiness? I like a theoretical model, but I'm an eNTP not an INTJ... so if I understand myself and that model correctly, I like to be a bit more reactive and detail oriented rather than modeling everything and plugging people into my model. Models can help me get there though.


I think the solution is actually in freedom-to and not freedom-from. Joe Whoever is generally not going to be motivated by not working and/or saving even if they say that they are. If I truly believe they are, I could suggest MMM or the ERE blog or book depending on which I thought would appeal to them most.

As I said above I think most if not all people would benefit from spending more efficiently and consuming less. If these are the beliefs promoting because I believe they will benefit everyone, then I need to figure out specifically how it benefits whoever I'm talking to, like Joe Consumer example in the previous post (where the consumer benefits by becoming a better consumer, even though they consume less).

[7Wannabe5]

@Jin+Guice:

I think that once you are able to hold the perspective that Free Will better approximates a political ideology than an aspect of reality (neurons don't work that way), as an eNTP (the hormonal experience profile most likely to declare that the Emperor wears no clothes), your field altering response or persuasive approach to those who currently hold "Capitalism is Evil" may become "Capitalism is Silly." Then it simply becomes a matter akin to, for instance, interacting with the remnants of the monarchy in Europe.

[jacob]

*I think this is what is being described with the SD model, it just labels too broadly. For example, what does the person I'm talking to who I've identified as Orange who is motivated by (2) associate with life, liberty and happiness? I like a theoretical model, but I'm an eNTP not an INTJ... so if I understand myself and that model correctly, I like to be a bit more reactive and detail oriented rather than modeling everything and plugging people into my model. Models can help me get there though.

I tend to model broadly to capture the differences in the entire space lest I inaccurately presume that everybody wants the same things (like me). The Orange trap is [lifelong] debt and helplessness from specialization. The carrot is freedom-from work you don't like (the FI part) by joining the capitalist class. The freedom-to carrot within Orange is RE modeled on typical retirement behavior: permatravel, volunteering, playing golf, eating out(*). In other words, being rich enough to buy everything you reasonably want. It is having a stash big enough to both not work and buy the American Dream. Also see fatFIRE.

(*) Since no community is formed (green) and no skills are learned (yellow), this leaves consumer recreation.

To sell ERE to an Orange person, one needs to argue that frugality either speeds up the process significantly, alternatively makes it possible on a median salary instead of the typical 2-4x median salaries in the FIRE community. Insofar the person has no ambitions beyond consumerism, ERE is a difficult sell as the majority will easily choose to work 10-15 years longer to afford better stuff. Note how the original ERE concepts/goals have been materially diluted as FIRE became popular.

[7Wannabe5]

The carrot is freedom-from work you don't like (the FI part) by joining the capitalist class.

At Green, this would first require radical-acceptance that this is the power structure in which you dwell. You will not achieve financial independence by joining a We Are the 99% protest on Wall Street. What I have observed in myself is that my perspective when I made my living as a solopreneur was significantly more Libertarian than it is now that I primarily make my living teaching disadvantaged kids unlikely to prosper in meritocracy. Therefore, I would suggest that the opposite process might serve. For example, the process/practice of finding stuff in dumpsters and reselling it through some app for money might serve as gateway drug to investing in the stock market.

[jacob]

For example, the process/practice of finding stuff in dumpsters and reselling it through some app for money might serve as gateway drug to investing in the stock market.

More likely whatever money is there will be sent (and often lost) to micro-lending to women business owners in Ecuador, African tree farms, community-living shares, windmill combines, and such.

"Investing" implies making a return from other people working (the part about putting capital at risk gets ignored) and that is anathema. The perspective is more of a caring for others (whether it's the poor or the trees). It's a kind of charity, but it is not seen as such. Rather it's an "we're all in this together" and "since I have the privilege of having money, I'm obligated to support those who don't in whichever way I can. Yeah, I should convert my 401k to solar bonds already ..."

Lots of sad stories abound with people losing their retirement savings this way ...

I think the ERE argument would be that multi-skilled integration is more more helpful than simply "writing checks for the unprivileged members of the circle" (typical welfare-thinking). The multi-competent renaissance approach does not just pretend that everybody is equal. It's actually a way to make it so that every member can contribute more than just their heartbeat.

I'd note that the greatest point of friction and contention I experience with Green is in terms of personal agency. Green will often insist that agency is a matter of privilege and that nothing can or should even be done unless it's done together with others. (These are two separate problems.) ERE as I presented it is practically and theoretically the exact opposite since it's designed around the idea that an individual can make the effort to escape the cave on their own. This is very different than leaving Plato's Cave as a team. There's a proverb that often comes up in these discussions: "If you want to go fast, you go alone. If you want to go far, you go together". The takeaway depends on scale. For example, from my perspective, those who want to go together rarely seem to get out of the starting hole.

TL;DR - A carrot for Green is akin to the EREfest's workshops. People getting together and learning together. This is very appealing. Green tends not to be inspired by a "here's something you could quickly and easily do yourself". Green will not move very far unless it's in the company of others.

[jacob]

It feels more political or cultural than one-on-one social.

This reminds me of a spat I had ...

1: "I don't work with cultural theories, I work with people", they said.
2: "I don't work with individuals. I work with movements", said I.

There's a difference in strategy whether one is communicating to an audience of hundreds, thousands, or hundreds of thousands at a time (e.g. internet or media) ... or communicating with a single person or a handful of people (e.g. zoom, friends, or club). We must be careful not to extrapolate small-group experience to the big-group... or vice versa. This happens a lot. Hasty generalization vs lazy induction.

[Jin+Guice]

The freedom-to carrot within Orange is RE modeled on typical retirement behavior: permatravel, volunteering, playing golf, eating out(*). In other words, being rich enough to buy everything you reasonably want. It is having a stash big enough to both not work and buy the American Dream.

I don't think that this is THE Orange carrot though. It's a very clever and appealing Orange carrot. I think maybe you feel like Orange is a solved problem where as I don't? If it was THE Orange carrot it should be relatively easy to explain to a majority of people in the U.S. and they should accept it, as most U.S. people are Orange?

I also have trouble not seeing people as self-serving in most capacities. Maybe I'm also just a more warm color than cold color temperament person, or maybe I'm just very American.

So where as your interest may have shifted to Green for the reason above and your focus on persuading large groups (as highlighted in your second quote), I am currently interested in finding more Orange carrots.

So I am looking for is appealing to other people through their self-interest, because in the day to day people I encounter, a straight forward explanation of ERE (salespitch FIRE) is not enticing enough to overcome consumerism in all of its varied, pernicious and sneaky forms.


I see the problem being that consumerism is the water in which we swim, but also as a massive diversion from reality. People have problems that are either not solved by consumerism or caused by consumerism, but they keep trying to consume more to solve them. The ERE book even contains a section on how to consume better (by buying quality, but also being able to assess level of quality needed)!

ERE as post-consumer praxis then removes the blinders we have on. We see the problem as consumerism rather than arguing over how we could individually and collectively best organize ourselves to spend most of our time producing consumer goods and the rest of the time consuming them.

FIRE is appealing to a lot of people, but still only a small percentage of Orange people. Thus it is both very successful, but not successful enough.

ERE faces the added problem of convincing FIRE people to move beyond consumerism (WL5/6 moat), since FIRE is kind of post-consumer praxis-ultra-light. The tools to question consumerism are RIGHT THERE, but FIRE still maxes out at WL5, where specialized-production/ consumerism is optimized.

There's a difference in strategy whether one is communicating to an audience of hundreds, thousands, or hundreds of thousands at a time (e.g. internet or media) ... or communicating with a single person or a handful of people (e.g. zoom, friends, or club). We must be careful not to extrapolate small-group experience to the big-group... or vice versa. This happens a lot. Hasty generalization vs lazy induction.

Yes this too. In this thread and at this moment I am looking for ways to convince individuals I interact with to adopt some version of the post-consumer-praxis. Pretty much none of them are interested in FIRE, if they have heard of it as the movement, or the idea of financial independence/ early retirement if they have not. Predictably, they reject it outright if I present it in a straight forward manner, and then be complain about a problem FIRE/ ERE would resolve less than 5 minutes later. It is this discrepancy/ conflict that I am hoping to exploit, but the tactic of shouting BUT YOU ARE BEING SELF-MOTIVATED AND ERE SOLVES ORANGE-LEVEL CONSUMER PROBLEMS seems unlikely to work.

I agree the tactics and strategies used to solve this problem at the individual/ social level are going to be different than solving them at the cultural/ group/ movement level. I understand the import and interest of doing it at that level, but that is not the level I currently operate on. I applaud efforts to operate at this level!

I thought that the social/ individual level would be relevant to ERE2 as ERE2 is currently defined as >1 ERE individual getting together to see what emerges. I figured, if we were interested, we could do this at the individual level if we could convince 1 or more people of ERE values, even if that convincing is sold through a carrot vector other than FIRE.

[jennypenny]

Not trying to be snarky here, serious question ...

At the beginning of the thread (which was started after an ERE2 discussion in another thread), I got the impression that the point of this thread was to discuss carrots to entice non-ERE people to form workable ERE2 groups with EREs. It was discussed that there just aren't enough EREs out there to form groups; furthermore, that a group composed solely of EREs might not function that well. There was talk of ERE-adjacent people who could grok ERE enough for joint ventures but not necessarily adopt it wholesale.

Now the conversation seems to have reverted back to a discussion of what carrots would entice people to ERE ... which is different?? We've had that conversation before (although not through the SD lens). I thought this was more a way to find like-minded souls who aren't necessarily ERE-focused. Did I misunderstand ?

---

I thought the conversation would lean into finding the right kinds of groups where people wouldn't automatically bristle at the idea of ERE (not developing ERE sales pitches geared at different colors). Personally, I always find it's easiest to explain the concept to people who've already stepped out of some specific version of plato's cave, whether financial, work related, school related, consumer related, religion related, etc. They understand the idea of system-caves and know they possess the agency needed to break free from them. They also get why someone would want to.

I guess I'm not thinking of carrots, more like signals ... like in my world, someone who's read Free Range Kids would seem like a good candidate. Off the top of my head, ditto books like The Way Home, Vandwelling, Shop Class as Soulcraft, Tribe, Animal Vegetable Miracle, etc.

Maybe I'm just not understanding where you're trying to go with this? I don't feel the need to convert people. I'm happy to find ERE-adjacent people who can grok ERE enough to realize I'm not a crazy person. I can work with that.

[7Wannabe5]

I'd note that the greatest point of friction and contention I experience with Green is in terms of personal agency. Green will often insist that agency is a matter of privilege and that nothing can or should even be done unless it's done together with others.

Well, since Free Will (mythical internal locus of control)does not exist, it can't be the case that the privileged have more of it than the disadvantaged. It could be that the privileged tend towards believing they have more of it (like God's Grace in alternative perspective) than the disadvantaged. Dunno, but I would hazard that the evidence is not in perfect alignment with that dichotomy.

Anyways, never mind me, I am currently integrating Robert Sapolsky's new strong argument akin to Free Will is Dead! which was presented on Nate Hagens You Tube channel. But likely should be topic for another thread after his new book "Determined" is released on the 17th.

like in my world, someone who's read Free Range Kids would seem like a good candidate. Off the top of my head, ditto books like The Way Home, Vandwelling, Shop Class as Soulcraft, Tribe, Animal Vegetable Miracle, etc.

I agree. However, I must admit that if push came to shove and I had to choose between the top 5% of book readers vs. the top 5% of frugal folk for my community of choice, absent overlap, I would probably choose the book readers.

[Jin+Guice]

@jp: I'm looking for salespitches for individuals that I know personally. I'm not interested in taking someone who has no interest in ERE type activities and "converting" them to ERE. I'm not necessarily trying to convert anyone wholesale, just pick the parts of the ERE cannon that I think could genuinely help them and figure out how to pitch those aspects to them. Because as it stands right now, I mostly hide those aspects from people or make self-effacing jokes so people don't ask me abut them.

In my mind ERE is broad. It's not just about frugality. It's about getting out of Plato's Cave of Consumerism. I think there is something in this for everyone. One doesn't necessarily need to be frugal in the cheap sense of the word, but only frugal in the not-wasting-resources-for-no-reason sense of the word.

At the beginning of the thread (which was started after an ERE2 discussion in another thread), I got the impression that the point of this thread was to discuss carrots to entice non-ERE people to form workable ERE2 groups with EREs. It was discussed that there just aren't enough EREs out there to form groups; furthermore, that a group composed solely of EREs might not function that well. There was talk of ERE-adjacent people who could grok ERE enough for joint ventures but not necessarily adopt it wholesale.

I am also still interested in this.

[AxelHeyst]

Me as well. I just signed up for a workaway under a host who looks *very* EREadjacent. I have no intention of attempting to 'convert' him or even pitch ERE stuff, he's got his own good thing going on and doesn't need to hear me ramble about WoGs. I hope to learn from him and possibly establish a relationship that lasts longer than the term of my stay.

[7Wannabe5]

I decided to do a survey of the motivational posters hanging in the staff women's bathroom at my Blue/Green place of part-time employment in order to determine the extent to which my philosophy is in alignment with their Truth.

1) "You are beautiful. You are strong. You are worthy." -Debatable.

2) "We rise by lifting others." - Yes and No. Too vague. Might be part of a more complex system model.

3) "If you can choose to be anything, choose to be kind." - This one I like. The hypothesis may be read as directly challenging the Level Orange mythos of Free Will towards Progress, and the conclusion brings forward the Level Green value statement. Engaging in acts of kindness temporarily raises levels of oxytocin, dopamine, serotonin, and substance P (reduces feelings of pain.) It is highly likely that some humans, for reasons having to do with innate wiring, personal experiences, and acculturation are more or less likely to experience "helper's high."

But the PFC (prefrontal cortex)/limbic relationship can be bottom up as well, when a decision involves a gut feeling. This is the backbone of Damasio's somatic marker hypothesis. Choosing among options can involve a cerebral cost-benefit analysis. But it also involves "somatic markers", internal simulations of what each outcome would feel like, run in the limbic system and reported to the vmPFC. The process is not a thought experiment; it's an emotion experiment, in effect an emotional memory of a possible future.

- "Behave"- Sapolsky

...to be continued...

[jacob]

It is highly likely that some humans, for reasons having to do with innate wiring, personal experiences, and acculturation are more or less likely to experience "helper's high."

Less here. If it wasn't for having experienced this once (and I really mean just once), I would be inclined to believe that HH wasn't even a real thing. (In terms of all the enneagrams, I score the lowest on 2.)

However, I think it is very worthwhile to focus on a particular individual's neurochemistry when trying to figure out which parts or shape of ERE (if any) that speaks to them; alternatively, which types of people to seek out for the current shape of ERE.

[7Wannabe5]

Less here. If it wasn't for having experienced this once (and I really mean just once), I would be inclined to believe that HH wasn't even a real thing. (In terms of all the enneagrams, I score the lowest on 2.)

Yes, I grok this now. Based on my reading thus far, it is likely that INTJs have much higher than average dlPFC processing ability, but lower than average vmPFC processing ability and/or lower than average oxytocin levels. This perhaps corresponds to Fe being in near last position. This is roughly analogous to my experience of sports. I am likely lacking the testosterone receptors (and/or testosterone receptor training) that produce a feeling of joy and excitement when a moving object is directed to a target. So, this entire realm of human activity seems pointless to me. It might also correspond to Se being in dead last postion for an eNTP, but given that testosterone is clearly implicated in visual processing of moving objects, likely doesn't apply to male ENTPs or even female ENTPs more acculturated towards sports.

Anyways, prior to my recently achieved level of grokking the INTJ take on "helping", one of my semi-conscious confusions about ERE, or really just the FI component, was that it seemed kind of "babyish" to me to want to completely cover your own ass into the future prior to going sideways to help other people. This is likely because I am more balanced in my vmPFC/dlPFC processing than the typical INTJ, so I was projecting a running of the future scenarios on an emotional basis as well as a purely rational basis. IOW, extremely conservative financial behavior in my mind corresponds somewhat to "Poor thing, she must constantly be feeling high anxiety due to irrational ruminations on future as bag lady." In fact, I presumed that focusing on the brief period in his 20s during which he was unemployed and chose to eat out of a dumpster (rather than swallow his pride and return to family farm) was strong motivator towards acquiring extremely large fortune for my XNTJ mega-millionaire friend.

Another important revelation from Sapolsky was that although oxytocin* increases tendency towards benevolent generousity to one's "in group", it can also have the direct opposite effect on behavior towards one's "out group." At a simplistic level this can be seen in the behavior of a mother bear. In humans, (but not bears-male bears are loners), the bond created through oxytocin has been weakly genetically extended to pair-bonding and kin-bonding. Acculturation influences how large/inclusive kin-group may be imagined. Thus, on some level, the "kind" or morally idealistic notion that dumping rights should fairly/effectively be limited to 1 ecoJacob per capita might be a more difficult sell to some of those more awash/addicted to oxytocin high.

*I knew this was true of vasopressin in terms of harem protection by males. I will admit that I have used this knowledge to some advantage in my lifestyle design. It might be interesting to determine whether relative levels of vasopressin vs oxytocin correspond to the tendency towards preferring childless marriage observed in male INTJs.