ERE City (US)

[jacob]

Well, I think there's a missing piece there in number 2 @jacob. And that's also creating the "muddling space", which is where people of said community can just show up and hang out together, work on stuff, etc.

100% agree. This would be pretty easy to scale such a muddling space though. It can start unofficially in someone's garage much like a garage gym. There could even be several such garages. One is a gym. One is a car shop. One is a woodworking shop. And so on ... probably according to the interest of the owner. Then meets are just scheduled to avoid overlaps. Once that garage or garages run out of space, maybe start thinking about making it official. I think one distinct difference between ERE and the more spendy-side of the FIRE-sphere is how EREmites might easily decide that it shouldn't have to cost $30/month for something they could do at home. There are certainly business-space for rent close by, but I'd be very careful about buying one before it's absolutely necessary for the reasons above.

[AxelHeyst]

I think @AH is also interested in building something similar where he is? I would also be interested in being involved with that and possibly owning/ having some sort of arrangement with a place to sleep out there (though honestly could be a tent). My concern with his place is that it's very remote (perfect for my proclivities for a small part of the year, but not perfect for me long-term), so there'd be no cultural/ social events outside the group and also a lack of women outside the group. Possible I won't care about one or both depending on my age?

Due to how remote from civilization QH is I'm not optimistic that many people will be interested in anything more than a seasonal relationship. Heck, I still have a seasonal relationship with QH. So my current ambition is to make QH a great place for people to come seasonally. It's remote from civ in terms of normal amenities like grocery stores, other people, and culture, but only a couple hours from an enormous amount of things (it's in the High Sierras, 3hrs>LA, 6hrs>SF, 5hrs>LV, etc). I've said before I really like the idea of Boyle's Happy Pig free hostel. With just a little more infrastructure QH could be a 'drop in anytime, no need to call ahead' type of place for ERErs. It could be the west coast ERE mountain refuge. Barring unforeseen circumstances, this will be a full reality in 2-3 years.

I do toy with the idea of taking over the neighborhood. Most of the neighbors are old. Thinking long term, in 20+ years this cluster could be an interesting ERE/adjacent rural collective with an optional community core, that grows most of its own food, operates a community general store, etc. Depending on how climate and society goes, this idea could begin to make more and more or less and less sense.

[7Wannabe5]

If they want to leave the area, all they have to do is put up their house for sale or terminate their lease. They don't have to find someone to buy them out of the collective. This strategy is vastly more flexible.

That's why I suggested a co-operative (as opposed to collective) with a buy-in of only $4000. Obviously, getting 60 humans to buy-in would be more than a bit problematic, but $4000 is a micro-investment even at ERE scale. Also, the maintenance on an old off-grid cabin on very rural wooded acreage is practically non-existent and the property taxes would also be miniscule on per capita basis. Having multiple sites around the globe where ERE folk could meet-up/hang-out for a month or two per year, while doing whatever they want to do wherever they want to do it otherwise, would actually be more flexible and resilient than trying to get a large group to put down primary footprint in any particular area.

IOW, my proposal is more like assuming that everybody already has a primary partner (or an ever-changing collection of casual partners) which they are not eager to leave, but very attractive, highly affordable, long-term secondary partner(s) could be made available through the polyamorous network. The fact that the property(s) would be held long-term by the group would allow for development of projects such as permaculture plantings or lumber mill or virtual gaming hell, but the fact that nobody is stuck living there all the time could also be attractive to those who prefer a more nomadic existence generally. Thus, such a property/project could simultaneously serve as a home-base for highly nomadic-types and travel-recreational site for primarily otherwise/where bound homebodies.

[loutfard]

I think one distinct difference between ERE and the more spendy-side of the FIRE-sphere is how EREmites might easily decide that it shouldn't have to cost $30/month for something they could do at home. There are certainly business-space for rent close by, but I'd be very careful about buying one before it's absolutely necessary for the reasons above.

Some financially ERE people might easily see a regular payment/membership fee as a donation or an investment. For this group, bootstrapping an ERE community/ERE 2.0 or proselytising the ERE lifestyle towards a broader audience might be its own reward. Even more so combined with practical advantages provided.

Not me yet though. My priorities in this regard are getting the further down the ERE parth together with my wife, and investing time instead of money into visibility for the ERE concept.

This conversation made me look into low cost or free physical meeting spaces around where I live. The free one I have available through social capital will soon be renovated and unavailable for some time. Turns out that I can rent a super nice large meeting room in a marvelous medieval building from my local government. Almost on my doorstep and including internet, a large screen and more for 3.3€/hour. The eco fair trade juice is extra though and costs 3€/l.

[loutfard]

That's why I suggested a co-operative (as opposed to collective) with a buy-in of only $4000. Obviously, getting 60 humans to buy-in would be more than a bit problematic, but $4000 is a micro-investment even at ERE scale. Also, the maintenance on an old off-grid cabin on very rural wooded acreage is practically non-existent and the property taxes would also be miniscule on per capita basis. Having multiple sites around the globe where ERE folk could meet-up/hang-out for a month or two per year, while doing whatever they want to do wherever they want to do it otherwise, would actually be more flexible and resilient than trying to get a large group to put down primary footprint in any particular area.

So offering trusted EREmites places to stay on a membership basis. You are looking at a fairly centrally-managed scenario.

What about more of a confederation model? Keeping the real estate ownership in local hands makes things so much simpler and cheaper. Only an incremental step up from exchanging messages on this forum. AxelHeyst has a place to offer to EREmites for so and so many people from date x to date y. Same goes for my wife and me.

The confederation just acts as a gatekeeper to keep bad apples out of the booking system. If done right, the added value would be in increasing interaction between EREmites or those exploring it.

[Jin+Guice]

@jacob:

My friend does keep a bit of an iron-fisted grip on his space. He is also not an EREer and, while he is a dedicated experimenter with alternative lifestyles and forms of trade, he will readily admit that the space would not function without outside infusions of cash.

Rather than adopting his model completely, I think it is useful to study because he is very close to what I think some of us may be interested in doing, without even trying to accomplish hour shared goal.

The garden is in an urban setting (very close together "small" single family homes comprise the majority of New Orleans, as is common in many southern cities). His total landholding are vacant (when he bought them) properties as well as a traditional house a few doors down. He's working on getting friends to buy on his block (one friend already bought in the neighborhood, but not close enough for what we intend) as well as buying or convincing friends to buy two more vacant lots on the block.

As with my friend, what I think mostly holds us back is the combined difficult legality and lack social customs around shared ownership and the dubious legal standing of tiny homes. I was attempting to buy part of one of my friend's property and though it feel through for other reasons, both of us were also hesitating due to the legal difficulties of detachment, should any argument arise.

As proposed, a possible solution is to have a single owner and controller who sets up a hostel of sorts (a la Mark Boyle).

There are other solutions I'm sure. I have two friends who purchased homes without banks on "bond for deed" deals where they will pay back a wealthy friend for substantially less interest and in some substantially less time than a bank. Legal difficulties are an obstacle, but I don't think they are irremovable.


At any rate, I don't think enough of us are actually interested in setting up a tiny home village at this point. I would certainly buy into 1 or more $4,000 ERE tiny home villages given the correct timing or location (or possibly just bc I like the idea, bc even though I am a very-lean-not-even-FI-ERE, $4,000 is an amount of money I can afford to gamble with/ spend a few times over).

[7Wannabe5]

centrally-managed scenario.

Shudder. Forget about what I wrote above, I was chugging too much daytime formula cold medicine. I agree that a model more like that of Ton Society in the Regency Era might work best. Chicago can be like London, where everybody centrally gathers for The Season, but everybody will also likely have estates further afield where they may host long-term guests, lavish events(I wonder what the ERE equivalent of a Ball would be?), or shorter-term house parties.

[jacob]

Some financially ERE people might easily see a regular payment/membership fee as a donation or an investment. For this group, bootstrapping an ERE community/ERE 2.0 or proselytising the ERE lifestyle towards a broader audience might be its own reward. Even more so combined with practical advantages provided.

Not me yet though. My priorities in this regard are getting the further down the ERE parth together with my wife, and investing time instead of money into visibility for the ERE concept.

Most EREmites are like you (and me) [by construction] and will not pay for anything that they figure could be done with time and effort instead of money. Indeed, if there was such an EREHQ at $20/month, it wouldn't take very long before some members figured they might as well save the $20 by meeting somewhere else free. Joint investments for the common good are nearly anathema here. Hence the garage suggestion.

Our crowd is unusual in that you can count on a material number of people having above average competence and the willingness to spend above average time and give above average effort. However, money is strictly hoarded! IOW, the values and habits learned for ERE1 extends to ERE2.

I'm somewhat familiar with the economic workings of the Deep Adaptation site(s) as they were a few years ago. I think DA is pretty representative of how such organizations are normally run. Compared to the ERE "organization", I estimate about the same level of participation although ERE is mostly forum, some zoom meetings, and dead facebook, whereas DA is mostly facebook, more zoom meetings, and dead forum. The ERE operations cost about $1,000/year. The DA operations struggle on $70,000/year!! Two things are shocking here 1) The 70x difference. (ERE is a very lean operation. DA is more like the typical non-profit.) 2) That a roughly similarly sized DA crowd is willing to donate $70,000... YEARLY. I'm pretty sure that if I set up a donation site, I'd be surprised to get even close to $700 in cash(*).

(*) Tried the donation thing back in the blogging days. I can probably dig up an exact number, but IIRC, it was around $200 total with half of that coming from one person.

In conclusion, I strongly recommend that anything done together is run similarly to how we do things individually.

[ffj]

@jacob

All of the forces that make a person an "ERE" person negate an ERE city in my opinion. Maybe if you were a cult leader you could get everybody to come together but trying to arbitrage another lean ERE-minded person will never work. If one wants an intentional community then you will have to pay for it in some fashion, either through money or work volunteered or both. And if your core value is "freedom from" then why would you do such a thing as tying yourself up?

I think the solution is what is happening: different forum members offering up their locations for get-togethers. They host and in return they get to hang out with interesting people. Seems like establishing an ERE Trail would be the way to go around the world. It would make for an interesting travel schedule and keep the doors revolving. Thoughts?

[7Wannabe5]

The ERE operations cost about $1,000/year. The DA operations struggle on $70,000/year!! Two things are shocking here 1) The 70x difference. (ERE is a very lean operation. DA is more like the typical non-profit.) 2) That a roughly similarly sized DA crowd is willing to donate $70,000... YEARLY. I'm pretty sure that if I set up a donation site, I'd be surprised to get even close to $700 in cash(*).

Do you think this might be in part due to the DA crowd being on average older and more towards Level Green, so inherently wealthier and/or derived from a more affluent/older-money background? IOW, they are more towards the Schlegel family in "Howard's End" whereas ERE forum is more towards the Wilcox family in "Howard's End"?

However, money is strictly hoarded!

It's not hoarded. It's invested elsewhere or with others (Elon, Jeff, Satya, Jamie...) rather than in-group or own independent business undertaking. From my (quite possibly cuckoo-bananas) perspective, this is what constitutes the long oxygen hose running back to The Cave/Orange CaveMen. Of course, it is also true that it would be very difficult to create a Tribe/Squad Wealth or Solo-preneur project that didn't also run hose(s) back to The Cave or Orange CaveMen.

[AxelHeyst]

Thoughts?

I like it. I also like the idea of an ERE caravan/road trip. I can't remember if I posted this on the forum or not, but a 'project' I want to work on in a year or two is a multiple-month's-long ERE caravan that connects dots between host sites. These sites could be forumite's actual places (like mine) or public land that a nearby forumite helps coordinate ("these coordinates are a good spot"). People could join and leave as they like. It could me multiple modes: vans, bikepackers, hitchhikers...

A potential side effect is that one or multiple locations could become local attractors. Someone in the caravan falls in love with location X and winds up moving there postFI, and now it's a nucleus.

[ffj]

@Axel

I would offer my place but my wife doesn't care for the idea. She is much more distrustful than me, haha. But I've got skills I would share gladly, or we could at least shoot the shit out of something. I still live in a free State where everybody has a gun. But it's a no-go from the wife so I will place all the blame on her, haha.

All kidding aside, I think the Trail is the way to go and you've created a wonderful start or continuation depending on how you look at it. Herding cats would be easier than getting a bunch of free-spirits together permanently but a circuit with freedoms? Now we're talking.

[7Wannabe5]

multiple-month's-long ERE caravan

What fun! I would definitely be interested in participating/contributing if I can ever manage get my health back on track.

[AxelHeyst]

New thread for The Trail.

@ffj for what it's worth I don't know anyone in my neck of the PRK who doesn't have a pile of them. Don't believe everything you read about us.

[jacob]

All of the forces that make a person an "ERE" person negate an ERE city in my opinion. Maybe if you were a cult leader you could get everybody to come together but trying to arbitrage another lean ERE-minded person will never work. If one wants an intentional community then you will have to pay for it in some fashion, either through money or work volunteered or both. And if your core value is "freedom from" then why would you do such a thing as tying yourself up?

As for me (and I think the typical ERE person) buying something together, co-living, or getting involved in any kind of effort that involves agreement/consensus on something "we all do together" would be a hard pass. This is why I'm in favor of ERE city where we simply just increase the density of EREmites in order to increase freedom-to do things together if you want-to while retaining freedom-from having-to. You would not be tied up anymore than you would be tied up by living anywhere else.

I think the solution is what is happening: different forum members offering up their locations for get-togethers. They host and in return they get to hang out with interesting people. Seems like establishing an ERE Trail would be the way to go around the world. It would make for an interesting travel schedule and keep the doors revolving. Thoughts?

That works well for visiting and meeting people one on one, especially for the nomads. However, travel is hard to coordinate for more people and so meetups larger than 2-3 are unlikely to be very frequent. Since the cost of travel is so high, there is only room in the schedule for perhaps one such meetup each a year. Going to one big meetup means burning up the travel/vacation schedule and so not going to the other big meetup.

Do you think this might be in part due to the DA crowd being on average older and more towards Level Green, so inherently wealthier and/or derived from a more affluent/older-money background? IOW, they are more towards the Schlegel family in "Howard's End" whereas ERE forum is more towards the Wilcox family in "Howard's End"?

I don't know the Howard's End references (In general, I don't mentally pattern-match to specific fictional characters.). I think it's more that the ERE crowd is super-frugal even compared to those who consider themselves frugal, like the rest of the FIRE movement for example. We're talking people who wait 6 months to get a book from the library than pay $10 to read it now, whereas the typical person would rather pay $300 for an event with a Ted-like talk on the book so they don't have to read it.

It's not hoarded. It's invested elsewhere or with others (Elon, Jeff, Satya, Jamie...) rather than in-group or own independent business undertaking. From my (quite possibly cuckoo-bananas) perspective, this is what constitutes the long oxygen hose running back to The Cave/Orange CaveMen. Of course, it is also true that it would be very difficult to create a Tribe/Squad Wealth or Solo-preneur project that didn't also run hose(s) back to The Cave or Orange CaveMen.

Let me rephrase that. The assets remain both fungible at arms-length transactions and under personal control (<- nobody else decides when you can sell) for MAXIMUM independence. This is very different from a venture where your stake becomes nonfungible and locked in by required consensus/agreement. In the latter case, not only do you become dependent on other people in the venture but they also become dependent on you; perhaps in a way that's not very balanced. If stakes are very small, it gets even worse because it gives people the option to write it off. A group that is cheap to enter will certainly develop free-riders who hope to enjoy the benefits w/o having to pay full cost. The math is fundamentally simple. You split your effort between yourself and the team. It may be that putting effort towards the team will increase the size of the pie for everyone. It may also be that putting effort towards the self will increase one's personal piece (not the case if the rules are to split the pie equally, for example). The dynamical game theory originating in this simple math is much more complex though. Secret sauce is whatever gives the preferred maxima under a given vSystem. As you note, the pie-size under the Green-shirted squadwealth or solopreneurs is generally smaller because it is easily "defeated" by Team Orange. This problem becomes much harder when the range of individual pie-making effectiveness increases. Harder still if some members turn out to have net-negative effectiveness.

[ffj]

New thread for The Trail.

@ffj for what it's worth I don't know anyone in my neck of the PRK who doesn't have a pile of them. Don't believe everything you read about us.

Wonderful initiative! That is what I like about you, you make things happen.

Oh I don't. If one were to discount the major cities influence over the state, California would look closer to Kentucky for sure, hillbilly jokes aside.

[Ego]

It is useful to find examples that have worked in the past and replicate.

I like it. I also like the idea of an ERE caravan/road trip.

Escapees RV Club and Vagabundos del Mar Baja Travel Club are two clubs that have done something similar.

I knew the managers of the Vagabundos, Fred and Gloria Jones, quite well back in the late 90s. Back then the club was flourishing. They were a couple with complimentary skills that allowed them ensure the club's success for more than thirty years. They would lead caravans of RVs with boats down to Cabo San Lucas where the Vagabundos owned an RV park. Many club members caravaned down to Cabo in the fall and then caravaned back north in the spring.

Fred was a dynamic guy who had previously run the Game Management division of the Department of Fish & Wildlife for the State of California back in the 80s. He was an expert at striking a balance between fostering a buddy system and discouraging anyone from exploiting it too much.

The club was founded in the late sixties before the road ran the full length of Baja. Most of the early members were rugged individuals who solved problems on their own and were willing to lend a hand to others. As the years passed, the rugged individuals were less inclined to help with the same problems again and again. As a result the Jones's did a lot of hand holding and very basic instruction for newbies. Gloria was very good at that.

The Jones's had retired relatively early. Back then I sought out anyone who had advice about living an adventurous early retirement as we were planning to cut ties with the full-time working world. They were both free with their time whenever they passed through town and we had some wonderful, meandering conversations.

Not sure where I am going with this other than the fact that it would take someone like the Jones's to make this happen and there needs to be a reason, like access to the club RV park in Cabo, for the more experienced hands to stick around.

[7Wannabe5]

We're talking people who wait 6 months to get a book from the library than pay $10 to read it now, whereas the typical person would rather pay $300 for an event with a Ted-like talk on the book so they don't have to read it.

Gotcha. "Howard's End" was published in 1910, so might be one of the first Level Yellow novels. Forster is clearly cognitive/empathetic in terms of the pros/cons of both the lifestyles of the more libera-idealist-minded Artsy-Intellectual-Philanthropic Schlegels and the more conservative-rational-pragmatic-minded Industrious-Industrialist Wilcox family. "Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer."

The assets remain both fungible at arms-length transactions and under personal control (<- nobody else decides when you can sell) for MAXIMUM independence. This is very different from a venture where your stake becomes nonfungible and locked in by required consensus/agreement. In the latter case, not only do you become dependent on other people in the venture but they also become dependent on you; perhaps in a way that's not very balanced.

True, but most/many of the members of this forum do choose to get conventionally married which is an inter-dependent contract that IME reduces Independence about 160X more than being simultaneously engaged in approximately 12 inter-dependent micro-business/real-estate-co-op partnerships. For example, virtually zero-percent likelihood that a micro-enterprise partner will text "Why aren't you home yet? What's for dinner?" or prevent you from participating in multiple-month ERE caravan. OTOH, as one Forumite once noted, the cost of an engagement ring is bargain deal for reducing shelter costs by 50%, so does perhaps makes sense for MAXIMUM Independence UNDER MAXIMUM Resource Conservation.

Secret sauce is whatever gives the preferred maxima under a given vSystem. As you note, the pie-size under the Green-shirted squadwealth or solopreneurs is generally smaller because it is easily "defeated" by Team Orange. This problem becomes much harder when the range of individual pie-making effectiveness increases. Harder still if some members turn out to have net-negative effectiveness.

IME, range of effectiveness is not the primary issue. For instance, a cognitively impaired child who can only contribute by sorting crayons from pencils and a gifted child who needs materials for independent work in a group is far less of a problem than a large clump of not-quite-up-to-or-on-task. Most 4 year olds in a Montessori classroom can make a useful contribution to the group. Could the average 4 year old performing simple tasks be productive enough to pay her "rent" in even a super-frugal ERE co-op housing situation? Unlikely, but somebody has to feed/shelter/teach the 4 year old version of the future 34 year old ERE co-op housing situation member ELSE open loop-> sustainable system fail!!!

[jacob]

Not sure where I am going with this other than the fact that it would take someone like the Jones's to make this happen and there needs to be a reason, like access to the club RV park in Cabo, for the more experienced hands to stick around.

I'm very cognizant of this dynamic. It also applies to the ERE as an "organization". It's essentially this problem: https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths

This is why it's important that the form of "ERE City" (or ERE2) does not depend on a kingpin individual. In my mind this is only possible by keeping it as decentralized as possible. Centralized solutions will die with the kingpin.

The key is to create a scene rather than a club. A scene is a place where people easily and spontaneously come together and try out new ideas. A club is place run for the general public by a kingpin geek and perhaps a merry band of fanatics. For example, the ERE forum is a scene, but the ERE blog is a club.

The ERE forum makes it possible for people to easily and spontaneously come together for geeking out but only in the form of asynchronous writing and only in the function of things we each can go home and do on our own in isolation. (For example, we can talk about a widget that requires metal+woodworking skills, but only those who can do both can do it. The rest can just watch. We're not in a position where a forum woodworker can actually make something with a forum metalworker other than exchange ideas and try to source locally.)

I'm not entirely sure where the MMGs fall on the scale between scene and club. While synchronous and allowing for more than just writing (talking, singing, showing, ...) They're not spontaneous since times have to be arranged by some kingpin. In my experience, if that kingpin stops pushing, the group dies quickly. Maybe other such groups are more resilient, but for the most part, zoom groups are organized by 1 person perhaps with a few others capable of standing in but not willing or capable of keeping the going in the long run.

A blog is definitely a club. There might be some interaction in the comment track between the commentators, but if the blogger stops blogging, the club is pretty much destroyed.

It's not that I'm against clubs. Clubs serve a purpose. But they really are very often the brainchild of one person who is really into it, sometimes running it at a loss. (Think of a privately owned gym.)

However, the only way that ERE City makes sense to me is to create it as a scene / avoid creating it as a not-a-scene.

As such Longmont, CO is a scene. If MMM decided to move to Elbonia, that scene would still be there. If Pete and Carl decided to shut down MMMHQ, the people would still be there and the likely the scene too, no?

OTOH, Boyle, Ireland is a club. If Mark leaves, the club---as far as I know (I've only read the books)---the club is no more. People will no longer come visit.

Of course, scenes don't last forever. But usually they don't die as much as the evolve. And they're much more resilient that clubs.

[AxelHeyst]

Is it fair to say that most scenes follow clubs? Your blog came first. MMM's blog came first. Do we have examples of scenes that formed without a club that first paved the way or created a nucleus?

I'm not suggesting that clubs inevitably will produce scenes. I wonder if there are design guidelines for making clubs that can transform into scenes, and best practices for avoiding clubs that will hinder/make scene creation impossible.