How is the FIRE movement doing?

[guitarplayer]

So, algorithmically designed internet search engines are great equalizers that obscure the picture of what is more and what is less popular or mainstream - flatten the distribution of stuff. At the same time they enable finding those less popular or mainstream ideas, views and so on in the first place. The onus is then on the user to decide how to interact with the content in front of them. Without those decisions, we have an automaton - Conway's Game of Life.

[7Wannabe5]

And just as "follow your passion" wasn't very good advice, I place very little trust in content creators providing thoughts/advice on work-life balance through entrepreneurship, side hustles, or freelancing.

OTOH, in a world where the largest corporations have GDPs greater than the majority of nation-states, I would argue that it is healthy to have some number of individuals out there hustling as entrepreneurs. I think the problem is that most humans tend towards seeking "validation" for whatever they are bringing to the market in alignment with their passion,and everybody is familiar with the myth of the neo-liberal economic-model entrepreneurial shark who is only concerned at the infinitely gradiated margin with making money. If you read interviews/memoirs of actual very successful entrepreneurs, as opposed to many of those whose hustle is selling the hustle, you realize, as with many things, there is more of an intuitive art to the process. IOW, I would say that "entrepreneurship" is rather like "charm" which is the art of getting to "Yes" without even having to ask the question. Dan Savage, in his sex advice column, describes a decent lover as being GG&G; good, giving, and game. A talented entrepreneur is somebody who brings the art or quality of "game" to the market, whereas somebody who is bringing her "passion' to the market is like an ingenue arriving at her first dance and hoping she looks pretty.

Without the "game" juvenile masculine energy of the hustler on the market, we are all doomed to finding ourselves under the thumb of silver-back masculine energy CEO-type Dominants in league with Large-Governmental-Body neutered energy types.

[jacob]

And just as "follow your passion" wasn't very good advice, I place very little trust in content creators providing thoughts/advice on work-life balance through entrepreneurship, side hustles, or freelancing. I'd like to believe there is some level of sincerity in some of their thoughts, but optimizing views and clicks can have a pervasive influence on messaging. Living through YouTube or a podcast can distort reality.

That's the final stage aka the sociopath-stage of https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths which follows the geeks-stage, the fanatics stages, and the MOP-stage. The FIRE-movement arguably hit the MOP-stage around 2017ish.

[oldbeyond]

It’s not too surprising that the movement couldn’t handle the combined weight of it’s own hype, lockdowns/WFH and the recent economic troubles. Influencers/youtubers are mainly selling their own stories. They might peddle wellness or personal development but people really want to be sold someone else’s life. It’s not uncommon for the ponzi factor to be stronger still with prominent players selling youtube courses etc. Not surprising that they push hustling for your dream life instead of “buy VTSAX”.

It’s not just bad luck, though. The movement identified a good process for achieving financial freedom, but what to use it for? “Escaping wage slavery” and “permatravel” seem to have been the most common answers, but the first is purely negative and the second is sort of avoiding the question. Okay, you want to move around, but what do you want to do with your life on the road?

Helping people craft rich and interesting lives is what it’s all about, and that’s very meaningful on a personal level and transformative on a global scale given sufficient adoption. The FIRE-mechanics are only a small part of that and not necessary, even if useful. For some people FIRE will be the missing node that transforms the whole web. For others it’s their biggest obstacle, as they need to drop the spreadsheets and tackle their emotions or spirituality or family life or aesthetics or whatever it is that really stands in their way.

[jennypenny]

Not sure if this article was posted upthread ... ‘I’d rather be caffeinated than depressed with $6’: Young Americans are rejecting Dave Ramsey’s financial advice — here’s why they say they’re ‘not willing to do anything to get out of debt'
“Self-care is extremely important and if that means buying a $6 coffee every day, do it,” Jarrod Benson, a 32-year-old comedian from Orlando, Florida told Business Insider.

“I’d rather be caffeinated than depressed with $6.”

Seems to confirm what some were saying upthread about self-care/mental health being more of a priority for this generation.

[Henry]

“Self-care is extremely important and if that means buying a $6 coffee every day, do it,” Jarrod Benson, a 32-year-old comedian from Orlando, Florida told Business Insider.

He could have been joking.

[jennypenny]

Here is the original Business Insider article ... https://www.businessinsider.com/persona ... day-2024-2

I spoke to my sons' former guidance counselor over the weekend. She echoed the same sentiments. They feel dejected and depressed. They don't feel like they can climb the financial ladder because the ladders are disappearing. What they see is that most people are getting poorer and a handful are getting obscenely rich.

We can rag on them and give bootstrap advice, but if you step back and think about what their life experience has been ... born post 9/11, Great Financial Crisis, Occupy movement, Trump/BLM instability, pandemic and lockdowns ... I get why they aren't fonts of hope. They feel completely disenfranchised. I think they are trying to self-medicate however they can. If they can find work/life balances right now and make it work, I'm not going to shit on them. Those lattes aren't moving the needle on climate change one way or the other.

[grundomatic]

As far as buying lattes go, has anything changed but the reasons people won't stop doing it? I mean, people have been ignoring this advice since I can remember first hearing it. So twenty years ago maybe it was "I deserve this affordable luxury because I work hard", and now it's "This is important for my self-care", but is that really much different? I guess subjectively, it is, but objectively the results are the same: one buys the daily latte (and all the other things that they either "deserve" or "need for self-care"), and then wonders why they can't save any money. I suppose if one is the salesperson for a given lifestyle, it's important to know what the common objections will be from members of different groups (here, generational stereotypes). Also, since this thread is kind of about "keeping up with the times", I thought avocado toast had replaced coffee as the scapegoat in personal finance?

[zbigi]

Here is the original Business Insider article ... https://www.businessinsider.com/persona ... day-2024-2

I spoke to my sons' former guidance counselor over the weekend. She echoed the same sentiments. They feel dejected and depressed. They don't feel like they can climb the financial ladder because the ladders are disappearing. What they see is that most people are getting poorer and a handful are getting obscenely rich.

We can rag on them and give bootstrap advice, but if you step back and think about what their life experience has been ... born post 9/11, Great Financial Crisis, Occupy movement, Trump/BLM instability, pandemic and lockdowns ... I get why they aren't fonts of hope. They feel completely disenfranchised. I think they are trying to self-medicate however they can. If they can find work/life balances right now and make it work, I'm not going to shit on them. Those lattes aren't moving the needle on climate change one way or the other.

There's an old Jewish piece of wisdom in form of a joke/anecdote, where basically someone complains to his rabbi that his house is very small and cramped and it's causing him constant misery. The rabbi's advice is: "get a goat and live with it under your roof for a month". The joke is of course that, after said month, the guy is so relieved to not longer have to share his apartment with a lively and destructive animal, that he starts to appreciate his current circumstances. Per analogy, perhaps it wouldn't be a bad idea for teenage Americans go to live a third world country for a month or two (and live like a local). I'm betting experiencing the shocking difference between their current circumstances with what they'd see on such trip would have a positive, long-lasting impact on many. Or, in other words, there's probably a couple hundred million (perhaps even a couple billion?) people in the world who would give everything just to be in their position. Or, in yet another words, with the decline in religiousness and spirituality, people are practicing gratitude much less often, which leaves them to losing touch and blowing things out of proportions.

[jennypenny]

I would agree with you if I thought it was about money. My point is that it's not about the money for them, so first world/third world comparisons don't apply. They are lonely and disenfranchised, and support structures that might have helped were absent or collapsed altogether during the lockdowns. The capital they desperately long for isn't financial capital.

This reminds me of a recent discussion I was part of where someone asked the GenZ-er whether cable TV or multiple streaming services is better. He said "I don't watch TV" lol. There's a paradigm shift happening that I would find hard to believe if I wasn't witnessing it first hand. FIRE is the answer to a question that the younger people in my orbit aren't asking.

[Jean]

Entitlement is holding a lot of people back.
How much I need to pay for my health insurance. If I wan't to keep living here, I have to pay, or I'll end up in prison at some point. I could feel entitled to be free of any form of oppression, or I could realise that I only weight 200 pounds, and that I am too lazy or too incapable to build myself a drone army to enforce my will. Therefor, I realise that my situation is inevitable due to my own relative weakness.
Everything unagreable that happens to me happens because I'm not doing anything against it, sometimes because I'm not able too because I'm too weak.

I think this way of seeing thing is implicit within ERE. And a lot of people see it, and they think they deserve more.
ERE is kind of the ultimate bootsraping philosophy, and a lot of political affiliations hate bootstraping, because people bettering their situations by themeselves render the political movement pointless.
People want to be able to feel entitled, and blame something for their situation. I don't know why, because taking the blame yourself usually makes you more happy. ERE require you to accept that you are responsible of what happens to you.
Some people have much shitier situations than me, but I think it still holds.

@Zbigi it's true several religion make people be gratefull for what they have. I've seen non religious people practice gratitude ritual, and it bettered their mental health.

[Seppia]

@jp

I think people who were anywhere between 6 and 20 during covid will be scarred for a long time.
I was I firm believer in the moment that those who were locking down hard were severely underestimating the second order effects on the psyche of people.
This is very obvious to me.
They were robbed of two very precious developmental years
Why would they care about money? They just want to live

[Frita]

@jp

I think people who were anywhere between 6 and 20 during covid will be scarred for a long time.
I was I firm believer in the moment that those who were locking down hard were severely underestimating the second order effects on the psyche of people.
This is very obvious to me.
They were robbed of two very precious developmental years
Why would they care about money? They just want to live

Good point, my son is a 19 year old college student. He and his friends seem like high school students (maturity-wise). (He lives at home and actually seems to like it!) I try to remind myself that he’s seeking balance in his own way.

Tonight at dinner I just reflectively listened to him talk about what was on his mind. Part of me was thinking, “Wow, this kid is immature.” And then I was remembering what it was like to be at this stage and the need to be heard and accepted. This, too, shall pass. (I find great comfort in that sentence regardless of the situation.)

Regarding money I notice he saves and can be frugal, yet splurges on eating out treats. Perhaps it is the COVID influence/trauma. I think social media plays a part, along with the realization of inheriting a critically challenged world. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.

[Western Red Cedar]

I spoke to my sons' former guidance counselor over the weekend. She echoed the same sentiments. They feel dejected and depressed. They don't feel like they can climb the financial ladder because the ladders are disappearing. What they see is that most people are getting poorer and a handful are getting obscenely rich.

We can rag on them and give bootstrap advice, but if you step back and think about what their life experience has been ...

I'm probably at risk of sounding like the grumpy old man, shouting at the kids for driving too fast or playing on his lawn, but I don't think this is necessarily new. 20 somethings not saving money, feeling cynical, or upset about society seems to be the norm for every US generation for at least the last eighty years. I'm rereading On the Road right now which takes place between 1947 and 1950 and the reflections @JP is making about today's generation could be lifted directly from Kerouac's prose. He was making the same points about isolation, purpose, social ills and economic inequality; all of which resonated with the boomers and subsequent generations. His generation was emerging from the dust bowl, the great depression, and WWII. I'm realizing that it was those critiques and insights that I really enjoyed when I first read it at 19, rather than his writing style or the idealized notion of traveling though North America.

Talking about mental health and balance is in vogue right now, but I don't think a latte is the ingredient to cure depression. I personally find some of the research on the relationship between social media and mental health (particularly for young women) the most compelling explanation for Gen Z's challenges. It seems like we are running a massive social experiment with potentially frightening consequences. I might be wrong though.

I wonder how many people are sipping those lattes while scrolling through Tik Tok?

Perhaps we are in the middle or near the end of the fourth turning (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss–H ... nal_theory), if one believes in that theory.

[ertyu]

Being who I am as a person, I hang out with a bunch of millenials and gen z online. Here's the situation I'm seeing summed up.

Early millenials (born 1980s) - got a late start in life due to gfc. Spent most of their 20s and early 30s getting their footing. These have stratified into 2 fairly distinct groups: 1. landed into secure professional success within the last 5-6 years, too excited to finally find their feet to think about FIRE. Some became homeowners when they never thought it would be possible for them, even if it was with the help of their parents or in a location isn't what they'd have desired. FIRE isn't an explicit goal, but at least among my acquaintances, people do the financially smart thing: cooking at home, meal prepping, retirement accounts. Mostly child-free, some by choice, some because they don't see how they'll afford it. Some are consciously planning for children.

Group 2 never landed on their feet and are now sinking. We have the graphical artist who got repetitive stress injuries and can no loger sell art, then got in a car crash, and now works part time, with 2 different braces on, at tim horton's. just, horrorshow levels of misery. frugal af due to necessity. thin as a rail due to food insecurity. with a higher income, could be FI because grew up a mennonite - badass skills and self-reliance came pre-loaded together with a boatload of trauma. the fact is, they're not getting out. tried to take college classes alongside their job, learning disabilities didn't let them get far. Understands their exact situation in life - also knows there's no help or resources coming and they're never getting out. Overwhelmingly child-free.

Gen z (group 3) are grieving. They're the first generation that's growing up seeing their country make huge steps back in terms of human rights. They hope to be able to immigrate to europe where the political overton window still produces political discourse that sounds at least baseline sane and where functioning, albeit imperfect, democracies provide functional safety nets. They're grieving being able to have a "normal life." Too many live with their parents not because they're saving but because they can't move out even if they wanted to.

Across groups 2 and 3, hardcore frugality is often seen as something that would make only a negligible drop in the bucket. They are suspicious of individual solutions because they're very aware of the limitations of the very flawed system they live in. They've seen medical debt set people back years. Many have medical debt themselves. They aren't focused on paying it off - the person im thinking of is making minimal payments because they're very aware that even if they pay this debt, other debt will follow - being debt-free isn't seen as an achievable state, often because income is too low. Even if achievable, it might not be seen as desirable: what's the point of all the effort if it will only be temporary? etcetera.

this is only a snippet. also, it's a self-selected sample: the people who command the sort of income that will allow them to see financial security as a goal that's possible probably don't live online as I do (I live online because I've moved too much, my "online" community is more stable than my meatspace community at this point). I have a lot of discussions around smart frugal practices even though people aren't necessarily pursuing Fi as an overarching goal). I think I often set the tone -- I say I turn the refrigerator off for the winter, for example, and that's out there enough that it's shifted the social overton window around frugality and money in groups where i'm a fixture. The conclusion, overall, is that people would pursue a solution they perceive as feasible, but none of what they've been presented with is persuasive. In particular, no one speaks to Gen z's concerns and situation apart from tiktok hicks and hustlers whose "wisdom" most know to distrust. But yeah, Gen Z are still grieving that they'll never lead normal lives. I don't think they'll be receptive to messages that don't meet them in the middle of their grief.

[zbigi]

I would agree with you if I thought it was about money. My point is that it's not about the money for them, so first world/third world comparisons don't apply. They are lonely and disenfranchised, and support structures that might have helped were absent or collapsed altogether during the lockdowns. The capital they desperately long for isn't financial capital.

I didn't mean they should be grateful for "money". They should be grateful for living in a free, safe, affluent (i.e. everybody's basic physical needs are more or less met), peaceful society, with excellent schooling and opportunities for doing anything they want with their lives. I'm guessing people in Poland in 1945, after the war was over, were more optimistic than the young people you talk to - even though their family members were very often murdered, the country was ruined and there was a new, brutal Soviet-installed communist government in charge. But, for people, it was all still so much better than war - so they were fairly optimistic, perhaps even happy. It's all a matter of baseline expectations.
On second thoughts, people back then were definitely less isolated than current Gen-Z. So, perhaps alienated people just can't feel good about their lives, even if they live in great circumstances.

[jacob]

I personally find some of the research on the relationship between social media and mental health (particularly for young women) the most compelling explanation for Gen Z's challenges. It seems like we are running a massive social experiment with potentially frightening consequences. I might be wrong though.

To contrast and compare, Gen Z is the first generation that has been socialized to social media (I'm thinking visual media like facebook, instagram, and tiktok here. Not informational media like twitter, linkedin, or substack.) rather than their IRL friends or vocation. It's the first generation where "being an influencer" is not just a job description but the #1 goal of American kids (dunno about Europe, but probably up there as well). An influencer on social media is basically someone who is famous for being famous. It is the internet version of a high school popularity contest, where someone is popular for being popular. Humans are just drawn to that. Almost everyone dreams about being the popular kid, compares themselves to them, and tries to copy what they see them doing but somehow it just somehow doesn't work out for them the same way.

For older generations, this popularity contest ended after HS as they differentiated into jobs and tertiary educations. These smaller groupings also had popular people, but those were more relatable. Instead of sitting at the D table and comparing yourself to the A table, you'd only compare within the D table as everybody from the D table got jobs at the factory and the other tables went elsewhere only to meet again at the 20-year HS reunion. Except for Gen Z for whom this never ended. The A table remains busy pumping out posts on how successful they must be since they can afford to compete in exotic destination vacations, fancy restaurants, and the results of their $500k mortgage. (With previous generations, at most you'd get one of those obnoxious holiday cards or emails detailing all the year's accomplishments of the Smith Family, but on social media feeds it's constant.)

Another thing---although I don't know how new this is---is that American kids have been brought up being told that "they can be anything they want to be"(?) (In contrast my cohort was brought up being told that the only thing that mattered was that "we were happy".) Compound this with the constant barrage of ads telling people about all the things and services they "deserve".

When those from the D table see someone from the A table posting a success-picture on instafacetok, the only way they can protect their ego and not feel like losers is to complain that "the system is rigged and unfair" and go and buy the avocado toast they "deserve" because that's as good as it's gonna get. And of course, the only way the people from the A table can protect their ego is to post even harder about their successes in order to stay at the table.

On a side-note, it might be worthwhile trying to figure out why/how the previous FIRE movement faded. The Robin-era that peaked in the late 1990s and was effectively gone by the early 2000s with only early-retirement.org surviving.

[7Wannabe5]

They should be grateful for living in a free, safe, affluent (i.e. everybody's basic physical needs are more or less met), peaceful society, with excellent schooling and opportunities for doing anything they want with their lives.

The U.S. ain't all Disneyland. When you see the U.S. ranked somewhat lower than a great many other "first world" countries in terms of factors such as infant mortality, death by violence, and functional illiteracy, this reflects that there are some communities in the U.S. which would rank MUCH lower. The youngest generation disadvantaged kids I teach white/black/brown live in situations maybe only experienced by the one super resilient member of this forum who overcame growing up in a by the week trailer park on the rural edge of a dangerous collapsed city with a drug-addicted mother and a gangster father. Shame on us that in a nation so affluent there are still children living in such conditions.

[zbigi]

@7

Yep, I didn't put the caveat excluding bottom the top 5% of people in the US living in conditions closer to third world than to developed country. (BTW this means that perhaps the US kids don't have to make a trip to Lagos to experience perspective adjustment - living like a local in some US dangerous slums for a couple of months could do just fine). I ommitted that, because I don't think Gen-Z members @JP mentioned belong to this cohort .

[Seppia]

On a side-note, it might be worthwhile trying to figure out why/how the previous FIRE movement faded. The Robin-era that peaked in the late 1990s and was effectively gone by the early 2000s with only early-retirement.org surviving.

Not a coincidence IMO that peak popularity of any “early retirement” movement coincides with massive asset rallies/bubbles.

Unless one actively tried to engage in self-sabotage, any investing strategy that included buying stocks has worked in the past 10 years (same situation in the late 90’s)

Out of 100 people who want to retire early, I would guesstimate maybe 5-10 are actually willing to “work” for it