Why are so many ERErs academics?

[jennypenny]

[northman]

The feeling trapped in stupidity quote, was more of the system Im now working in.
But, thanks for the nice words jenny

[jennypenny]

@northman-- sorry if I misunderstood. It's sort of a pet peeve of mine. Some of the dumbest people I know have the most letters after their name (not a knock on anyone here, more personal experience).

[riparian]

It's all them high words Jacob uses (to borrow a phrase from a mentor of mine). Seriously, his language is not quickly assimilated by many.

[DutchGirl]

@Jenny: "Some of the dumbest people I know have the most letters after their name (not a knock on anyone here, more personal experience). "
And definitely the other way around as well. Lots of people without titles who are very smart. So it may also be that there are a lot of people working towards the same goal of ERE without visiting here because they made up their mind and don't need no internet to tell them what to do

[GPMagnus]

As an almost academic (escaped just in time?!?) with a couple of graduate degrees, I think the attraction to ERE has two main sources:
1. Academics (in most fields) accept a priori that they will have less material wealth in exchange for more work/life freedom, which essentially is the ERE mindset;
2. Academia requires planning and serious effort (when to publish, which conference to attend, which grant to apply for), and this sits well with ERE

[mountainFrugal]

This is an old thread. I think that we have shifted more to tech workers as a bulk of accounts?

I would add that academia teaches one to sink-or-swim at basically every step of the way and hardens you to rejection/discussion of ideas. To survive in academia you have to be okay with coming up with your own research projects (usually on a tight budget), writing grants for them, getting rejected, refining, experimenting (not all fields), etc. You have to set your own intellectual course. This leads me to the hypothesis that people coming to ERE from academia might have fewer struggles with freedom-to than other fields. Of course this is not to say this in all cases, but on average.

@jacob (or anyone around for a while)- any thoughts or observations here. I have only been around for a few years and am just now going back into the archives to see how ideas have changed on the forum over time.

[jacob]

@mF - I think predominant focus of the FIRE movement has been rather path-dependent. In 2012, it was still dominated by ERE and thus an "intellectual hard-mode" focus. Over time, the movement has transitioned into the "practical easy-mode" that now comprises the majority. At some point, I divided the movement into generations with e.g. early-retirement/YMOYL being Gen 1, ERE being Gen 2, MMM being Gen 3, and whatever we have now being Gen 4.

It is for sure the case that "freedom-to" didn't even used to be an explicit problem for Gen 2. One of the reasons people wanted to retire was because their job was too limiting or held people back from what they wanted to do. (And we're not talking travelling or watching TV.) Freedom-to was not an explicit problem because the solution was implicit in that people already had lots of drive and only waiting to get unchained from a stifling career ladder. Gen 3 and especially Gen 4 are often carried out in easy-mode on a kind of "windfall career" (being able to make 120000/year working 2-3 hours per day in a mindnumbing job is very different than working 12-15 hour days for 30-50000/year but being very self-directed) and seem to struggle more with freedom-to.

I think this also explains why Gen2 was eager to leave Plato's Cave whereas Gen4 seems rather reluctant to leave, often arguing along the lines of "keeping skills sharp" to "maintain some connection to the Cave"; rationalizing why cutting the ties or chains is undesirable.

[J_]

I and DW are clearly a Gen 1 in Jacob's definition above. The "freedom to" was a big magnet for us. Although 25 years fi now, I have never a lack of drive to do things or to develop new skills. We live in three or four places in Europe during each year. At the moment we own a small motorboat, and an apartment/house in two different countries. We rent each year a furnished apartment in the Mediterranean. We do keep up these own places/boat ourselves. And use our languages and social skills. So we change landscape, weather and sport surroundings during the year.

To answer the topic question: I think that a "hands on" attitude is more important than reaching a formal degree for doing ere. I started my life doing all kind of jobs/hobbies. During my working life I studied part time at the university. Now I see people in their twenties and thirties that they have been studying first and discover later that having practical skills are often more important to get a "freedom to" life. Either way is possible, one need to use your brain, practical skills and some courage.

[bos]

I would put myself in Gen 3-4. Having read ERE around 6 years ago during University, with the advice of this forum, I actively made the switch to a higher-paid field than what I was studying at the time. Tech is, for most people, not a windfall career. The hours are long and continues self-study is expected. However, the compensation is indeed disproportionate too many other careers.

Many tech people are obsessed with optimising processes. ERE is, in some part, one massive optimising of ones life to obtain a result. The result is imagined differently for everyone, but in a nutshell, it is 'freedom.'
For me, that translates to repairing and selling motorcycles and bicycles, having the time to assist friends with big renovations, and continuing my studies in Fine Art. I do notice that ERE seems to be more for Western people (Missing the word for a better definition). Having worked the last year with only first-generation immigrants, there is absolutely zero interest in pursuing FIRE, and they are extremely happy to finally just spend mindlessly.

[7Wannabe5]

I definitely started out as Gen1. I read "YMOYL" and "Tightwad Gazette" when my children who are now in their 30s were toddlers. However, I kind of "dropped out" after achieving my initial primary goal which was being able to purchase a house/garden while still being a stay-at-home-Mom even though my husband at the time earned less than median income. Actually, it's not that I "dropped out" of being frugal, more that I wasn't up to the extreme-extreme challenge of saving enough money to also allow my ex to retire early as a family of four living on his salary of around $24,000. Very little fat left to cut in the budget.

[Jean]

no one gave the obvious answer that academia really sucks, and that there aren't so much other way out of it

[candide]

no one gave the obvious answer that academia really sucks, and that there aren't so much other way out of it

Also, adding that they are really smart people who must have on some level thought knowledge was more important than money... And then they found out how much academia really sucked.

[jacob]

no one gave the obvious answer that academia really sucks, and that there aren't so much other way out of it

Also, adding that they are really smart people who must have on some level thought knowledge was more important than money... And then they found out how much academia really sucked.

The discovery was maybe that academia is not so much about knowledge as it is about prestige(?)

Ex-academics are seemingly found in the weirdest places but taking a different perspective, perhaps it is not so weird. While the default path for STEM-academics is software, consulting, and teaching high school, I discovered a surprising number of woodworkers with phds. They're likely following the "Shop class as soulcraft"-philosophy.

I also think that not all academics are the same. On the one side you have those who are intellectually curious, taking classes that interest them, reading books just because. On the other side you have those who are good at navigating the system, optimizing ROI on GPA/effort, seeking the most effective way to climb.

In Cook-Greuter terms, the former are "Specialists" and the latter are "Achievers".

ERE mainly attracts the "Specialist"-types ... who eventually become generalists/strategists after beginning to question the system.

[mountainFrugal]

So it is not (as the title suggests) an academia thing per say, but more of an independently minded, non-institutionalized person that might have found these ideas earlier and been able to execute on them immediately.

The prestige/CV building/achievers are part of the problem. They are also the ones that go into university management because their lack of broader reading finds their research programs stagnating for ideas. This is part of what makes academia suck.

Within my cohort of grad students and postdocs... the ones that are still in there that have broader interests are kind-of miserable. I know three that have already quit tenure track positions, one with tenure already. haha. He just got really into programming and that is all that he wanted to do so he quit and develops open-source software. No one in my cohort is a high-school teacher that I am aware of, although that sounds like a good option.

Coincidentally, I just reread Shop Class and Soul Craft and liked it a lot more on this read.