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The most precious resource is agency

simonsarris.substack.com

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Re: The most precious resource is agency

#111

Post by bedobi »

manmal wrote: post #106
an_opabinia wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> giant waste of my time and energy Telling people not to go to school is bad life advice. > I was [in school and thriving] I don't, would you go into the time machine and like, not go to school, as a young person?

There are other types of schooling which are more tailored to the individual. You won’t find them in a public school though, with one teacher schooling 25-30 kids. It’s just not possible to cater to every individual‘s needs in that context. The only way to get more individual schooling is to have well-off parents who send you to a school with smaller classes, and ideally with a more relaxed schedule, like Montessori…

Haha hate to break your bubble but I am born, raised and schooled in Sweden :)

I don't live there anymore though, I left as soon as I could, can't stand the place, but that's kind of a side note, lol.

Finland and Sweden's schooling systems are very, very different.

I wouldn't have enjoyed the Finnish one either, just saying.

Re: The most precious resource is agency

#112

Post by bedobi »

an_opabinia wrote: post #101
bedobi wrote: post #8

This article did a great job of articulating something I've always felt strongly about but haven't been able to put into words. I'm sure I'm not the only one who felt like my schooling was mostly a giant waste of my time and energy. I was waaaay ahead in subjects I liked, because those things I learned myself out of innate interest. Rather than the system accommodating and encouraging being ahead, in those subjects I…

> giant waste of my time and energy Telling people not to go to school is bad life advice. > I was [in school and thriving] I don't, would you go into the time machine and like, not go to school, as a young person?

> would you go into the time machine and like, not go to school, as a young person?

Kind of, yeah. I'm not saying school is 100% useless, but I like to think I would have been better off with maybe 80% of the curriculum cut out.

I could have put all that time to much better use developing knowledge and skills in those things that I had an innate interest in, let alone spent more time being active, around others, and outside - not sitting down at a desk.

But society disagrees, so there's little choice but to conform.

Re: The most precious resource is agency

#114

Post by bosie »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #74
paulryanrogers wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By what measure? (Not sure I disagree just curious)

If I may attempt to answer it: Because it works for politicians, and the line of people behind the politicians with their left hands offering $X and their right hands demanding special treatment worth 100x$X.

whats the measure here?

Re: The most precious resource is agency

#115

Post by Juliate »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #26
overgard wrote: post #18

One of the biggest tragedies isn't just that the childhood is wasted, but that many people never learn to have agency once it is available. I'm not saying you need to start your own business or anything like that, but it seems like most people live their lives never questioning the scripts that are given to them. The basic life script we all seem to have in western society seems pretty awful when you think critically…

I went and did the other side, living nontraditionally and trying to be what I wanted. I just applied for a regular job. Because to be honest, it’s gonna be pretty sweet having a fat bank account, even if it’ll take till I’m 50 to have FU money. My current hypothesis is that the team is all that matters. The work can be the most boring, crud-type work. As long as you’re working with people you like on something vague…

> My current hypothesis is that the team is all that matters.

That's me 6 years ago. After having invested too much on the type of work/mission and found that this was not it.

From the past 6 years and 2 companies where I tried this hypothesis, I can say that the work _structure_ (chaos, or hyper-bureaucratic, or anywhere in between, going either way) and the work _mission_ do matter a lot too in the end. It's an intricate balance.

The work _structure_ mandates how your team will jell, or dismantle, over time and tasks. The thousands of paper cuts due to the transformations from start to scale to profitable and compliant can really turn mad the unprepared.

The work _mission_ mandates how much/long you will endure the paper cuts.

But yes, the team and the people is still what you should invest on: that's the only area where your loyalty matters, if only because that's only there that you can find reciprocity.

The company, the structure, the mission are just some paper fiction that pay and pass; and there's thousands of them.

Moreover, these days, most of the missions (in IT at least) are even more ludicrous compared to the existential challenge that's ahead of us.

So yes, we better relax, enjoy the people around us in the settings we have, be nice and do what's sensible to do.

Re: The most precious resource is agency

#116

Post by kebman »

xapata wrote: post #108
onion2k wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just applied for a regular job. Because to be honest, it’s gonna be pretty sweet having a fat bank account, even if it’ll take till I’m 50 to have FU money. You will never have FU money working a regular job.

Compounding growth does fine.

Assuming the Fed keeps printing more.

Re: The most precious resource is agency

#117

Post by qqtt »

ryloric wrote: post #75
qqtt wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Bubbles of comfort" are not unique to Western countries, that is true. Every country on the planet offers a subset of their population a great life style, the only variable is how much of the country actually gets a) to partake in that lifestyle b) has the tools to reach that lifestyle when starting outside of it Doesn't matter if you are talking about North Korea or the United States. And yes, you can find abject g…

I think you missed what the parent poster might be saying, it's not about "Bubbles of Comfort". I too live in one of those countries like you put it, and while I live in the bubble to some extent, I know people who've never used internet or a smartphone/computer in their entire lives and live a decently happy stress-free life. Their lives are not nasty or brutish, they're not leading less-fulfilling lives as a result…

If you want to live a nomadic disconnected lifestyle (with limited access to "technocratic" things like health care and education), you can do that almost anywhere, including Western countries.

Again, the central aspect of this topic is agency. Do people choose to live that way, where they live it? And how many would choose a different lifestyle if given the same opportunities as everybody else?

Yes, you can live a happy life as a nomad without any access to technology. That isn't the topic of this conversation.

Re: The most precious resource is agency

#118

Post by PaulRobinson »

onion2k wrote: post #105
sillysaurusx wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went and did the other side, living nontraditionally and trying to be what I wanted. I just applied for a regular job. Because to be honest, it’s gonna be pretty sweet having a fat bank account, even if it’ll take till I’m 50 to have FU money. My current hypothesis is that the team is all that matters. The work can be the most boring, crud-type work. As long as you’re working with people you like on something vague…

I just applied for a regular job. Because to be honest, it’s gonna be pretty sweet having a fat bank account, even if it’ll take till I’m 50 to have FU money. You will never have FU money working a regular job.

That's just nonsense advice. The entire point of retirement savings is that at some point you can stop working. FU money is just about timing. You can change that timing.

1. Reduce outgoings. It's easier to have FU money if the amount you need to be able to say "FU" is smaller, because you've perfected the art of living on a little less than most. Most people's outgoings grow to meet their incomes: resist that. You don't need to recycle everything you touch and grow your own food to make good headway here.

2. Take your age, halve it. That number is the percentage of your gross income you should be putting away each month into retirement and savings if you haven't started already. Yes, it's hard at the beginning, so have it happen automatically through employer deductions (common in the UK for pensions, not sure about elsewhere), or on payday move a %age automatically into a savings or investment account so you get used to living without it. I still struggle to do this but am getting better.

3. Learn about compound returns a little more. $500 a month at 8% (typical market returns recently), and over 10 years gives you back $92k - a $32k profit on the $60k you put in. Whether that's FU money is dependent on whether your outgoings are $50k/year or $150k/year. Keep going for another 10 years, and you're not far off $300k which isn't bad for the $120k it cost you. Think you can keep going into your fifties and do another decade? $750k off the back of a $180k investment. Is this not FU money yet? You're the problem, not the regular job.

Your chances of having FU money working a regular job are far, far higher than having it any other way. It's just too many people are trying to retire in their 20s and not getting it: that's not a very likely outcome, no matter how hard you work or how smart you are.

Re: The most precious resource is agency

#119

Post by SpaghettiX »

onion2k wrote: post #105
sillysaurusx wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went and did the other side, living nontraditionally and trying to be what I wanted. I just applied for a regular job. Because to be honest, it’s gonna be pretty sweet having a fat bank account, even if it’ll take till I’m 50 to have FU money. My current hypothesis is that the team is all that matters. The work can be the most boring, crud-type work. As long as you’re working with people you like on something vague…

I just applied for a regular job. Because to be honest, it’s gonna be pretty sweet having a fat bank account, even if it’ll take till I’m 50 to have FU money. You will never have FU money working a regular job.

I believe FU money is not about how much you earn, it’s about how much you save vs. spend. I can afford to stop working for more than a year, even though I’m not 25 yet, I would gladly say I have FU money. It’s because I don’t spend much.

Re: The most precious resource is agency

#120

Post by onion2k »

PaulRobinson wrote: post #118
onion2k wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just applied for a regular job. Because to be honest, it’s gonna be pretty sweet having a fat bank account, even if it’ll take till I’m 50 to have FU money. You will never have FU money working a regular job.

That's just nonsense advice. The entire point of retirement savings is that at some point you can stop working. FU money is just about timing. You can change that timing. 1. Reduce outgoings. It's easier to have FU money if the amount you need to be able to say "FU" is smaller, because you've perfected the art of living on a little less than most. Most people's outgoings grow to meet their incomes: resist that. You d…

Is this not FU money yet? You're the problem, not the regular job.

I think we have very different ideas of what "FU money" means. FU money is literally enough to be able to do what you want. It's being able to stop asking "Can I afford this?" because you definitely can. It's being able to stop making a choice between two sports cars because you can afford both. It's being able to buy the exact house you want because you can approach the current owner and make an offer they'd be stupid to turn down. FU money is literally the ability to say FU and do something anyway when someone says you can't.

Having enough money to retire a bit earlier if you live a relatively simple life and save a lot is not FU money.

$750k off the back of a $180k investment. Is this not FU money yet?

$750k is barely the down payment on a nice Bay Area family house. Of course it isn't FU money. You're not saying "FU" to anyone if you're also saying "I can't afford the house I want so I'll choose a more reasonable one."

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