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Psychohistorian comments on Optimal Employment - Less Wrong
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Short explanation:
This is not me being misleading in how I present data. I'm presenting what happens by default in both options, not one optimized and one non-optimized option. What you discovered here is that, the plan to save money in the outback is robust and succeeds by default, while the plan to save money in the US is fragile and fails by default.
The longer explanation:
The Australian outback option isn't optimized. It's an off-the-shelf option that is heavily subsidized and in a bizarrely awesome economic climate... something I don't think many people here knew existed.
I think it's fair to compare a typical US job to a typical outback job because this is what you get when you don't put much effort into optimizing your budget in both cases.
The difference is that the outback is already incredible without you having to do anything.
It's actually pretty unfair to compare an outback working budget to the best-case US scenario where you spend tons of time in the US managing your money well to get the cheapest rent, best car prices, lowest food costs, and execute convoluted tax dodging strategies that most people couldn't figure out. It's a very tricky plan that requires lots of things to all go right, lots of time, lots of effort, lots of will-power, lots of knowledge, and lots of discipline.
On the other hand, my option only requires you to get whatever job you want in a remote area of Australia and get all your costs of living heavily subsidized and all your major cost centers nearly erased with no willpower, no planning, and no discipline required.
What you uncovered is not my "misleading" people, but the difference in robustness between the two plans. The Australian outback plan lets you save money by default with almost nowhere to go wrong while the plan that lets you save money in the US is a life-engulfing minefield of time-consuming bargin-hunting, self-denial, and tax evasion.
You may have an excellent point about the costs/benefits of your perception of working in the US. I don't think you have much of a point about actually working in the US, and that's what all these comments are getting at. Even at much lower salaries, it isn't that hard to save a lot of money if you care to. (I'll throw in my own data point: my last serious job before law school gave me about 50k a year in disposable income, working 20 hours a week.)
While I'm at it, "time consuming bargain hunting, self-denial, and tax evasion" are all rather prominent parts of your own plan. You're moving across the globe to find cheap living. You're living in the middle of nowhere, with undoubtedly limited access to goods and services. And you're evading paying US taxes (or maybe you actually have to pay them on your return; I don't know). Plus, you're working in a job that has no real benefit for your future career, away from friends and family. I laud the suggestion for people to do something different and potentially lucrative, but methinks you're weighing options on less-than-accurate scales here.