Comment author: Ixiel 11 June 2016 06:08:34PM 0 points [-]

Thanks again In; this definitely answers a question about which I was curious.

Comment author: gjm 10 June 2016 08:37:51PM -1 points [-]

Apologies for the digression and please feel free not to answer, but I'm curious: How were you able to retire at 33? Successful startup? Family money? Working in finance plus reasonable frugality?

Comment author: Ixiel 11 June 2016 01:14:29PM *  1 point [-]

Just genetic lottery. My family owns a chain of convenience stores in upstate NY, and after some time in banking I decided I'd prefer not to work any more. I am writing a book, but I don't feel comfortable calling myself an author until I publish it.

I'm comfortable talking about it as long as I don't feel like I'm being perceived as bragging about something over which I have no control (which is stupid, and which I see in other people all the time)

Comment author: Lumifer 10 June 2016 07:15:24PM *  4 points [-]

there is absolutely nothing wrong with someone deciding to just live off the dole and not work

Within which framework? From an individual point of view, sure. From the point of view of the society, not so much -- someone has to produce value which this person will consume. Arguing that it's psychologically healthy to not work isn't a relevant argument here.

that people who don't have to work ... will have a better wheat/chaff ratio for what they do do

You know that the primary function of the markets is provide incentives for wheat and disincentives for chaff, right? They perform this function quite well. You will argue that without the guiding prod of the market people will produce more of better stuff all by themselves?

Comment author: Ixiel 10 June 2016 07:26:12PM 1 point [-]
  1. Well I have a much longer argument for this in the book, but I propose that the amount of work people will do because they want to is more than enough to run society. 40h per person per week (ish) is, in my view, largely makework.

  2. Of course.
    The markets have a major confound, imo, in the form of pro-job policy. I believe, and I have some support for this but not enough to prove the point yet, that if "jobs creation" did not occur as a political activity, the market would normalize below the level people would produce without, again using the provocative language descriptively not manipulatively, the lingering threat of dying of want.

Comment author: WalterL 10 June 2016 06:48:47PM 0 points [-]

Initially I thought I'd take a few months, veg out, etc. After I lived that way for a while though I became interested in getting a new job again. Took a couple weeks from deciding to work again to getting the job.

So, sort of both? Started out with no strong opinions on work again vs. not, migrated to looking for job.

Comment author: Ixiel 10 June 2016 07:18:51PM -1 points [-]

Right on. Thanks!

Comment author: Lumifer 10 June 2016 05:36:56PM 4 points [-]

Why are you interested in a study? Studies typically tell you about the averages and in many cases the averages are not what you need. In some cases, they are, actually, what no one needs.

Some people fall apart without externally imposed structure, but some people thrive in the absence of constraints. The latter are often called "self-directed" or "self-motivated" or some other term like that. Both types exist, not to mention the intermediate cases, of course.

Comment author: Ixiel 10 June 2016 06:04:53PM *  2 points [-]

Because I plan on doing some more serious campaigning for a more aggressive GBI (among other things) than what a lot of people advocate. I plan on making the case that there is absolutely nothing wrong with someone deciding to just live off the dole and not work, and that people who choose that are often more in the way of people making progress than helping them when they show up to clock hours. I also plan to assert that people who don't have to work, effectively on penalty of death if I want to sound dramatic, will have a better wheat/chaff ratio for what they do do. Of course I want to make sure it's true first :P

If I get to design the study it'll be a little different from the study I seek because I don't think I can expect anyone to have done that study. And I'll be more interested in the whole study than the executive summary for exactly the reasons you describe.

Comment author: Viliam 10 June 2016 02:55:22PM *  6 points [-]

Just some anecdotal evidence:

For some people, jobs provide a scaffolding of their daily time. It's what makes them wake up in the morning. Take the job away from these people and here is what happens: wake up at 10AM, slowly make a breakfast, eat it, watch the TV a bit, make a lunch and eat it, now it's 3PM, feels like too late to do anything meaningful, so just watch the TV, make a dinner and eat it, watch some more TV, go to sleep, repeat over and over again. It seems like people without jobs should logically have more free time, but some of them actually manage to achieve less while unemployed.

For some old people, jobs provide social opportunity that is hard to replace when they retire. Suddenly, instead of spending their day interacting with a dozen people they know, they spend their day alone at home, complaining that their children don't visit them more often.

Without routine, some people's lives "fall apart". Humans are not automatically strategic. In theory, a life without job (with basic income, or retirement money, or just savings that allow you to take a really long vacation) should be better, but in practice sometimes it isn't. Think about all the superstimuli around us: for some people, their job may be the only thing that gets them offline most of the days.

(Disclaimer: This all said, I would still prefer to have a basic income and get extra 8 hours of freedom every day. There is a risk my life would become less amazing than I imagine it, but I would gladly take the risk.)

There is a possible counter-argument that the effects of losing the job might be only temporary. Like, if people have been conditioned for years to organize their lives around their job (and school), of course it gets them out of balance when the job suddenly disappears, because they never had the opportunity to learn how to organize their lives for themselves. But given enough time, they might develop the skill.

Comment author: Ixiel 10 June 2016 05:29:03PM -1 points [-]

Thanks for that Vil. I accept these benefits, and agree that there might be a better way, but it's always good to know what issues are likely to occur to one.

Comment author: WalterL 10 June 2016 05:15:17PM 5 points [-]

I'm a pretty well off person. Recently I went jobless for a while. I missed, above all, the structure. Like, this may sound cliche, but because I didn't have to get up I didn't regulate when I went to bed. So I started to go to bed later and later, and thus, get up later and later.

It isn't that my sleep schedule got off sync with the world's (although, of course, it did that), its that it got off sync with itself. Week by week I'd stay up a little later, get up a little later. It became hard for me to commit to things ahead of time, because I might well sleep through it.

Ultimately, before I started interviewing again, I had to spend a week pretending I had a job. That is, setting my night clock to go to sleep, my wake clock to get up, etc.

Looking back on the months I spent between jobs, I accomplished less towards my day trading and writing goals than I did in an equivalent period in my last gig. For me, at least, jobs are good for more than money. I doubt I could make myself do them if they didn't pay, mind, but that seems to be the reasonable truth.

Comment author: Ixiel 10 June 2016 05:26:31PM 0 points [-]

Thanks for that Walter. I feel like I have a sense of this phenomenon (I retired at 33 and was expecting to be WAY more bored and less satisfied than I am), and am very interested in a full study (I haven't found it; any of y'all run psychological studies for money?), but I hear more stories like yours than the alternative.

Were you looking for employment, or were you on the fence between retirement and a break? Knowing you have to go back eventually might be a factor.

Comment author: Lumifer 10 June 2016 02:32:06PM 1 point [-]

On facts in evidence, including a closer look at whatall is included in Manhattan, my most plausible explanation is that the study results were not what I remember

One more possible explanation. NY state is not the most coherent organization and I've seen sets of statistics for NY counties that just did not include NYC boroughs. Evidently, even though they are counties, they are considered a special enough case to just ignore them on occasion. So maybe your study just said in a small footnote somewhere "Oh, we'll pretend NYC does not exist".

By the way, you might find this report interesting.

Comment author: Ixiel 10 June 2016 04:18:46PM *  0 points [-]

Yeah, even scrolling up to my own comment, referring to NY as a "mostly rural state" only works since in most cases with which I interact, the NYC residents don't count as TRUE Scottsmen... ;)

Edit to comment on link also: Wow, that is definitely NOT the data I remember. Older, but still. Thanks for that. It all started in a stockholders' meeting for my family's business (employing 2500-7500 people largely in what this report calls the capital district depending how you count) so motivation for bad data is not hard to identify. This year's meeting is in a few weeks and I'll definitely be bringing this up. Thanks as usual.

Comment author: Lumifer 10 June 2016 02:50:23PM 2 points [-]

I wonder if it's considered less offensive among people who use etymologically similar words, like firemen (flame retardant) or biologists (to retard growth.)

It's less offensive among those who actually work with retarded people :-/

"Mentally challenged" type of insults seem to have their own cycles of use. Words like "idiot", "imbecile", or "cretin" used to be a clinical diagnosis, then stopped being medical terms, and nowadays are considered to if not mild then non-horrible.

Comment author: Ixiel 10 June 2016 04:15:14PM 0 points [-]

I suppose that makes sense. Still raises my heart rate when I hear it, but that's my problem not the speaker's, and I'll defer to people with more experience on propriety.

Comment author: Lumifer 10 June 2016 02:21:09PM 1 point [-]

The rankings of insults in subcultures is a fascinating topic :-) What's the "r" word, redneck?

Comment author: Ixiel 10 June 2016 02:35:37PM 0 points [-]

Mentally challenged person. I wonder if it's considered less offensive among people who use etymologically similar words, like firemen (flame retardant) or biologists (to retard growth.)

Like for me, "faggot" is not in my calling-people-it vocabulary - AT ALL; I know like five gay people, all of whom cool, one of whom my uncle, and of none of whom am I afraid, so please don't think I'm homophobic - but in hearing others' reactions it seems to be more offensive to people who collect less firewood. If the 'n' word were also a day to day common noun, I wonder if I would be more okay using it demonstratively even with such an evil history.

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