Thank you for all that. I worry about the same thing—that this will not feel/be sufficiently actionable for people, and they won’t be that likely to change their situations based on it. As George Carlin says, some people need practical advice. I didn’t know how to go about providing what such a person would need, on that level. How would you go about doing that? It feels like a book-length or longer problem, the same way one can’t write a post on how to prepare for a street fight that would actually be that good, beyond giving basic pointers (like run away).
As George Carlin says, some people need practical advice. I didn’t know how to go about providing what such a person would need, on that level. How would you go about doing that?
The solution is probably not a book. Many books have been written on escaping the rat race that could be downloaded for free in the next 5 minutes, yet people don’t, and if some do in reaction to this comment they probably won’t get very far.
Problems that are this big and resistant to being solved are not waiting for some lone genius to find the 100,000 word combination that will drive a stake right through the middle. What this problem needs most is lots of smart but unexceptional people hacking away at the edges. It needs wikis. It needs offline workshops. It needs case studies from people like you so it feels like a real option to people like you.
Then there’s the social and financial infrastructure part of the problem. Things such as:
Finding useful things for people to do outside of salaried work that don’t feel like sitting at the kids table. (See: every volunteer role outside of open source.)
Establishing intellectual networks outside of the high cost of living/rat race cities. (Not necessarily out of cities in general.)
Developing things that make it cheaper to maintain a comfortable standard of living at a lower level of income.
Finding ways to increase productivity on household tasks so it becomes economically practical to do them yourself rather than outsource them.
Thank you for all that. I worry about the same thing—that this will not feel/be sufficiently actionable for people, and they won’t be that likely to change their situations based on it. As George Carlin says, some people need practical advice. I didn’t know how to go about providing what such a person would need, on that level. How would you go about doing that? It feels like a book-length or longer problem, the same way one can’t write a post on how to prepare for a street fight that would actually be that good, beyond giving basic pointers (like run away).
The solution is probably not a book. Many books have been written on escaping the rat race that could be downloaded for free in the next 5 minutes, yet people don’t, and if some do in reaction to this comment they probably won’t get very far.
Problems that are this big and resistant to being solved are not waiting for some lone genius to find the 100,000 word combination that will drive a stake right through the middle. What this problem needs most is lots of smart but unexceptional people hacking away at the edges. It needs wikis. It needs offline workshops. It needs case studies from people like you so it feels like a real option to people like you.
Then there’s the social and financial infrastructure part of the problem. Things such as:
Finding useful things for people to do outside of salaried work that don’t feel like sitting at the kids table. (See: every volunteer role outside of open source.)
Establishing intellectual networks outside of the high cost of living/rat race cities. (Not necessarily out of cities in general.)
Developing things that make it cheaper to maintain a comfortable standard of living at a lower level of income.
Finding ways to increase productivity on household tasks so it becomes economically practical to do them yourself rather than outsource them.