Takeaways
- Every pieces of modern society, education, career Development, mortgages, and consumerism are all designed to make us into a wage slave.
- We have to aware that we have options, to live a life of freedom, financially, physically, mentally, and spiritually.
- We are calling for a new kind of human - the modern Renaissance man.
Book Notes
My notes are in the form of clipping that summarizes a book in the author’s own words. I have organized the excerpts from the book in a way that I find most digestible. Hope you enjoy it!
All quotes are from the original author.
Modern Slavery
The Lock-In
Waste Economy
“In many ways, modern society seems to be using a slightly more complicated version of a Keynesian Economics stimulus scheme where the economy is stimulated by having some people dig a hole, then having others fill it back in the next day.”
“We’re even following Keynes’ suggestion quite literally when we dig resources out of the ground, fashion them into consumer objects, temporarily store them in our homes, rarely use them, and eventually replace them with a new and bigger model, while sending the old and likely still functional object to a landfill–back in the ground.”
“In our spare time we waste time watching TV, waste our bodies eating junk food, then waste money treating the results of those habits.”
“This has now turned into a collaborative/exploitative arrangement, where a few get wealthy selling waste to the many, while the many are employed in arrangements in which they have little control over what they produce. Often, their only idea is to work harder and be more productive, or somehow join the few by finding a clever way to cash in on selling wasteful, low-value products and services.”
“This is the gist of the service economy; presumably, if we didn’t create enough problems to spend time solving them, the economy would collapse.”
Consumerism
“People in our ‘advanced’ civilization know practically nothing about our world. Despite being wholly dependent on technology for all our needs, few understand how technology provides us with light, heat, food, communication, transportation, etc. All we know is how to turn on the ignition and press a button so technology magically performs its intended function. many of the ways we used to do things have been redesigned to ensure that instead of doing it ourselves, we can buy some gadget or some service to have it done for us.”
“This product-oriented thinking extends to health. The connection between lifestyle and health has been lost. The focus has moved from a healthy lifestyle to affordable health insurance, making health a product rather than a state of being.”
“Make a habit out of this and you’ll become helpless and deadly afraid of losing your income, as the work-spend method only works as long as there is sufficient income.”
“After ‘growing up,’ the only thing children know is that problems are solved by buying products; that in order to buy something, one needs a job; and in order to get a job, one needs a college degree, which happens to be considered a brand name product as well.”
Wage Slave
“In real life, the prisoners of Plato’s Cave are those who are prisoners or slaves to their wages and their culture. Taking off the chains requires too much effort, so most of them remain seated. These are people who are very good and successful at identifying, naming, and dealing with shadows, and so they may not want to leave.”
“A wage slave is a person who is not only economically bound by mortgages, loans, and other obligations, but also mentally bound by an inability to perceive that there are other options available.”
“This endless working and paying is called “making a living,” yet people are so busy “making a living” that they have no time for living.”
College Degree
Education widens the focus while training narrows it.
“While the service sector has slowly grown, and as employers have come to prefer college-educated job applicants, demand for college degrees has gone up. Colleges and universities have responded by lowering academic standards and raising their prices, much like other producers of consumer goods and services respond to rising demand.”
“Passing exams or keeping up a grade point average develops another kind of character and this is why businesses are interested in students with good grades; aside from the grades serving as a legal proxy in lieu of intelligence tests, employers know that over-achievers follow and take instruction well.”
“Ever notice how many successful business leaders are college dropouts? It did not take them long to realize that college was not helping them to become leaders and entrepreneurs. This is because a college education creates followers, or people who are habituated to being handed a bunch of instructions and then delivering a product, from years of practice.”
Four Types of Human
“The totality of all people forms an ecosystem or a culture of four interdependent types of differently behaving and differently thinking kinds of humans. Each type of human tends to fill a different niche of society.”
Four Types of Human
“In different periods, different types will dominate the culture.”
- “The nondominant types will be considered undesirable or unrealistic, whereas the dominant type will generally be considered the ‘right’ way of doing things and, soon, ‘The way we have always done it.’”
- “If the conditions change, the existing species (types) will be outcompeted by a species (types) which is better adapted to the new conditions.”
- “Succession occurs because the dominance of one species (types) gradually changes the environment.”
Salary Man
“Most salary men are specialized wage earners who earn money from one source only.”
Working Man
“This is the definition of a wage slave. Wage slaves are free to change their job, but they’re not free to quit their job. Wage slaves are free to choose other products as long as they can afford it, but they’re not capable of creating alternatives to buying products, because they’re too busy working.”
Businessman
“A business generates cash flow by converting assets into income. The businessman inserts himself into this cash flow. By being in control of more than just his own time and energy, he controls more cash flow and thus earns more.”
“However, as long as there is a drive for profit, there will be competition and innovation, and those risks are hard to eliminate without monopoly pricing power, political favors, and other barriers to entry.”
Renaissance man
“This is a person who is less dependent on the market system than the specialist (refer to Ego Development Theory). It’s a person for whom net worth is less relevant. In extreme cases, money may even be irrelevant.”
“Combining resilience and consilience defines the Renaissance man.”
Breaking Free
“To live as a free person … it’s necessary to understand how the world works and how people have been specialized to the point of general incompetence, like ants, which only know how to do one job, but do it very well; this is not human nature.”
- “One must accept a lot more personal responsibility than merely showing up on time, following orders, checking off boxes, and trying to fit in.”
- “One must learn the general systemic rules that allow one to improvise and really live life the way it was intended–in your own way.”
- “One must build an overarching philosophy of what it means to live, which is different from the consumer philosophy of “follow advice/orders; work; get paycheck; spend paycheck; get stuff; repeat.”
Breaking Out
Complexity = Degrees of Freedom
“A society that worships conformity has zero apparent degrees of freedom. This may be hard to understand in a consumer society which prides itself on choice. However, while the choices are abundant, they’re restricted to a fairly narrow range. (further reading: One-Dimensional Man)”
“Complexity provides an advantage over simplicity because of its greater functionality … therefore, results in flexibility.”
“Maintaining increasing levels of complexity requires increasingly more effort. (But) It’s always easier to cut away than it is to create. (Refer to product-oriented thinking) Plans work well if the number of degrees of freedom is limited so that few things can go wrong–that is, not according to plan.”
Freedom = Production - Consumption
“Freedom is attained by creating a large gap between production and consumption.”
- “First, reduce waste and increase efficiency. It’s possible to live with the same benefits as the rest of society for one quarter of what the average consumer spends.”
- “Second, having significantly reduced expenses, invest the difference in businesses.”
- “Third, find something meaningful to do instead of work. If your work is really meaningful to you, you can keep working, knowing that you are living a less wasteful existence and that you have the financial security to leave your job at any time.”
Free Your Mind
“Changing your frame of mind is key to escaping, but change is a challenge. This challenge can become a struggle if your frame of mind is incompatible with your adopted lifestyle. In other words, you need to believe in your lifestyle as an end rather than as a means to an end.”
“Many people associate their ideas and thoughts with who they are as a person. This is a significant barrier, since admitting that an alternative is better is perceived as a personal failure. Barriers are therefore raised to protect the ego and avoid a change of perceptions (see also Ego Development Theory).”
F.I.R.E
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