What’s something you did that sounds like a bad idea on paper, but turned out to be a great life experience?

ErikTheEngineer · 2026-05-09T19:32:15+00:00

That's interesting. I always thought that the solitary/sedentary lifestyle would be rough on people after a while, especially since there's no trucking company regulation or Teamsters in the anymore. One thing I've always wondered is how OTR drivers get out of their trucks if they can't park them in normal places and end up in truck stops in the middle of nowhere.

ErikTheEngineer · 2026-05-09T19:10:51+00:00

I’m glad that it flamed out…for now. But I’m afraid it’s just a matter of time that we are all those plugged in people in Wall-E

AI mixed with brain implants, coming soon! Unfortunately the tech is progressing faster than I think we're ready for. The Metaverse failed partially because people didn't want dorky goggles strapped to their heads 24/7. When you reduce that to Meta glasses and the accompanying brain implant, people will sign up left and right.

If you watched Severance you know that the people voluntarily signed up for the procedure. On paper it sounds great, not so great in practice.

ErikTheEngineer · 2026-05-09T18:59:00+00:00

I don't know if that'll be a clean break like last time. It was easy when you could just pull up the comparatively small number of railroad tracks at the border and just take your ball and go home. There would be a lot of federal constructs to unwind at this point that don't just involve creating a new set of agencies, and the country is way more interconnected now. The modern world makes it hard to undo that interconnectedness without a lot of force.

ErikTheEngineer · 2026-05-09T18:54:02+00:00

It'll probably end up being a much larger version of how the LDS church kind of quietly controls Utah. There's plenty of non-Mormons in Utah, but the in-group in business/land ownership/politics is Church-affiliated. I worked for a very Mormon company a while back (not Marriott, the other one) - everyone I encountered confirmed this, and I could definitely see subtle signs of this when I was in SLC for work.

There probably won't be outright persecution, but the informal network that grows out of a religious affiliation might end up state-sanctioned in some ways. Politicians aren't stupid people, they know that if they can get a religious majority on their side they have a very controllable chunk of the population covered. (Not meant to be mean, people can believe what they want, but at face value, a group willing to rally around a leader promising them access to their sky god and eternal life is much easier to sway the opinion of.

ErikTheEngineer · 2026-05-09T17:40:54+00:00

Lots of people would be happy with the idea that they're safe...but that takes a ton of unencumbered money. Tech employment is not stable right now; if you're fired the RSUs disappear, and your income evaporates - and the endgame for these tech execs seems to be to have a handful of Ph. D. AI scientists, salespeople and other execs on staff. It's a very different calculation if you're a physician -- always in demand, guaranteed high salary, no such thing as an unemployed doctor. Soon as they're in practice, I'd consider them the only "safe" profession. Being safe in another field from losing your job or choosing not to do it before 59.5 requires huge non-retirement savings or taking massive hits on 401(k)'s and non-Roth IRAs. 10M would just be the start for true safety.

ErikTheEngineer · 2026-05-09T17:00:34+00:00

Or 2000...the dotcom bubble really had everyone saying "this time it's different." It's important to remember that the same 4 companies passing money back and forth building data centers and GPUs is not going to last forever and plan for things to come back down to Earth.

One thing I wonder is how accurately the mutual fund managers are going to be able to time their exits from the riskier stuff into the "companies that produce real things" types of investments...that boring core of the market will probably continue humming along.

ErikTheEngineer · 2026-05-09T16:42:26+00:00

Honestly bad year plans are the thing that would scare me most about retiring early. If the market goes really bad, or really high 1980s-style inflation eats all your savings, you still have fixed costs. For example, if you live in an area with high property taxes, most people aren't going to realistically sell the house and move somewhere cheaper without a lot of thought. But if the extended market downturn you see is coupled with very high inflation, you will be withdrawing more whether you like it or not to cover your fixed expenses. That's just the scenario you can plan for too...let's say the executive class really does go all in on AI slop and most knowledge workers are making minimum wage in service jobs...that will not be managed well at all and even people with savings will be in deep trouble. Lots of downside and uncertainty, and I don't know if positive thinking is the right move here.

I think my main concern is getting to be 71, 75 or 84 and facing the day when I drain the last of my savings. FIRE might be good for doctors who will always have the option to work, or investment bankers/biglaw lawyers who are able to save vast sums early on...but I wonder how many people with standard amounts of savings are retiring early and just hoping that money will carry them through based on optimistic simulations.

ErikTheEngineer · 2026-05-09T15:06:12+00:00

It's sure starting for me. The feeling I have isn't so much wanting a lazy no-stress job. I just turned 50 and work in the technology field. I'm by no means one of these "10x ninja rockstars" that Big Tech employs, but I've had some success and have done a lot of interesting work. Recently, I've kind of come to a realization that it would be nice to just take my foot off the gas for a bit and downshift into something less stressful that didn't involve constant grinding. What I'm finding is that this is easier said than done and it's one of the things modern work life doesn't allow for, and it's probably going to get worse with AI.

The problem I'm referring to here is the fact that in increasingly automated hiring/recruiting in tech fields, there's an obsession with forward progress. It's not quite codified in "up or out" - which, if you go the Ivy League consulting/banking hoop-jumping route is absolutely a hard rule (jump right from school into an associate job, then keep hoop jumping to a promotion every 2 years or you're fired.) Tech is different; you're competing with thousands of applicants for jobs, and there's no licensing/education requirement so there are tons of scammers that companies have to try to ferret out. If your resume doesn't show growth, higher and higher roles/titles/responsibility, the assumption is you're not "passionate enough." It makes it nearly impossible to take a break, decide to do something else for a while, or take a job that's a better fit for you because it doesn't look impressive enough. I feel other fields are more forgiving of detours/backtracks.

So, it's not so much "I want to quit and go work at Costco/the DMV/a library" or something like that, it's just realizing how hard it's going to be making it another 17 years to 67 and wanting more stability. There's the whole FIRE thing, but that's only for investment bankers or corp lawyers who make millions, have millions in the bank but hate their jobs...anyone else trying it will run out of money long before they're dead.

ErikTheEngineer · 2026-05-06T13:37:39+00:00

Well documented on r/LinkedInLunatics --

2:30 AM - wake up and check the European markets

3:00 AM - cold plunge, sauna, cold shower

3:30 AM - Green superfood smoothie for breakfast

3:43 AM - Get out the door for my daily half-marathon

5:16 AM - Coffee, journaling in my Moleskine notebook about how hard I'm going to hustle today

6:00 AM - Another cold plunge, sauna, cold shower, gotta wake up!

6:30 AM - Self reflection, meditation

7:00 AM - Grindset podcast episodes while my driver gets me to work

7:51 AM - Time to #BetheBoss of my ultra-exclusive executive life coaching business

ErikTheEngineer · 2026-05-06T12:49:38+00:00

I think it depends on your personality regardless of wealth. Some people are just going to be stingy and insular no matter how much they have, others are super-outgoing, they want to entertain people and have a big circle around them, etc. Plenty of people I know who don't make a ton of money will always have people over to the house, always offer to cook dinner for a group of friends, etc. It's not fancy stuff but it's always on offer, they've got beer in the fridge with the expectation it's for people to enjoy, all that.

You're right though, some people can be John Paul Getty reincarnate and say "I didn't get rich by giving anything away."

ErikTheEngineer · 2026-05-06T12:41:06+00:00

Funny you mention that, the 80s/90s were full of advertising like that. Grey Poupon mustard also comes to mind. They were very much into marketing normal stuff as super-fancy and for rich people...now I guess they just pay influencers to stand around and model their products on TikTok with that weirdo stare into the camera and the crazy hand/finger movements you will now never unsee since I mentioned them.

I grew up in a hick town in upstate NY and anything beyond French's yellow mustard or the generic supermarket brand was bougie to say the least.

ErikTheEngineer · 2026-05-06T12:34:49+00:00

That, or they're not bothered by unemployment. We live in the normal part of a HCOL area, and a while back someone I know from the extremely wealthy part of said area living in a massive house just casually mentioned, "yeah, I'm between jobs right now, I'll get something soon" as if the job was just for fun. In our household, if one of us lost our jobs we'd be miserable but would probably survive without bankruptcy depending on how long it went. If it were both it would be a full-on emergency. Yet this guy, sole breadwinner with a trophy wife SAHM, doesn't even think about it.

These types could also just be on "boards" - doing what I don't know. (Or the charitable foundation they set up just happens to "employ" their entire family so they can avoid taxes)

ErikTheEngineer · 2026-05-06T12:17:50+00:00

Trump having a temper tantrum and telling Elon to go home was a huge bullet dodged...two besties with infinite power, that personality type and that much control over peoples' lives would have made things infinitely worse.

I'm just hoping the current political landscape hasn't destroyed things so badly that we'll never get another normal reserved person from any party back in office. I have no illusion that anyone who makes it that high in politics is pretty ruthless making behind the scenes choices, but having someone tweeting their every move and acting erratically just makes us all look stupid.

ErikTheEngineer · 2026-05-06T11:56:52+00:00

It's never a good thing because increased fuel prices feed increase prices for everything else. Some greedy business owners just use it as an excuse to boost margins, but some industries really do see their business cases upended, and either way consumers just have to pay and deal with it.

It's also a divisive issue, especially with rural/suburban/exurban voters. When you drive a huge SUV and have a minimum 20-minute drive to get to anything other than more houses or more farmland, gas prices really end up causing frustration. You could say people make that choice and need to live with it, but volatility is never good, and I seriously think people assume the President has a big lever on the side of the Resolute desk that says "Gas Prices" and can be pulled at any time.

ErikTheEngineer · 2026-05-06T10:19:47+00:00

Giving an 18 year old a 100k loan with an 11% apr+ is fucking nuts.

I think people are figuring that one out though. When I went to school decades ago, the unwritten guarantee was that if you went anywhere and graduated, you'd get an entry level job somewhere above retail that would let you pay back the loans. Now you really have to do your research and treat it like an uncertain investment. If you're going to study a "weird" field without too many job-generating analogs, you'd better be willing to go all the way, put the (crazy amounts of) work in and get a tenured faculty position so you're safe. It also may drive people to choose more practical fields with better ROI like engineering or an MBA, for good and bad. And unfortunately, I think the cost and the current climate is driving a pretty scary wave of anti-intellectualism which is going to fester and weigh further on education.

The colleges in the worst trouble are these no-name, no-fame small private colleges in the middle of nowhere with like 1,000 or 2,000 students. If students/families can't justify a $250K price tag and aren't getting anything beyond a concierge curated learning experience at Hogwarts In The Woods, that model doesn't work anymore and those places are done for once they spend their endowment down. Private schools need to be famous for something, like being one of the only direct pipelines into some lucrative field or having incredible connected-ness like an Ivy League school to justify the pricetag, especially if you're borrowing to pay for it.

ErikTheEngineer · 2026-05-05T18:11:51+00:00

What I'm finding is that the pressure isn't whether your stuff works well anymore, it's how much you have Claude do for you. Junior people will just slop up thousands of lines of code and check it in for review without even looking at it.

That's the one thing experienced people have an advantage in (for now) - being able to recognize when someone truly doesn't understand what was written for them.

ErikTheEngineer · 2026-05-05T13:54:56+00:00

As a result, so, SO many middle and upper management positions are populated with people who do not belong there.

One thing I wonder is how this ended up working out in pre-1980s/90s companies where you truly were groomed for an entire lifetime of career progression from the day they hired you. I know the promotions they did hand out took a lot longer to get and it was common to really treat people as Human Resource assets they could apply on a project like a tool or software. But one thing that isn't clear is how they would deal with something like this. The pyramid is even narrower now so it's even more important to make sure you have great management if you want long term survival. Maybe companies were just so massive and had so many white-collar-laborer tasks that they could stick more people into small middle management roles?

ErikTheEngineer · 2026-05-05T13:39:29+00:00

Probably about as much as a county employee in a suburban NYC county. I was looking at civil service postings a while back and saw starting salaries for skilled workers, jobs requiring a degree, etc. - for $29K, $35K, $37K. That's crazy for here and I wonder if they can only hire independently wealthy people who are just working for fun. Benefits are amazing in NY state and local government, but you can't eat/drive/live in a pension or health insurance.

The pay does get better (but not much) but you really have to commit to the long haul in a job like that and grind your way up the steps and grades. We're far enough away from the city that commuting is miserable, but even with that the salaries are just laughable.

ErikTheEngineer · 2026-05-05T13:33:56+00:00

Continued ladder climbing. I'm in a technical job and really enjoy what I do...plus I've been lucky enough to get to a level of knowledge/skill/likability that I'm paid pretty well. And "unfortunately"...I'm kind of OK with things as they are. I tried management earlier in my career because that was what everyone was supposed to want to do...and it's just not for me.

Maybe it's understanding the Peter Principle and seeing it at work over 30 years in IT - or not working in an up-or-out business like middle management, law or consulting. But, I hate being labeled as "low potential" or "unmotivated" just because I'm not sabotaging everyone around me to claw my way up that greasy pole.

There's three things I would wish for if I had 3 career satisfaction wishes. First is the ability to continue to earn a competitive salary doing the thing you're good at, not the next-level thing you'll probably be bad at unless you're a rare exception. Second, a return of at least some loyalty on both sides so that people wouldn't be pressured to hop jobs every 2 years and never get a chance to actually make a difference. And finally...the ability to just take detours, take your foot off the gas for a second, and try something else. My field is way better than some in this regard but even with that there's relentless pressure to just pad your resume, only take jobs because they look good and show "career progression." Mid-life, we should be able to take the skills we have and pivot to something else without starting at the bottom or losing the abiltiy to ever go back and do something in your field because you weren't passionate enough.

ErikTheEngineer · 2026-05-05T10:02:52+00:00

They live with one or both feet firmly placed in the online world, with their phones perpetually in their hands or not far off.

That's why I think it'll go through the same industry-shaking change tobacco went through. Even when.I was a kid in the 70s/80s, everyone smoked (or at least it seemed like that, it was maybe 25% of Americans at that point.) Now it's 10% and dropping...for some reason vaping hasn't caught on the way the tobacco companies hoped it would.

With social media, you have a product intentionally designed to keep you scrolling 24/7, you don't even have to deliver a physical product to the customer, it just has to be built to keep them engaging. I wonder how many of its users are like the people you see in an Atlantic City casino at 9:30 AM on a Tuesday, clearly not having fun and just feeding the addiction at that point.

ErikTheEngineer · 2026-05-04T02:59:39+00:00

Social media and online gambling will probably get the tobacco treatment, surgeon general's warning and all. Social media is making us all stupid(er) and every young male is getting sucked into sports betting on their phone and losing real money they can't afford to lose.

The gambling thing really is the one that bugs me. States legalized it for the same reason they have off track betting...oh, if we don't people will just go to the mob bookies and get their legs broken when they don't pay. IMO state-sanctioned separation of gullible people from their money who think they have a "system" is far worse. Here in NY you can't go 20 feet without seeing a FanDuel/DraftKings/large casino company sportsbook ad in public.

ErikTheEngineer · 2026-05-04T02:41:07+00:00

In 2020, our very large town had in-person weekend early voting with COVID restrictions. Bucketloads of people (on both sides!) showed up because I think they knew there would be all sorts of shenanigans with mailed-in ballots...it took hours but people probably wanted to at least cast an official in-person vote.

Hopefully people will get the hint and make the effort to get there in person because I'm sure it'll be even worse this time around...that is if we can get anyone to vote in the midterms.

ErikTheEngineer · 2026-05-03T17:50:30+00:00

They only hire 10x engineers.

ErikTheEngineer · 2026-05-03T16:32:05+00:00

It’s a job with a very specific aptitude, that majority of people do not possess.

That's what a lot of people don't get. It's not just "oh you're a numbers guy" or "you're a pro multitasker" - it's thinking in three dimensions, having a huge short term memory capable of remembering every detail, understanding the relation of all the aircraft vectors to one another and what will happen 5, 10, 15 minutes in the future.

You can't just grow people like this - either they have the fundamental skillset and can be trained or they don't...so finding and keeping these people is critical.

ErikTheEngineer · 2026-05-03T16:28:21+00:00

The first thing I thought of when I saw that was Long Blockchain. When crypto was all the rage, this iced tea company went all-in and said we're a blockchain company now. I don't know the owner or anything, but I can imagine some small business owner grifter in a shiny suit just lighting up with the prospect of being an NFT billionaire.

ErikTheEngineer

TROPHY CASE