Being Ridiculous

Freedom is not the absence of rules. The biggest defenders of liberty will also be the strongest advocates for rule of law. Rules are just agreements. Not divine in nature, but between people. You can make agreements with yourself.

You can also ensure that you do not become too fixated on the rules that they are not serving the people who agreed to them. Anything without the capacity to change has increased capacity to break.

A university friend teased me because when we were in study-weeks I would arrange to meet him to watch a movie in a break. I would go to the Common Room to watch the movie, and he would be late, and there wouldn’t be time for the movie. I would be starting my next study session. He thought I was ridiculous. He was probably right. But that was the stage I was in. My rules likely made relationships and friendships more difficult because my structure had consequences for others.

It is difficult to create agreements that work for everyone in every situation. Still, we must create little bubbles for stuff that is important. Pockets of focus. Pockets of made-up limits. 

Release Prejudice

In a simple world where you did what your parent of the same gender did for a living, your path was decided. Our paths are still decided partly because of a coordination problem. We don’t know the complete menu of options, different people face different obstacles, and our GPS giving the route (skills and knowledge required) is like the glitchy ones that said, “you have arrived at your destination” when you are in the middle of the highway. Race, gender, sexual preference and class are slowly becoming less foundational in deciding what menu you have. Nationality is a horribly persistent sorting mechanism in a world of Global Apartheid that prohibits free movement of people (while treating capital, goods and services more kindly). Part of the advantage of building an Engine of Capital is that prejudice falls away. Money is fungible. Meaning it can change form in a laugh-in-the-general-direction of identity politics way. You can treat it like an Avatar. Send it off to work on your behalf prejudice-free, with the widest menu possible.

Let your Capital loose

Walks and Water

Life is very complicated. But some things seem awfully simple. How do you make a city great? One way to help is to make it easy to walk and provide water. We have an aversion to free stuff as making people lazy, but what if free stuff is to cities like search is to Google? We don't pay for the search, but through our activity and by helping direct us to other stuff we want Google has become one of the best companies in the world - for staff, for shareholders and for us.

Melbourne is one of the best cities in the world. Yesterday I walked along what for my host is his commute. He would zip along the dedicated bike lane. I wandered along the dedicated walking lane. I didn't have to fight a single car. When I got to London, I bought myself a bicycle with the intention of doubling up exercise and my commute. Perhaps I am just chicken, but after one or two rides I decided that I wasn't really up to the car vs. bike debate. In London, it is also a car vs. bus debate and although I backed myself as a pretty good debater in my day, that bus was going to win.

A commute has a huge effect on happiness. We spend a lot of time at work as it is, but we don't tend to include the getting there and back in the calculation. Although my bike plan didn't work out, I eventually switched to the bus rather than the tube. Even though it took a bit longer, being above ground seemed to have a better effect on my mood. But this path along the edge of Port Phillip is pretty spectacular. I imagine it must have pretty much the same effect as doing a half hour of meditation either side of work. Even if you had King Joffrey as your boss, you would probably still come home thinking life is great.

I lived in Putney in London, and there was one option that did make for a rather splendid (best Queen's English) start to the day. Occasionally, when the weather was good, I would hop on the ferry (right by where the Oxford-Cambridge boat race starts) and go along the river to Embankment Pier. This was an awesome way to roll. But it was also quite pricey, and along with the obligatory coffee clearly would start to add up if you did it every day. There used to be a 'Pay Yourself First' spreadsheet tool we put together for people when I worked at Old Mutual that showed just how much those daily treats really cost you. Part of my bus vs. train logic was that I missed the sweet counters. It seemed every day was one where I really deserved a chocolate on the way home. The difference with the Port Phillip commute is it is free. All along the route are water fountains. Also free. And healthy.

There are lots of elections going on around the world with all sorts of crazy politics and shouting. Wouldn't it be awesome if more of the shouting was about walking and water?

Free

The dynamic is very different when you charge for something. The Yoga Centre I go to is a not for profit. The culture of running something purely on donations/alms did not translate well from India, so they started to charge. The full time staff live at the centres and beyond food and lodging, do not receive much more than pocket money. Their lives tend to revolve almost entirely around the organisation. The rest of the input comes from volunteers. I, for example, volunteer as a teacher once or twice a week. They rely on people to donate time to help cook, clean, market, tend the gardens and generally keep the centres running. It provides a very different atmosphere. There are times when it leaves the staff who are there rather thin on the ground. It is difficult to know when people will give of their time, and plan. There is no sense of contractual obligation.

Volunteer Teacher at the Sivananda Yoga Centre

How to finance and do charity work is a challenging question. There are those who want to commit their lives to doing work for others. You have to eat though. We also have to recognise that we are people, not saints or heroes, and we are going to want to do some things for ourselves. One of the most effective ways to make a difference may be to work at the job that pays the most. You then have money to donate to charities or good causes. This was the conclusion of one of Peter Singer's philosophy students. Singer gives practical examples of ways to respond in his book 'The Life You Can Save'.

Another approach may be to divide your career in parts. Once you have the firepower to 'be your own patron', you can independently pursue what you would like to do. Bill Gates is clearly his own patron and doing amazing things, but you don't have to be a bazillionaire if your tastes are simple. You may also not have Gate's talent at running an effective altruistic organisation. Warren Buffet decided his core skill lay in growing money and he would make the most difference by growing that money and then (much later) giving it to someone else (his buddy Bill) to spend effectively. Buffett isn't that much of a spender. Although we may think wealthy people hoard piles of money like Scrooge McDuck, money isn't actually a thing. When someone has their money in an offshore account, they don't actually have anything there other than a paper trail. Buffett doesn't actually even like or understand why you should own gold. He doesn't understand why you would dig something out of the ground just to put it into a safe. Instead he invests in productive assets. Businesses. These businesses make stuff and do things people want. Since Buffett is happy with a simple(ish) life and doesn't need the profit, he prefers to invest it back into businesses and increase the ability to provide more goods and services that people want. He isn't stopping people from getting things, he is helping them in a different way.

Dig it up. Hide it away. But why?

I don't know the figures, but I suspect Yale university could provide education for free. They have a huge endowment that carries on growing. Free has a different dynamic though. It would certainly mean the application process would change. MOOCs are close to free. I suspect the drop out rates are higher than at Yale. Paying a lot for something is one way to ensure you value it. If the Yoga Centre suddenly had a massive endowment and could provide the Yoga, the books, the courses, the food, the accommodation etc. for free - should they do it? Money gives us a way of understanding transactions and what the rules are. When it is removed, we move into more confusing, emotional territory. Nassim Taleb describes relational vs transactional: 'when you buy goat cheese from your grocer, you have a relationship, not just a transaction, with some kind of bilateral commitment, loyalty, friendship.' Relationships are messy. You can't pay friends and family to be there we you need them. You can't pay them to be thoughtful. There is no service level agreement, and expectations are not guaranteed.

There is something priceless about free. There is something intangibly wonderful about a volunteer organisation. The rules are taken away though and the only thing that makes them work is the investment of time.