I chose pre-tirement a year and a half ago, in my mid-40s. Yep, it’s a thing – the space between full-time work and retirement – a reduced workload in return for $ that meet my needs and some wants. Monika Halan’s recent column reminded me of the real question I grappled with: “Will I outlive my money or will my money outlive me?”
I agree with her take on the learn-earn-burn model and sketchy finfluencers, but I don’t think the classic career peak-in-your-50s idea will last. Here’s why.
1. Short-termism is now baked into most companies. Layoffs, shrinking business cycles, and the fast pace of disruption mean you’re constantly solving new problems with new tools. That’s largely fluid intelligence, which peaks around 40. Until now, we’ve extended careers beyond 40 largely with crystallised intelligence (experience, wisdom), but AI is catching up with both. Soon, someone younger, faster, and AI-enabled might do the same work cheaper.
2. That also means even a decade-long career may be a stretch. Once humans turn knowledge into rules, rules become algorithms, automation happens and jobs disappear. Damn AI learns!
3. This shift is especially brutal for Gen X and Millennials who weren’t prepared for it. Add subpar savings, unhealthy lifestyles, and rising stress, and mental and physical health issues are inevitable. And no, companies won’t support you.
Since I’m aged enough to offer unsolicited advice: if you’re in your 30s/40s, aim for pre-tirement by 50. Think of it as a Pascal’s wager. Better to have financial freedom so you can grow on your terms, and are not forced to make money-driven choices.
The path? Good old compounding – of intelligence, wealth, health, and relationships.
1. Stay curious. Keep learning. Solve new problems to keep your mind sharp.
2. Spend and invest consciously. Don’t finance today’s wants at the cost of tomorrow’s needs.
3. Stay healthy, not just fit – body and mind. Saves you meds money and lets you enjoy your freedom.
4. Find people in whose company you can be yourself. It aids the above three too.
In the near and mid-term, AI’s quick evolution will question not just work’s efficacy as an income provider, but also its ability to deliver a sense of purpose. On an existential scale, I think the second will cause more damage.
Category: Internet
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Notion States 2
For a while now – since 2010, I have felt that the nation state (or notion state really) is a shared mental model which is nearing its expiry date. But like other intersubjective realities (money, god), we are reluctant to let go of it. That’s why I found it interesting when Aakar Patel spoke about how nation states are quite inefficient.
It’s quite true. All you need to do is think about the movement of people and objects and you’ll figure it out for yourself. And while the state has begun using things like Aadhaar to increase legibility about its citizens , and thereby increase efficiency (and further nefarious interests), it is advancing at incremental levels, while the world is moving exponentially.
Not to mention that the nation state is an instigator and participant in one of the most net-negative things humanity has been continuing – wars! And these days, it’s not just the ‘simple’ human conflicts any more. In the digital space that we spend a lot of time in, and in which we have created identities, state surveillance and deliberate offences using things like ‘zero days’ against its own citizens and enemy states are all contributing to equal if not greater retaliation. In fact, this can actually lead to physical losses too thanks to hacking of power grids, nuclear facilities, healthcare systems and so on.
So how is this glorified middleman holding on? I think a big reason for the popularity of the nation state is the sense of identity it fosters. Along with religion, nationalism continues to be a superpower. The line on paper is strong even if culture ignores it. Think Delhi and Lahore vs Delhi and Chennai.
However along came the internet, which has a way of disposing inefficient middlemen. It has massively accelerated the geographical movement of ideas, and increasingly that now includes identity. As Fukuyama points out in Identity, as we moved away from agrarian societies with a strict hierarchy to technology-driven societies with multiple social classes, pluralism, diversity, and choice emerged and identity started becoming increasingly complex. By early nineteenth century, there was a fork – universal recognition of individual rights, and collective recognition. Arguably, Fortnite and LGBTQ rights can increasingly unite people more than a national flag does.
However, given that the internet has destroyed many things without finding a remotely appropriate replacement, I also began to think of a ‘for’ case. One other relevant intersubjective reality we can learn from is money. In the case of money, once upon a time, different geographies had different systems. Vulnerability in one was of less concern to another. But now, it’s all interconnected, and thus fragile. Even in a nation state dominated system, covid just took over the globe and in addition to lives, had a telling effect on the economy. No country was really spared. So it’s important to ask what would happen if no barriers existed. Is it always good to completely remove friction? There is more. Money is also dependent on the rule of law, and its enforcement by physical force – one of the tasks of the nation state. A big concern with crypto is this enforcement.
And to now expand this line of thought, what happens to governance? Many evils are kept on a leash because of regulation. Who is accountable for rights and duties of citizens? Minorities might not be in a great place now but without the pretence of the state that pretends to care for them, what happens? What becomes of those who are economically not contributing to the system – the old, the infirm, the less-educated and so on?
One thought is that there will be a replacement and it won’t be all binary. It will move in stages. For instance, money seeks efficiency too. And it is interesting that money itself, at least in form to begin with, is being challenged by the blockchain. On a related note, our lives are increasing moving into the digital domain, where the nation state’s borders are mostly irrelevant. This means the state’s playbook for regulation cannot be deployed automatically. The worry though is that all this might end up breaking things faster than we can find a replacement, even if it is a notional one!