An issue I always have with early retirement is whether it is morally acceptable. When retiring early from a skilled profession you are depriving society of a big contribution you could have given, that was also expected and invested in by society. Utilising a power dynamic by having more money and knowledge to capitalise on other people exacerbates this issue.

How are you dealing with this? Are you of the mindset that you do not owe anything to society? That it is completely fair, as you earned that money and there is a perfect market that trades all aspects in a meritocratic fashion (e.g., delayed consumption should be gratified this hard)? Or that you were not just lucky to have the talents to earn so much money?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I tried not to only focus on economic value in my counter arguments. I just wanted to use monetary value as a proxy for general value for society.

Regarding the transition to research and policy my argument would be that you will have more impact when taking a full time research position instead of retiring from the working world. I would still consider most research positions a part of the working world.

With a competitive society I actually meant that there are groups that will not support early retirees. These groups will dominate society after some time. An example might be China vs US. If many people in the US retire early, the US will not be able to compete and in the long run will stop existing together with all its values.