
The Surprising Power of the Long Game - feross
https://fs.blog/2018/10/long-game/
======
SolaceQuantum
This article fails to wholly contextualize the reasons why some people play
the short game vs the long game. There are systematic reasons why it may take
significantly more effort and sacrifice to play the long game for very little
real gain. For example:

 _Why invest in your relationship with your partner today when you can work a
little bit extra in the office?_

Consider the hypothetical: My partner has health issues that requires me to
earn more money to support us both/cannot work. Or I need to earn more money
to pay for daycare/college for my children. Or my field is very demanding and
also job prospects are slim, so I need to work longer and harder than average
to avoid being laid off during the next restacking.

Some more familiar hypothetical: I work at a startup and if we succeed my
partner will be set for life.

 _Why wait to pay for a phone in cash, when you can put it on your credit
card?_

Consider this hypothetical: I don't have the cash, ever, but I need the phone
to get a better job so I could pay off the debt I enter when investing in a
phone.

 _Why go to the gym when you can go drinking with your friends?_

Consider this hypothetical: Due to working 12/14/16 hour days normally, I can
only see my friends when I go out drinking with them on certain days of the
week. My job is extremely stressful and my friends are my only emotional
support.

Essentially, I'm not impressed by the reasoning displayed here. It's a general
advisement that does not contain enough nuance, or even the _option_ of a more
nuanced life context.

While this advice suits a minority of people who are well-off enough such that
they have stable, long-term gainful employment and enough time/resources to
plan their lives, I would suggest an additional nuance that there are
contextual situations that justify behaviors against the traditional short
term vs long term sensibilities, in the same way that there are contextual
situations where getting a codebase to work should be prioritized compared to
getting a codebase to function in a readable, clever, efficient, well-thought-
out architecture.

~~~
sdenton4
The term we're looking for here is "poverty trap."

A poverty trap is a circumstance where people are forced to take a more costly
short term move. The canonical example is buying a $35 pair of shoes twice a
year instead of a $50 pair that might last two years.

~~~
Vendan
Obligatory Terry Pratchett quote:

“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they
managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus
allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an
affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then
leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those
were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so
thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the
feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could
afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry
in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would
have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have
wet feet.

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.”

~~~
dwaltrip
It's a fun quote that has some truth to it, but not much more than that.

~~~
yial
The truth of it applies to a lot of things though; if money is tight and you
have to buy some quantities it means you pay more for

Toilet paper.

Paper towels.

You can’t stock up when soup is on sale. Or tuna. Or other x canned item.

Shoes, do you buy lightly used, or do you buy whatever is on clearance ?

Clothing: nothing from Walmart ever seems to fit right. Used shirts and pants
always seem to fit just a little off. Is there a Burlington coat factory, or a
Gabe’s, or similar near you? Maybe you can grab something cheap. If not, you
may have to spend entirely too much of your paycheck to replace some pieces of
clothing you probably have to have for work. (Example of this, I used to know
people making barely more then minimum wage, who didn’t have a car, and had to
pay way too much to keep buying cheap pants when they got holes in them so
they wouldn’t lose their job ).

~~~
dwaltrip
Yes, that is why I said it has some truth to it. Perhaps I could have been
more clear in my criticism.

It is simply a very incomplete description for why some people have more
wealth and income than others. It is one piece of a large and complex puzzle.

~~~
Vendan
Yeap. I mainly meant it as a fun alternative to the rather more standard
"Obligatory xkcd" posts :D. Also, I'm a huge fan of Terry Pratchett.

------
rekshaw
I find it fascinating that most of the comments below are critical of the
article. Sure, I also agree that delayed gratification pushed to the extreme
(e.g. never spending ANY money and never enjoying oneself) is just as bad as
playing the short term (spending it all right away), but I think the real
focal point of the article is the accumulation concept. A lifetime's worth of
actions will compound more and more until deciding to change one's habits and
reverse the consequences of those actions will get more and more costly (in
terms of money, time and effort).

Personal example: I'm an aspiring hobbyist composer. Over the years, I've
consistently tried to look for "quick" ways to learn composition, ignoring all
the boring hard stuff. Relying on common patterns, guides and other
"cheatsheets" to getting a good sounding tune. the result? I don't have any
deep understanding of what I'm doing, nor can I really stretch myself beyond
the cheat sheets and guides that I follow. Recently, I've been reversing
course and starting from the basics and going into detail on the fundamentals
of music theory. It's painful, it's boring, it's tedious, but I know that in
the long term it will pay off a lot more. Just my 2 cents.

~~~
cortesoft
I think the overall negativity is that the article is simplistic.

Everything has opportunity costs. For every lament about "I should have worked
more on this long term project instead of going out with friends", there is a
"I wish I hadn't spent every moment working on a long term goal, and spent
more time with my kids"

The real answer is finding the balance. You are going to be unhappy if you
neglect your short term goals just as much as if you neglect your long term
ones.

This is most important lesson I have learned as an adult. If you are always
working for the future, you will never enjoy the present, because the future
never actually arrives. If you ignore your future for your present, the future
will be here before you know it.

You need to build a sustainable pace - the now has to be enjoyable, because
that is all you have, but the future has to be prepared for, because the
future will be now before you know it.

------
secabeen
The biggest thing to remember about any long game is to adjust for
survivorship bias, literally. It's really compelling to write the story of the
90-year-old who had a blissful retirement with lots of money, friends and
success. That misses the person who scrimped and saved and was frugal to play
the long game, and who died of cancer (genetic predisposition, not linked to
unhealthy living) at age 55. That person would have been much better off to
play the short game. Sure, ideally, playing the long game is fun, and you get
both current and future benefit. But we also live in the now, and the thing I
regret most is being frugal, focusing on my career, and not going on the
month-long Galapagos cruise with my dad. I missed out on that, and I can't
ever get it back, no matter how much money I have in my bank account at age
75.

~~~
empath75
I spent my 20s going to parties and djing. I entered my 30s bankrupt but I
have absolutely no regrets. I had amazing experiences that I wouldn’t change
for the world.

Who gives a fuck if I have a million dollars when I retire. There’s no amount
of money at 70 that will buy me the experience of djing for a crowd of 3000
people or diving off of a cliff in Nicaragua. You have to live while you’re
young.

I’m never going to look back at my life and regret that I didn’t live it.

~~~
nogbit
Nor do you want to work when your old (most people in most jobs). Balance is
key.

------
aklein
This whole article rests on the premise "The longer you play the long game,
the easier it is to play and the greater the rewards."

This is a version of the "time diversification fallacy" in finance.

 _The debate over time diversification has been longrunning and remains
unresolved. However, there is little empirical evidence to support the claim
that time moderates the risks inherent in risky assets. In actuality, a longer
investment horizon increases the magnitude of potential outcomes, both
negative and positive. That being said, other factors may warrant the
consideration of an investment time horizon in the asset-allocation process._
[1]

Also, the article suggests "doing what everyone else is doing pretty much
ensures that you’re going to be average." Math check. In the case of the stock
market, the "average" return of the S&P 500 index outperforms 95% of active
managers' returns. Turns out ensembling informed opinions is a pretty powerful
tool. Who would have thought?

[1] conclusion of
[https://www.vanguard.com/pdf/icrtd.pdf?2210045172](https://www.vanguard.com/pdf/icrtd.pdf?2210045172)

~~~
dwaltrip
The "easier it is to play" part is seems quite true, from a psychological
perspective. If one has built up a strong habit of carefully managing your
finances and not spending too much, then that is what you are likely to keep
doing (in general).

The "greater rewards part" looks to me like a reference to compounding
results, which I don't think is very controversial. I don't know much about
time diversification, but it looks interesting. I'll have to read more about
it sometime.

------
vinceguidry
You can turn just about any short game into a long game and any long game into
a short one. Just apply the same thoughts and strategies to the short game as
you would to the long one.

Those MIT guys who turned blackjack into a business is a great example of the
former, and amateur day trading is a great example of the latter.

It's not what you do, it's _how_ and _why_ you're doing them.

------
cousin_it
The most overlooked idea is that the long game can be fun too. Think of it
this way: you either play the short game every day and have fun... or you
invest a small number of days into learning to have fun from the long game.
Then playing it every day will give you just as much fun _and_ make you better
off. The initial investment is much smaller than you think, e.g. a month after
starting strength training at age 28 I was hooked on it and haven't stopped in
7 years.

------
jondubois
I played the long game for the past 8 years. I worked on my first project for
3 years, it was a failure. I worked on my second project for 5 years, I still
can't earn a regular salary from it.

I worked insanely hard for 8 years; most nights after work and almost all my
weekends. I can't say that the long 'game' works. It really doesn't feel like
a game anymore though.

Most successful people I've met play the short game. People like to play the
short game because it works.

~~~
tw1010
Sorry if this is blunt, but playing the long game still requires that you take
into account common fallacies, like sunk cost. Maybe successful people who
played the short game did so because they skipped from opportunity to
opportunity once they realized their investment wasn't going to be worth it in
the long run.

~~~
jondubois
But what is the difference between sunk cost and necessary persistence?

Sometimes it's not obvious at all. There are many cases of people who were
failing for decades but they persisted and then out of nowhere they got their
big break. There are also many cases (probably even more of them) where people
persisted but went nowhere. It's only sunk cost in hindsight.

------
sgt101
All fair enough but I'd just like to point out that some people discover that
the long game is not going to pay out for them. It's really horrid, I know
people don't like to hear it, but I had two close friends die in their late
20's. Both had been good, saved, worked... both saw no return at all on that
delayed gratification.

Live! At least a little. Life can be short.

~~~
TheGrassyKnoll
Ditto. Had a boss drop dead at 42 of a heart attack. Seemed like a shitty card
to get after spending most of his adult life in a cubicle.

------
groth
I find it works best if 'the long game' has short term appeal --

1\. i.e. exercising in a way I find fun (jujitsu, dancing, swimming) 2\. plan
going out in a way that develops my social skills 3\. save money but buy nice
things that have low amortized cost (quality clothing, vacations, a computer
that works...) 4\. I think there's also value in making mistakes

------
hliyan
There has to be a better mental model than a game to represent the benefits of
long term thinking / delayed gratification. For me, I look at as nudging my
timeline by a minute fraction of a degree each time I do something that feels
unnatural / like a chore, but that I know is beneficial in the long run.
Hundreds of such small adjustments over the years result in major course
corrections...

I'm sure other mental models are possible.

Edit: Forgot another point: the further away in space/time an effect of your
actions is, the weaker its emotional response in you. You can motivate
yourself to act by finding strategies to amplify that response. To me, it is
what sets us apart from animals, who operate mostly in the here-and-now.

------
tw1010
And the mistake a lot of people make is thinking that the long game is always
dull and boring, while the short game is fun and exciting. But that's not at
all necessarily true. The long game can be just as fun as the short game.

You can either choose to do things that'll make you happy now, but also in the
future (like exersize or working on a coding project), or you can do things
that make you happy only now (like playing a video game).

~~~
coldtea
> _You can either choose to do things that 'll make you happy now, but also in
> the future (like exersize or working on a coding project), or you can do
> things that make you happy only now (like playing a video game)._

That's an obvious choice. But things like "exersize" are not things that make
most people happy "now". They are things they have to force themselves to
perform (at least initially).

------
dpflan
Short article touting the idea of "delayed gratification" and "will power" in
order to satisfy your future self. What is interesting is how possibly
counter-intuitive the gratification equation is. It's fun to think about the
compounding effect of both strategies suggested in the article. If the "short-
game" is repeated doesn't it become your "long-game" strategy?

------
XCSme
It was a nice read, but the article is clearly biased. It just says "suffer a
bit today to have nicer tomorrow", but when you play the long game, tomorrow
will be the same as today. You suffered yesterday, you suffer today, you will
suffer tomorrow, but for how long? No one guarantees that after years of
suffering you'll reach your desired goal. The question is, with the life being
so short, is it worth playing the long goal or should you just enjoy your life
and party till sunrise while you still can?

~~~
BLKNSLVR
The long game requires planning and goals, like any project.

 _No one guarantees that after years of suffering you 'll reach your desired
goal_

This is flippant, but intended to be helpful: There are no guarantees. Each
person has to use their own judgement on what's likely to happen in X amount
of time, and then re-adjust on a regular basis.

This is true for the short or the long game, it's just the distance to the
horizon that's different.

------
tsunamifury
There are other angles to this. For example, I am a luxury spender. Travel,
cars, nice place to live all are high (but affordable) expenses for me that
frugal people would definitely judge me for. However, I find the luxuries of
life and being able to share them one of my day to day motivations to keeps me
working hard. I also believe my work is broadly beneficial for humanity, but I
need a fair bit of local luxuries to keep the day to day motivated. If I died
with a little in the bank, a nice life, and a minor (or major) contribution to
humanity I'd be fine. Most of the actual millionaires I know have major
expenses in their life and they enjoy working. They aren't these bizarre penny
pinching, retire at 40 types that seem to pervade financial blogs. But to each
their own.

Edit: as a counterpoint to my own -- ulta-frugalness may be a completely
necessary strategy for anyone but high net worth/high pay individuals need to
survive an environment that is cutting entitlements and shows increased long
term employment risk.

------
sharadov
The teacher example is an extreme version of the long game. There is a middle
path - where you focus on investing, invest in your health, treat your job
less as a job and more as a career.

~~~
eloisant
Well, let's see... After a career of 35 years she had 6 millions. Did she save
171k a year off her teacher salary? "They didn't throw anything away" said the
lawyer. I'm not sure how a school teacher who makes 50k a year will save 170k
a year by not "throw away anything".

Or maybe... She got lucky with some investments, maybe real estate. That
reminds me all the stories of engineers who retire early by "saving instead of
spending" that start by "I got 500k from stocks when the startup I worked for
got bought out".

Sure, saving every year and investing instead of buying everything credit is a
good thing, just like avoid to sink all your savings + 25 years mortgage when
you buy a house, and many Americans especially need to be reminded that. But
showing a lady who end up with 6M "just by playing the long game" sounds a lot
like the old Adam Smith/American dream bullshit. "If you work hard and save,
one day you'll be a millionaire". That's bullshit. You can't become a
millionaire just by saving your blue collar salary (or school teacher salary)
and saving up instead of overspending.

~~~
thinkloop
> "If you work hard and save, one day you'll be a millionaire"

I've always been surprised how much traction this saying gets. If you look
around, not only is it untrue, it's actually the opposite. The hardest, most
boring, most unpleasant jobs are generally the lowest paid: custodian, service
industry, tellers, cashiers, csr's, etc. The most fun, desirable and easiest
jobs are generally the higher paying ones: management, tech, academia, etc.
Optimizing life for hard work is misguided and reaps only coincidental
benefits. It's more directly about value, moving up the value chain, which
generally ends up reducing "hardness".

~~~
mattkrause
Academia is high paying? I made more as an undergrad intern than as a postdoc
with an Ivy League PhD.

~~~
thinkloop
My buddy is a prof in finance with summers off, light weekly schedules, and
generally the most relaxed lifestyle around, and he makes more _per hour_ than
a wall street hotshot (because they work many more hours). He's in a lucrative
department (finance) but my understanding was that other disciplines are not
far off. From what I've seen, finance prof may be the single best job in the
world.

------
akkartik
Where do you cross the line between delayed gratification and the deferred
life plan? Is there an article about that?

------
toss1
The article makes excellent points.

But at the head of its concluding list, "A good place to start is with things
that compound: knowledge, relationships, and finances.", should be an
altogether more important item -- health.

Without your health, all the money, knowledge, and relationships in the world
will amount to little.

And health is the ultimate long game, literally playing in ltiile bits today
for the ultimate goal of a long healthspan and long lifespan.

And, considering that virtually every study points to a single factor as being
as close to a magic elixir as we get -- exercise . . .

~~~
hndamien
Health is the ultimate wealth. Thanks for inspiring me to put something in the
bank here.

------
nickelcitymario
Could this be why our politics are so messed up?

When you're only worried about being re-elected in 4 years, there's zero pay
off to playing the long game. The only thing that matters is the short game.
Yet as citizens we need governments who will eat their proverbial veggies and
show up to the proverbial gym every day.

(Btw this applies to the whole political spectrum, so don't go thinking that
because you're right/left wing you're superior to the other.)

I don't have a solution to this. Obviously we don't want people leading the
country for life (those tend to become tyrants and dictators).

But if the negative effects of the short game are so obvious on a personal
level, extrapolate that to entire nations and the world as a whole.

Climate change? No one in charge when it matters will be around when we pay
the price. Long game issue.

National debt? We're so in debt already, what's wrong with a little more? Long
game issue.

Education? Please, it takes 20 damn years before the kids show up for work.
Long game issue.

Poverty? Even Jesus didn't think we could solve that one. Long game issue.

Healthcare? Why should I take the political risk today when most of my
consituents won't get sick until I'm gone? Long game.

Etc.

------
rb808
You too could die with riches in your accounts if you act like Kathleen
Magowan. Get a CFO executive dad, inherit a house from your parents and live
in it without modification, live frugally, work every day, never have a
partner or children, get a financially savvy sibling to invest for you.

She seems like a nice lady, I think its good to be sensible but having a
family, spending some money to enjoy life while you're here is a better
strategy imo.

[http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-simsbury-
milliona...](http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-simsbury-millionaires-
nextdoor-20131122-story.html)

~~~
Johnny555
_but having a family.... to enjoy life_

YMMV

~~~
YinglingLight
You can't choose the family you have, but you can choose the family you make.

~~~
InitialLastName
Not if certain parties have their way.

------
raintrees
Work hard/easy, instead of easy/hard, is how another person puts it. Do the
hard work first, then enjoy the easier later.

I am wondering if the definition of "The American Dream" hasn't significantly
morphed over the decades (I am a US citizen), arguably for the worse.

~~~
tsunamifury
Or optimize and do the hard work now and then the hard work later, and never
do the easy work. Why do easy work when you should just be doing more hard
work? This is how capitalism will look at your situation. Its a system
optimized so you never get to do the easy work. The problem is you eventually
burn out, get depressed and don't know why are you working so hard anymore...

------
fromMars
Depending on whether someone tends to be more of a planner or more impulsive,
the long game may or may not fit.

As I tend to be more impulsive, I find pursuing the long game to be a grind.

I follow my interests for the most part, at the expense of maybe not
maximizing my wealth.

------
Nomentatus
There is a social cost to the long game, particularly in institutions
(including educational ones, ironically) - you can end up in a tiny minority,
without support, once you have something to show.

------
crallp
This author read and summarized The Slight Edge.

------
sonnyblarney
Because 'playing today' is money now, 'studying' is investment for an unknown
return.

Some people play the long game and it never pays off.

Kind of a wasted life then, no?

The issue is to try to understand the risks, and know what activities benefit
whom. If you like working, and derive self worth and identity from it then
great. If you don't ... it might be hard to justify working 80 hours a week
until you're 65 to do what exactly?

