Instead of hypotheticals, am Auatralian. I (m) retired at 35 and divorced/moved at 45 and lived frugally in a mud brick cabin, off grid (solar and septic) on a dirt road in the bush, for a decade with my new (f) partner, she worked part time 2 days a week, grew lots of our own food, rode our MTBs on fire roads and trails, hiked, kayaked, swam in the river (we could cycle to) on hot days etc etc. Never thought we were missing anything, quite the opposite.
My small untouched share investments compounded hugely. As well as that, I only took 1/2 the dividends to live on, the outer half were reinvested as well,
A series of unfortunate events (aka mega bushfire) saw us buy an apartment in the city near the beach to get our heads stright just before covid lockdown, lived car free there etc , sold that 2 years ago and made a ridiculous profit, bought a place in a small rural village in the back of bumfuck for way less. No flood risk, no bushfire risk and it gets decent rainfall.
Now I have more money then I know what to do with...by that I don't mean I am a billionaire, I mean living frugally becomes a habit so my shares and income have grown and grown. I now donate 25% of my investmwnt income to charities, 25% is reinvested.and I.use the other 1/2 to live on.
My parter works 4 days a week for 6 months of the year, then has 6 months off completely. She wants her.own independent income etc
My only regret was not being brave enough about retiring earlier. I missed those years of freedom and wing get them.back. Am now 60.
I have no idea but thought I'd throw out that, as a 58yr old cis white guy I've never been lonely in my life, i have literally no idea what that's like and don't get involved in hypotheses about it all because I have nothing to bring to the debate. I do find human behaviour interesting (and mostly bizzare) though.
The more time I spend with people the more I crave being alone but that's a different thing.
I now live on the edge of a tiny village in the middle of no where Australia and lived in a small cottage off grid in the bush for 10 years previously bit alos loved in an apartment in the sky in a largish city.
One thing I noticed, I found the car free existence ina city bought me into contact with people all the time, even walking you'd see people people and say hello. Stop at a crossing and have a small conversation occasionally etc. i even said hello to women and was never called a pervert ;)
Major ? not that I'm aware,.i went from Mint to LMDE. I guess I saw the DE as the future, why be a verion on a verion (i.e based on Ubuntu). Also, if Ubuntu shits the bed somehow, Mint will be forced onto Debian anyway.
I went the other way, just installed LMDE and it all
worked (AMD system) Then didn't use stuff that didn't work. Steam.worked but im not really gamer, the few non taxing games all worked no issues
Figured I'd get a handle and disto hop later but cant be ass'd, used to it now and 80% of what I wanted worked with zero issues from thebhet go, another 10% I evetually got around to tweaking and works no issues and the other 10%, fcuk 'em and their lack of Linux supoort.
More like sitting in a car in endless traffic.