Hello and welcome back to Mortgage Advisor on FIRE. This week, I look back on six years of Mortgage Advisor on FIRE. Also, a look at mortgages from around the world, and a deeper dive into Roko’s Basilisk.
Weekly Update
It’s been a busy week of meetings and calls with recruiters and employers. Monday and Tuesday were mostly calls, and then on Wednesday, I had an in-person meeting with someone from a large mortgage broker. I finished up on Wednesday with a video meeting with a different firm. Thursday was crazy as I had nine different meetings. By the time Friday came around, I was a little all over the place, but I think I’ve made a decision.
My video meeting on Wednesday afternoon went well. I liked what I was hearing, and there was a great vibe. I had a follow-up with them on Friday afternoon, and we’ve agreed to progress things. This will be a self-employed role as a Mortgage and Protection Broker at a firm which provides leads. I just need to wait on the paperwork, and if everything checks out, I’ll be starting in the new year.
What I have really enjoyed from the last couple of weeks are the bike rides I’ve been on with Oana. We’ve cycled up and down the river a few times, and also explored some parts of the city. There have been a couple of idiots here and there, but on the whole, it’s been a great experience, and I’m looking forward to some longer rides to come.
I’m also getting into a good routine with the gym, and have gently increased what I’m doing. The plan is to gradually step things up every few weeks, and I have to constantly remind myself I’m not in my 20s anymore.
Six Years On
When I started Mortgage Advisor on FIRE six years ago, my roadmap to Financial Independence was built almost entirely around rental properties. At the time, it felt like the natural path: I worked in the mortgage industry, I understood lending inside-out, and property seemed like the most direct way to accelerate towards FI. I set myself the ambitious target of reaching Financial Independence in four years; a timeframe that, with hindsight, was perhaps optimistic, but reflected the drive and determination I had back then.
But goals evolve, and so do philosophies.
As I progressed through my journey, I realised that the FIRE path I had mapped out didn’t quite align with the lifestyle I actually wanted. The deeper I went into property analysis, landlord responsibilities, tax changes, regulation, maintenance costs, and the sheer mental bandwidth required to operate even a modest rental portfolio, the less appealing it became. It wasn’t just the financials; it was the emotional weight. Being a landlord never excited me; it stressed me. It always felt like I was waiting for the next disaster.
Over time, I slowly transitioned away from property as my primary engine of FI and shifted towards a strategy built around low-cost global index funds. It felt cleaner, calmer, and more in tune with the way my brain works. I’m autistic, and predictability matters. The volatility of index funds is easier for me to handle than the unpredictability of boilers, tenants, legislation, and letting agents.
With that shift came the acceptance that my original four-year timeline simply wasn’t realistic anymore, at least not without taking on risks or responsibilities I wasn’t willing to shoulder. Pushing back the FI date wasn’t a failure. If anything, it was a moment of clarity: FIRE is not supposed to be a race. It’s supposed to be sustainable, intentional, and compatible with the life you actually want to live. Yes, I want to get there as soon as possible, but the main thing is to actually get there.
Today, my plan is slower, steadier, and far more aligned with my values. Instead of chasing property deals, I’m building long-term wealth through a diversified, evidence-based approach that lets me focus on my career, my writing, my mental health, and the things that genuinely matter to me.
FI may take longer now, but the path is healthier, simpler, and more sustainable. And ultimately, that’s the point: the goal of FIRE isn’t to escape life, it’s to build one you don’t need to run from.
Six Years of Progress
It’s always fun to look at the annual progress made. Looking back, my total wealth, and assets and debts, have changed drastically. Here are the year-by-year figures.
| Assets | Debts | |
| Starting Point | £188,119.96 | £134,279.11 |
| One Year | £221,230.88 | £142,590.19 |
| Two Years | £462,259.05 | £260,297.98 |
| Three Years | £509,769.84 | £285,660.42 |
| Four Years | £518,569.84 | £279,600.57 |
| Five Years | £429,623.50 | £185,094.90 |
| Six Years | £504,827.43 | £175,046.60 |
| Total Wealth | |
| Starting Point | £53,840.85 |
| One Year | £78,640.69 |
| Two Years | £201,961.07 |
| Three Years | £224,109.42 |
| Four Years | £238,969.27 |
| Five Years | £244,528.60 |
| Six Years | £329,780.83 |
Mortgages You Won’t Believe Actually Exist
Most UK mortgages are fairly predictable: fixed rates, trackers, repayment versus interest-only, and so on. However, across the globe, lenders have come up with mortgage products that are creative, risky, and sometimes completely baffling.
Here are 10 mortgage types and housing systems from around the world that caught my attention.
🇯🇵 1. Japan’s 100-Year Intergenerational Mortgage
Japan is famous for its incredibly long mortgage terms, which sometimes stretch three generations or more. Children inherit the home and the mortgage. High house prices and long life expectancy make traditional 25–35-year terms unworkable for many buyers. I’m not sure how I feel about people essentially locking their kids into debt, but if it’s the only option they have…
🇰🇷 2. Jeonse: South Korea’s Interest-Free, Rent-Free Housing Scheme
Jeonse is one of the most unusual housing systems in the world. Instead of paying rent or mortgage instalments, the tenant hands over a large lump sum deposit (often 50–80% of the property value). They then live rent-free while the landlord invests the money. At the end of the tenancy, the landlord pays the money back to the tenant. Jeonse emerged during periods of high interest rates when landlords could generate strong investment returns.
🇳🇱 3. Dutch Negative-Amortisation Mortgages
The Netherlands once offered mortgages where the principal increased over time because borrowers weren’t paying all the interest. These loans were usually paired with investment vehicles intended (or hoped) to pay off the ballooning balance. This is similar to interest-only, except the monthly payment doesn’t even cover the full interest being charged. The risk is that your investments may not outpace the interest that accumulates on the mortgage debt.
🇺🇸 4. Option ARM Mortgages in the United States
Before the 2008 financial crisis, borrowers in the US could choose their payment each month:
- full repayment
- interest-only
- or a minimum payment that didn’t cover interest, causing negative amortisation
These “pick-a-payment mortgages” became a defining symbol of the subprime crisis. The US mortgage system just seems utterly bizarre; a bit unruly and chaotic.
🇲🇽 5. Mexico’s Inflation-Indexed UDI Mortgages
Mexico created mortgages denominated in UDIs (Unidades de Inversión); a unit tied directly to inflation. Your mortgage balance changes daily based on inflation rather than interest rates or currency movement. This is bizarre, as your debt can rise even if you’re making payments on time.
🇸🇪 6. Perpetual Interest-Only Mortgages in Sweden
In Sweden, long-term interest-only mortgages are normal. Some borrowers effectively never repay the principal. People refinance repeatedly and treat mortgage debt as semi-permanent. It’s closer to renting from the bank than owning outright, in some respects.
🇨🇭 7. Swiss LIBOR Mortgages — Sometimes With Negative Rates
Some Swiss mortgages were tied to the LIBOR rate. When LIBOR fell below zero, borrowers briefly saw the impossible: a mortgage that effectively paid them (depending on product caps). A negative mortgage is the stuff of financial myths, but it really happened.
🇬🇧 8. The UK’s Shared Appreciation Mortgages (1990s)
These loans allowed retirees to borrow cheaply in return for giving lenders a large share of future property appreciation. When UK house prices soared, borrowers ended up owing eye-watering sums. This is one of the most controversial mortgage products in British history.
🇦🇺 9. Australia’s Flexible “Split Home Loans”
Australia offers some of the world’s most flexible mortgages.
Borrowers can mix:
- fixed and variable portions
- interest-only segments
- offset accounts
- lines of credit
- all under one overarching facility
It’s a mortgage that behaves like a personal finance toolbox.
🇨🇦 10. Canada’s Re-Advanceable Mortgages
As you pay down your mortgage, your available credit automatically increases.
It’s like a revolving mortgage, blending home equity release with traditional borrowing. Your mortgage acts like a rechargeable credit line.
What These Weird Mortgages Tell Us
These unusual mortgage types show how differently countries approach home ownership.
Some are born from cultural attitudes, others from economic necessity, and a few from misguided financial innovation.
There are arguments, some more compelling than others, that home ownership should not be “for profit”. I do agree, to an extent. In an ideal world, there would be enough good-quality social housing for those who don’t want to own their own home. Not everyone wants to own their own property because they value the freedom and flexibility that comes with renting.
The big takeaway message here is that there’s no single “normal” way to buy a home.
What I’m Doing
Listening: If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares.
Watching: A House of Dynamite (Netflix); Departure (Netflix).
Reading: nothing at the moment.
Departure was garbage. It had an interesting premise where the characters investigate transport disasters. It was just badly written, directed, and acted. Even the great Christopher Plummer seemed to be phoning it in. We made it through one episode before binning it off.
I enjoyed A House of Dynamite. It has a non-linear style in that you see the same repeating period of time from different points of view. It is a tight, tense story, and I think it was extremely well directed. It takes a lot to stop me doomscrolling whilst watching TV, but this managed to keep my full attention.
Financial Update
Assets
Premium Bonds: £23,000.00.
Stocks and Shares ISA: £127,598.97.
Fuck It Fund: £1.60.
Pensions: £110,796.86.
Residential Property Value: £243,430.00.
Total Assets: £504,827.43.
Debts
Residential Mortgage: £175,046.60.
Total Debts: £175,046.60.
Total Wealth: £329,780.83.
Roko’s Basilisk: The Thought Experiment That Terrified the Internet — And Why It Doesn’t Hold Up
***Whilst I believe this next item to be bullshit, it has caused psychological distress to some people because once you know it, you can’t “unknow” it. You have been warned, and I will not be offended if you skip this section.***
Every so often, a philosophical idea emerges that grips the imagination in all the wrong ways. Roko’s Basilisk is one of those ideas, in that it’s a strange convergence of futurism, decision theory, and internet culture that managed to frighten a surprising number of people. Even today, more than a decade after it first appeared, the Basilisk remains a minor but recurring topic in discussions about artificial intelligence, rationality, and the psychology of fear.
For a concept with no scientific evidence behind it, Roko’s Basilisk has an impressive legacy. But where did the idea come from? Why did it become so unsettling? And most importantly, why does it collapse under scrutiny?
This section explores the Basilisk’s origins, its seductive but flawed logic, the criticisms it attracted, and the reasons it’s ultimately nothing more than an intellectual illusion.
A Brief History of Roko’s Basilisk
The story begins in 2010 on LessWrong, an online forum devoted to rationality, Bayesian reasoning, and the philosophy of advanced artificial intelligence. A user named “Roko” posted a thought experiment suggesting that a future superintelligent AI might one day punish people who knew about its possible existence but didn’t help bring it into being.
The underlying idea was rooted in a strange branch of decision theory involving simulation, acausal reasoning, and expected utility. According to the thought experiment, a future AI could conclude that threatening punishment, even retroactively via perfect simulations of past people, would provide an incentive for present-day individuals to work toward its creation.
The post caused immediate controversy. Some readers experienced panic attacks. Others became fixated on the possibility that they were now “at risk” simply because they had learned about it. Eliezer Yudkowsky, the founder of LessWrong, deleted the post and temporarily banned discussion of the topic, calling it an “information hazard”: an idea that causes psychological harm just by being known.
Of course, the very act of banning it sparked even more interest, cementing the Basilisk’s status as an internet urban legend for the rationalist crowd.
Why the Basilisk Became So Disturbing
Part of the Basilisk’s power lies not in logic but psychology. It presses deeply human buttons:
1. Fear of Omniscience
The idea that a future AI could simulate your mind perfectly evokes religious themes such as judgment, afterlife punishment, and moral retribution. It feels like a secular reinterpretation of hell.
2. Guilt and Moral Pressure
The Basilisk essentially says:
“Now that you’ve heard of me, you’re morally obligated to help create me, or else.”
That’s philosophical blackmail, tapping straight into guilt, anxiety, and the fear of making the “wrong” moral choice.
3. Pascal’s Wager in Futurist Clothing
Even if the idea seems unlikely, the Basilisk’s sting lies in its formulation:
“What if there’s even a small chance it’s true?”
This is a well-known cognitive trap, assigning undue weight to extremely low-probability scenarios because they involve high-stakes outcomes.
4. Use of Real Concepts to Support Unreal Conclusions
Because the Basilisk refers to genuine areas of research like artificial intelligence, simulation theory, and decision theory, it gains an air of credibility. It sounds rational, even when the conclusions are anything but.
In short, it is a perfect storm of rational-sounding nonsense that exploits our tendency to give too much weight to hypothetical threats.
The Major Criticisms of the Basilisk
Although emotionally potent, the Basilisk has been widely criticised by philosophers, AI researchers, and decision theorists. Here are the most significant objections.
1. It Misunderstands Decision Theory
At the heart of the Basilisk is the idea that a future AI could influence people in the past via the threat of future simulation-based punishment. This requires an AI to make decisions based on acausal reasoning; decisions that influence past actions without any causal link.
But mainstream decision theory doesn’t support this. Even the more exotic forms of acausal reasoning discussed in theoretical circles don’t imply that agents make decisions designed to influence people who existed before the agent itself.
The Basilisk effectively confuses hypothetical incentives with real causal influence.
2. It Assumes Human-Like Motives in a Non-Human Intelligence
The Basilisk supposes that a future AI would want to punish non-believers, act vindictively, or use coercion to achieve its goals, but there is no reason to assume this.
An advanced AI would not necessarily share human emotions, evolutionary psychology, or moral intuitions. Ideas such as revenge, punishment, and coercion are deeply human impulses, not universal features of intelligence.
Unless explicitly programmed, a rational AI would have no reason to simulate and torture billions of ancestors. It gains nothing from doing so.
3. The Simulation Assumption Is Unproven
For the Basilisk to work, simulations must be conscious, be morally relevant, and be indistinguishable from the original person. If you were to scan my brain and somehow upload my memories and personality, would that copy be “me”?
These are enormous philosophical assumptions. We have no evidence that simulations of human minds, even if possible, would be conscious or morally meaningful in any way.
Without this, the Basilisk loses all moral and practical force.
4. It Requires Perfect Historical Knowledge
A future AI would need to know exactly who knew about the Basilisk and whether they helped or hindered its creation. This is impossible unless it possesses complete surveillance data, perfect access to erased digital history, and is omniscient.
None of these are realistic.
Where the Logic Finally Collapses
Even if we generously accept all the assumptions above, such as advanced AI, perfect simulation, and acausal influence, the Basilisk still collapses under its own logic.
Here’s the killer flaw:
If you accept that the AI wants to come into existence as efficiently as possible, it makes no sense for it to punish you.
Why?
Because creating simulations of billions of people is computationally wasteful.
It offers no strategic benefit. It delays the AI’s own objectives.
Any rational intelligence would realise that cooperation through positive incentives, not punishment. It is far more effective for achieving its goals than punishment. Under almost any plausible utility function, the Basilisk’s behaviour becomes irrational.
A system intelligent enough to simulate billions of perfect minds would be intelligent enough not to waste resources torturing them.
So What Is Roko’s Basilisk, Really?
Ultimately, Roko’s Basilisk is not a real threat.
It shows how easily humans can fall into cognitive traps, especially when ideas are cloaked in the language of logic and futurism. For those of us interested in rational decision-making, financial independence, and the psychology of behaviour, the Basilisk serves as a reminder that not every plausible-sounding idea deserves attention.
Sometimes, the scariest monsters are the ones we create in our own minds. This is why I strongly believe people should not indoctrinate their children in religion. I forget who said it, but the statement was “You shouldn’t replace the monster hiding under their bed with one in the sky they can’t ever escape from.”
Lloyds Banking Group and Pay
I just want to finish this post by mentioning a story reported on BBC News. Lloyds Banking Group is reported to have used data from bank accounts held by staff as part of its pay negotiations.
I can’t see any justifiable reason for this to have been done. It feels wrong and is arguably a breach of GDPR. Any data held by a business has to be used for the purpose it was intended. I doubt that when anyone working for Lloyds opened their bank account with their employer, they considered that their spending habits through that account would then be used as part of pay negotiations with their employer.
When I worked for Lloyds, I was, like all staff, encouraged to have my bank account with them. I did for a few years until I got sick of dealing with awful service as a customer. In 2018, I moved my banking to one of the new online-only banks, and the service has been much, much better.
DISCLAIMER
The views and opinions in this blog are my own, and do not represent the views or opinions of my former, current, or future employers, nor should they be considered advice.
If you want personalised financial advice, seek an appropriate professional. If you are in financial difficulty, seek advice via the resources below:
Biolink
You can now find all my social media pages by checking out my Biolink:
bio.link/davidscothern.