If you want intellectual freedom, you need financial freedom because the world has always punished people in the short-run who dare to go against authority.

This doesn't have to mean great wealth, only what is enough to meet your needs, and you get to define what your needs are.

Tenure is an attempt to bestow intellectual freedom by providing lifetime "financial security" to professors - a salary.

But there is a huge difference between "financial security" in the form of a *salary* from some institution and security from personal financial resources.

Never before has it been easier for someone with ideas to get them out into the world, but never before has it been easier to destroy an individual for having unconventional ideas. The only reliable immunity I know of against cancellation/destruction is financial security.

Think of financial security as a vaccine against cancel culture. You don't need to be rich as OTHERS define it to be financially secure, only as YOU choose to define it.