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> So why is it okay if you have a need of someone else to force it on them That's your straw man, not mine. My point is that some work is essentially synchron

> So why is it okay if you have a need of someone else to force it on them That's your straw man, not mine. My point is that some work is essentially synchronous and "be more asynchronous" is not an actual solution because it doesn't reflect how humans actually work. Remember: I'm not the one making affirmative claims about what people should be doing. Rather, I'm poking holes in the claims other people are making. > It's not multitasking. It's a context switch I... don't know what to do with this obvious internal contradiction. > If you're claiming there is large scale evidence proving sync is obviously and clearly better than async, in an environment which at least attempts to accommodate async, by all means, present it. I did. It's called 30 years of outsourcing. You're choosing to ignore that point, though why that is you've not made clear. Instead you're insisting I provide evidence to counter your unsupported claim, which isn't the best way to argue in good faith.

BlargMcLarg 4y ago
>My point is that some work is essentially synchronous and "be more asynchronous" is not an actual solution because it doesn't reflect how humans actually work. Which is why I'm not criticizing your other example of "dragging out or leading to misunderstandings", which is fair criticism of async and speaks favorably of synchronous communication (even if its just pinging messages at a rapid pace back and forth). However, I don't agree with a blanket statement such as "that's not how humans work". Enough people do work better largely asynchronous. What's more, people throw examples of "this can be solved synchronously!" when in reality, you're incurring costs no matter what solution you're going for. If we're arguing "that's now how humans work", humans weren't made to go from manually intensive labor 2-3 generations ago to sitting in the office 8 hours a day either, but here we are. >I did. Looking back, all I find is this: >As others have pointed out, working across multiple timezones/geographies has requires asynchronous work for decades, now, and anyone who does it will tell you have enormously painful it can be. That's evidence asynchronous has challenges. Not that sync is flat-out better, let alone in what situations. Not a single comment in this thread links to any source as of the time of writing, it's just a bunch of people with experience and without debating anecdotes and rationalities with one another, on both sides of the spectrum. If anything, that proves how much evidence we lack to make a definite statement from either side. I'm not arguing async doesn't have problems. I'm arguing different people work in different situations, rather than the one-size-fits-all mentality some individuals try to push through. Worse, because so many are denied experience or even strong evidence, people going "this doesn't work so no" feels infantilizing, leading to confusion and animosity down the road. It wasn't too many months ago we started questioning the need to be in office because commuting sucks, high rents suck, open offices sucks and individuals have different needs, and now it's met with a blanket "back to the office y'all" without clear transparency regarding production gains/losses. The "one true way of working" has changed more often in the last three decades than most of our species' existence. I think there's room to criticize what is and isn't fixed.

BlargMcLarg 4y ago

>My point is that some work is essentially synchronous and "be more asynchronous" is not an actual solution because it doesn't reflect how humans actually work. Which is why I'm not criticizing your other example of "dragging out or leading to misunderstandings", which is fair criticism of async and speaks favorably of synchronous communication (even if its just pinging messages at a rapid pace back and forth). However, I don't agree with a blanket statement such as "that's not how humans work". Enough people do work better largely asynchronous. What's more, people throw examples of "this can be solved synchronously!" when in reality, you're incurring costs no matter what solution you're going for. If we're arguing "that's now how humans work", humans weren't made to go from manually intensive labor 2-3 generations ago to sitting in the office 8 hours a day either, but here we are. >I did. Looking back, all I find is this: >As others have pointed out, working across multiple timezones/geographies has requires asynchronous work for decades, now, and anyone who does it will tell you have enormously painful it can be. That's evidence asynchronous has challenges. Not that sync is flat-out better, let alone in what situations. Not a single comment in this thread links to any source as of the time of writing, it's just a bunch of people with experience and without debating anecdotes and rationalities with one another, on both sides of the spectrum. If anything, that proves how much evidence we lack to make a definite statement from either side. I'm not arguing async doesn't have problems. I'm arguing different people work in different situations, rather than the one-size-fits-all mentality some individuals try to push through. Worse, because so many are denied experience or even strong evidence, people going "this doesn't work so no" feels infantilizing, leading to confusion and animosity down the road. It wasn't too many months ago we started questioning the need to be in office because commuting sucks, high rents suck, open offices sucks and individuals have different needs, and now it's met with a blanket "back to the office y'all" without clear transparency regarding production gains/losses. The "one true way of working" has changed more often in the last three decades than most of our species' existence. I think there's room to criticize what is and isn't fixed.