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This is probably true to an extent, but I do think this analysis fails to capture the very real upheaval that happened in the life of a hypothetical blacksmith

This is probably true to an extent, but I do think this analysis fails to capture the very real upheaval that happened in the life of a hypothetical blacksmith or wainwright that ended up at a car factory. A job isn't just a financial transaction. It's part of a person's identity and a social outlet. There is a career progression that they had planned on, they made choices about where to live and all kinds of other things based on this career they thought they were going to have. So even if they are making the same money, they might be very unhappy and this unhappiness may end up being expressed in antisocial ways that end up costing society money. In the transition from wagons to cars, the increased productivity of cars papered over all these losses. Eventually everyone had to admit it was for the best. I'm not sure remote work will do the same thing. We'll see, but in any planning it's important that we look at externalities and factors that are difficult to quantify because otherwise we risk running roughshod over what really matters to people.

ok_dad 4y ago
What really matters to me is spending time with my family. Fuck executives and management that would force me to go to an office to do the exact same things I do at home now. Upheaval be damned.
- acdha 4y ago
  I get where you’re coming from but just because some of the criticism of working from home is in bad faith doesn’t mean it all is. Many American cities were hollowed out by white flight in the 1950s and 60s as people moved to suburbs, taking a great deal of economic activity with them. The balance which kept that from being an immediate disaster was business-related spending but that came at a steep cost as infrastructure was built for car commuting at the expense of neighborhoods, quality of life, and hefty maintenance costs. This was arguably a major long-term mistake but I understand why mayors all over are panicking at the thought of that system crumbling, leaving them with all of the costs and half the downtown economy. I don’t think the entire country is turning into Detroit but it’s going to be bad anywhere that they can’t take a different path. Setting up some kind of larger tax zone to pay for at least the broader infrastructure costs could help but many suburbs were specifically designed to prevent that and few have enough slack in their budgets to help in any case.
  - ok_dad 4y ago
    Great and nuanced take which I never considered, thanks.
mathgeek 4y ago
> A job isn't just a financial transaction. It's part of a person's identity and a social outlet. It doesn’t have to be. For hundreds of years in a large part of the world, a job for most people was whatever the local lord told you to do. Before and during that, it was whatever you were born into. History does noy dictate the present or the future.
- jrumbut 4y ago
  They don't have to be, but they are. And we ignore that our peril. I'm not arguing against working from home, I think working from home is great. I'm arguing that to make progress we need to consider things like "now that so many people are working from home, what do we do to help the people who have been affected negatively by this change?" People like baristas, gas station attendants, auto mechanics, people whose livelihoods depended on everyone commuting. In prior changes, a wave of economic growth took care of their needs. I'm not sure that's going to happen here, so I think we will need to be more intentional about it.
  - carlosjobim 4y ago
    >People like baristas Thank God a massive amount of workers left the hospitality industry during the pandemic, never to return to that line of work. And they are much better off for it, because they would never have any good return for their work and effort in that industry. They got the shake up they needed to move sectors, and realized that any other sector will reward them better.
JohnFen 4y ago
> It's part of a person's identity and a social outlet. For some, sure. But certainly not for everybody.

ok_dad 4y ago

What really matters to me is spending time with my family. Fuck executives and management that would force me to go to an office to do the exact same things I do at home now. Upheaval be damned.

acdha 4y ago
I get where you’re coming from but just because some of the criticism of working from home is in bad faith doesn’t mean it all is. Many American cities were hollowed out by white flight in the 1950s and 60s as people moved to suburbs, taking a great deal of economic activity with them. The balance which kept that from being an immediate disaster was business-related spending but that came at a steep cost as infrastructure was built for car commuting at the expense of neighborhoods, quality of life, and hefty maintenance costs. This was arguably a major long-term mistake but I understand why mayors all over are panicking at the thought of that system crumbling, leaving them with all of the costs and half the downtown economy. I don’t think the entire country is turning into Detroit but it’s going to be bad anywhere that they can’t take a different path. Setting up some kind of larger tax zone to pay for at least the broader infrastructure costs could help but many suburbs were specifically designed to prevent that and few have enough slack in their budgets to help in any case.
- ok_dad 4y ago
  Great and nuanced take which I never considered, thanks.

mathgeek 4y ago

> A job isn't just a financial transaction. It's part of a person's identity and a social outlet. It doesn’t have to be. For hundreds of years in a large part of the world, a job for most people was whatever the local lord told you to do. Before and during that, it was whatever you were born into. History does noy dictate the present or the future.

jrumbut 4y ago
They don't have to be, but they are. And we ignore that our peril. I'm not arguing against working from home, I think working from home is great. I'm arguing that to make progress we need to consider things like "now that so many people are working from home, what do we do to help the people who have been affected negatively by this change?" People like baristas, gas station attendants, auto mechanics, people whose livelihoods depended on everyone commuting. In prior changes, a wave of economic growth took care of their needs. I'm not sure that's going to happen here, so I think we will need to be more intentional about it.
- carlosjobim 4y ago
  >People like baristas Thank God a massive amount of workers left the hospitality industry during the pandemic, never to return to that line of work. And they are much better off for it, because they would never have any good return for their work and effort in that industry. They got the shake up they needed to move sectors, and realized that any other sector will reward them better.

JohnFen 4y ago

> It's part of a person's identity and a social outlet. For some, sure. But certainly not for everybody.