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Remote work is very valuable. It makes the economy more efficient by reducing transportation costs, reducing carbon emissions etc. It allows companies to hire

Remote work is very valuable. It makes the economy more efficient by reducing transportation costs, reducing carbon emissions etc. It allows companies to hire from locations that they previously thought were unviable. It helps employees spend less time in traffic and more time with their loved ones. There may be some negative side-effects, such as making it harder to provide guidance to new hires, holding unmotivated employees accountable etc. But I think these problems should be manageable. Some ways to manage them would be: building more on-boarding resources (videos, documents, etc.), having regular virtual meetings with new hires and status meetings with unmotivated employees etc. It may be a good idea to pair new hires with each other on some projects or require new hires to come to office once in a while. Ideally, companies should work around the problems with virtual work because remote work has certainly demonstrated its benefits. Let's hope that they will find those ways and improve the work-life situation for many of us.

usrusr 4y ago
What do we do with all that productivity gain though? Back in the days of "swap money for product" capitalism the answer was "more product, yay", but now a considerable part of the economy is completely disconnected from that mechanism and is only competing in the zero sum game of visibility as a service. If Facebook employees magically got 48h per work day all we would get were steeper walls in the dopamine traps we already have. And given the resource constrained nature of life in a gravity well, even the old "more product, yay" isn't quite as yay as we used to think. Edit: sorry, I completely lost myself on a sidetrack Actually I believe that your assessment is spot on, only that I would weigh the drawbacks a little different, in particular everything that involves new hires, even more in particular those new hires who are new to the field. This is a long term cost that is very difficult to predict: how will "second generation" remotes work? Is there hidden knowledge implicitly present in those who started in person that can diffuse from formerly present to pure remotes, but not from one pure remote to another?
- glass3 4y ago
  Regarding you sidetrack: When you swap money for products, you don't need time. If the economy shifts to visibility and attention, instant transactions are not possible anymore. Whatever people produce, somebody needs time to consume it. So all the productivity gains will be used to create more audience.
  - usrusr 4y ago
    But all that attention mining is still just a pyramid of "VaaS" upon "VaaS" that isn't turtles all the way down: even if all the advertisers on your ad medium seem to be other ad media (where you might very well be a customer yourself!) or products that have no use outside of ad and attention production, at some point there has to be an influx of money from the advertising to consumers, in the old-fashioned "exchange money for product" way. Every other transaction is just some echo of that (even of its an echo not constrained by chronological order). And attention has a hard limit of 24h/day. Things might to to eleven, but not much further.

usrusr 4y ago

What do we do with all that productivity gain though? Back in the days of "swap money for product" capitalism the answer was "more product, yay", but now a considerable part of the economy is completely disconnected from that mechanism and is only competing in the zero sum game of visibility as a service. If Facebook employees magically got 48h per work day all we would get were steeper walls in the dopamine traps we already have. And given the resource constrained nature of life in a gravity well, even the old "more product, yay" isn't quite as yay as we used to think. Edit: sorry, I completely lost myself on a sidetrack Actually I believe that your assessment is spot on, only that I would weigh the drawbacks a little different, in particular everything that involves new hires, even more in particular those new hires who are new to the field. This is a long term cost that is very difficult to predict: how will "second generation" remotes work? Is there hidden knowledge implicitly present in those who started in person that can diffuse from formerly present to pure remotes, but not from one pure remote to another?

glass3 4y ago
Regarding you sidetrack: When you swap money for products, you don't need time. If the economy shifts to visibility and attention, instant transactions are not possible anymore. Whatever people produce, somebody needs time to consume it. So all the productivity gains will be used to create more audience.
- usrusr 4y ago
  But all that attention mining is still just a pyramid of "VaaS" upon "VaaS" that isn't turtles all the way down: even if all the advertisers on your ad medium seem to be other ad media (where you might very well be a customer yourself!) or products that have no use outside of ad and attention production, at some point there has to be an influx of money from the advertising to consumers, in the old-fashioned "exchange money for product" way. Every other transaction is just some echo of that (even of its an echo not constrained by chronological order). And attention has a hard limit of 24h/day. Things might to to eleven, but not much further.