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In general, predicting that something that has been around for centuries will be gone in decades is a bad bet. I wonder if Richard Branson has ever spent long p

• csallen 14y ago
  Hypothetically speaking, in a society in which "offices were a thing of the past", a problem so common as loneliness would likely be solved in a multitude of ways. Perhaps by changes in social conventions (e.g. friends working from each other's places) or by entrepreneurs directly attacking the problem (e.g. more coffee shops with fast internet, better tools for being social from home, etc).
  • talmand 14y ago
    That's the same argument that is often heard against home-schooling, the lack of socialization with other kids. What such people tend to not realize, or ignore, is that there are opportunities for kids to get socialization other than through school. True, it requires some effort on the parent's part but that doesn't mean they are not there. If you work remote then there are avenues for socialization outside of an office space. Just because you find it lacking in one area doesn't mean that's the same for everyone nor should you ignore the possible advantages.
    • pionar 14y ago
      The problem, though, is that there's no "forced" interaction with others outside your own interests/background. When I was in school, I was a white kid from a white neighborhood in a school that was 50% black. Had I been homeschooled, even if I had interactions outside of home, I would not have been exposed to the diversity of cultures. I feel this will lead to a form of tribalism.
      • Jare 14y ago
        My anecdotal experience with homeschooled kids (my son is not old enough yet) is that the lack of 'forced' exposure at school is more than compensated by the habit of indulging and exploring one's curiosity. Especially because it applies not just to social aspects but to any area of knowledge, activity and culture. By the time the child's direct interests and background start showing their limits (9-ish years old?), they will have plenty of opportunities for interaction outside that circle (extracurricular classes, sports, travels, etc). Homeschooled does not mean hermit.
        • bdunbar 14y ago
          > Homeschooled does not mean hermit. Agreed. My three oldest were public schooled, my two-youngest are home schooled. And what do they do after school hours? They're outside with their friends in the neighborhood, doing kid stuff.
      • nsxwolf 14y ago
        I went to public school. The tribalism existed there in full force. One just had to look around the lunch room to see all the blacks at one table, all the asians at another, all the whites at their own tables further subdivided by various labels.
      • bdunbar 14y ago
        Clearly this is a YMMV thing. I was public schooled, semi-rural Oklahoma in the 1970s. The only diverse culture we had was 'town' vs 'country'. My kids, who _are_ home schooled, have more exposure to diversity because of where we live, who we associate with.
      • talmand 14y ago
        I would say that "forcing" interaction is not a correct way of attempting socialization because if a child is forced to do something that they do not wish to participate in, then the outcome is often less than optimum. I went to high school in the Deep South, it was more or less evenly balanced between black and white. Tribalism was in effect in this "forced" environment, granted this is going to be different from area to area. The black friends that I had were because we shared a common interest/background. But again, if a parent wants to "force" such an interaction upon their child that is homeschooled, then chances are there would be ways of achieving that with after school programs. My local YMCA didn't turn away black children at the door for example.
    • stretchwithme 14y ago
      As if children never had friends before schools were invented.
  • invalidOrTaken 14y ago
    As an aside: working from your friend's can be a blast. If you're recently freelancing/starting up and loneliness is hitting you, working from the house of a friend (who is also working from home, obviously) can REALLY take the edge off.
• tomp 14y ago
  Exactly: you were not forced to work in the office. You chose it. Exactly what Brandon is saying.
• bradleyland 14y ago
  Who says everyone will dislike working remotely? I haven't worked in an office since 2005. I'm in Florida, my primary office is in the Cleveland (Ohio) area, and we have developers in New York and Toronto. I love it.
• randomdata 14y ago
  It wasn't much more than century ago when the majority of the population did work from home (on the farm). It really has only been decades that the office has been the primary place of business. To see working patterns shift back to "the farm", so to speak, doesn't seem unreasonable at all in my mind. It probably will not completely eliminate the office, but we could see only, say, 10-20% of the population still working in offices in the future.
  • HeyLaughingBoy 14y ago
    One interesting question is did they actually like being alone on the farm? Or were they doing it because it was the only option? Pretty much everywhere you look, kids are leaving farms for cities. Cities offer more options. Now, a lot of them do go back, but it's often a decade or more later when they're settled down with families. Perhaps we will never shift to mostly working alone simply because we're basically herd animals.
  • jenko 14y ago
    Also as one tries to take a higher level view of the office, one of the conclusions could be that up until now the primary goal of the office was to offer shared access to some central resource as it was impossible to offer this resource (wahtever that might be) outside of some central location. Now given the global connectivity this shared resource(s) are most often avaialbe globaly as well, and the question becomes evident more and more each day as to why keep the office anymore...Why do the 'kolhoz' if everybody can have their own farm now.