There are no equals.
Remote work can also be a source of socioeconomic inequality
171–180 of 368 posts
Re: Remote work can also be a source of socioeconomic inequality
#172Since there is no limit on the ceiling, but there is a limit to the floor, things that increase economic opportunity tend to decrease equality. Things that reduce economic opportunity tend to increase equality. See e.g. Steven Pinker: "...the most effective ways of reducing inequality are epidemics, massive wars, violent revolutions and state collapse." https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/twenty-questions-steven-p...
I always argue caution about revolution to help the poor, as there are plenty of examples where revolution killed as many poor people as it did aristocrats. Possibly the least flame war worthy example is the French Revolution. While the popular image is of the great terror killing off nobles, the reality is that most of the killings in Paris were either politicians or unfortunate merchants who refused to sell their g…
Obviously revolution is terrible because of the enormous amounts of human suffering.
But if we're trying to compare the impact on rich vs poor we should probably use per capita numbers because there are far more poor than rich.
Re: Remote work can also be a source of socioeconomic inequality
#173I wonder how much money would be saved by governments encouraging remote work. Less road repairs and widening highways for commuters, less concentration of consumer spending in cities that double in population during daytime.
My small city's trying to revitalize itself, but the small number of well-paying jobs is starving new businesses of customers.
The problem is, my small city would only benefit if it can convince outside corps to offer remote. But what leverage would my city have?
Re: Remote work can also be a source of socioeconomic inequality
#174Equality is not a thing I ever care to have a society optimized for. If you give me a planet, I don't care that everyone else has a galaxy. Simply optimize for the leading edge and the rest will get dragged along.
Right, this is why the US GDP has grown by a factor of 20 in the past half century while adjusted average hourly wages haven't budged. What a frightfully naive point of view.
QoL has grown with GDP though, even for the below-middle-class. Hard to find even a low-income household without a microwave and a fridge today.
Re: Remote work can also be a source of socioeconomic inequality
#175Not all work is equally valuable. Not all work is equally doable. Some work requires decades patience and sacrifice before one is competent enough to perform it. Some work is physically or cognitively beyond the vast majority of the population. It doesn't make sense to expect all jobs to have all the same benefits and privelegdes. Even if we pretend that all humans are fundamentally equal in ability, inequality will…
I really can't understand this mindset, it views the system that we have as fundamentally meritocratic and that only hard work matters. This is demonstrably false with a cursory review of how our (the US) education system, economy, and geographic distributions reward and punish people.
Re: Remote work can also be a source of socioeconomic inequality
#176this is a poorly thought article and full of strawmen
Inequality between White collar work and blue collar work has existed for centuries and there is no evidence that remote work is making it either better or worse. Their interpretation of their graph is a strawman: office work is obviously easier to remotize.
Inequality stems from supply/demand . There are non-remote workers on the high end of the spectrum (doctors, athletes etc) and there is a vast crowd of low paid workers that work remotely (freelancers, support phone centers etc). The fact that globalization increasing inequality is not news but, if anything, it affects remote workers more.
Remote workers are also facing inequality, e.g. they are paid less if they live outside the bay area.
If anything, by reducing the disparities in cost of living and housing everywhere, remote work is probably helping to reduce overall inequality. It will also move businesses (and their blue collar workers) away from traffic-heavy city centers and closer to where the remote workers are (their homes).
Remote work can also be more costly in many ways: e.g. heating and A/C for houses is costlier than heating a shared office building during work hours. Personally, i spend more on food because i have no office cafeteria nearby. The benefits are mostly in quality of life and in having control of your life.
Re: Remote work can also be a source of socioeconomic inequality
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
Node replacement isn't generally a practical option with large machinery or commercial facilities. And even where it could be possible, robots won't be up to the job for many decades. Show me a robot that can extract a badly rusted bolt.
Show me a robot that can FIND a rusty bolt. The act of cleaning, of scrubbing away the dust and dirt from a work area, is beyond AI at the moment. If that rusty bolt has been painted over it might as well not exist.
The robot doesn’t need to see it if it has the plans in it’s head.
Re: Remote work can also be a source of socioeconomic inequality
#178Equality is not a thing I ever care to have a society optimized for. If you give me a planet, I don't care that everyone else has a galaxy. Simply optimize for the leading edge and the rest will get dragged along.
Right, this is why the US GDP has grown by a factor of 20 in the past half century while adjusted average hourly wages haven't budged. What a frightfully naive point of view.
Life for the below-middle-class is way better than before. Maternal mortality, infant mortality, calories consumed, appliances in the home, life expectancy all trending in the right direction. Life now for the average American is stupendously better than half a century ago. Over the last twenty years (over which the ATUS was active), time spent sleeping, time spent on leisure, and percent of people engaged in sports and recreation each day are also trending well.
I don't care if I make a dollar and you make a billion if one dollar will provide for my entire life, and if that life is pleasant in an absolute sense.
Equality is a false god.
Re: Remote work can also be a source of socioeconomic inequality
#179It seems from the comments that a lot of the readers here equate "let's look at socioeconomic inequality" with "let's make sure everyone has the same socioeconomic outcome by bringing down the people who earn more." This is... a leap not found in this article. The idea is to make sure that we realize the knock-on effects of changes in the workforce / society and take measures to make sure people who have the ability to succeed aren't sidelined because of it. Seriously, some of these remedies should be fairly uncontroversial here:
-Giving people computers
-Making sure people have access to broadband
-Looking at industries with low income workers and seeing if the governments can nudge them into the WFH model, so they can start to realize some of the positive outcomes that presents, which in some cases would be far more valuable to low-income workers. Imagine if a single mother working for $20k a year at an office could do that work from home?
This topic is ripe for inventive ways to use technology to raise up individuals who have been traditionally left out. But for some reason the 6-fig crowd is reacting negative to a headline that uses the term "socioeconomic inequality."
Re: Remote work can also be a source of socioeconomic inequality
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd say it's very hard to find any violent revolutions that improved a society. It's pretty much a long line of tragedies. I count throwing out a foreign oppressor, like the American revolution or the Czech "velvet revolution" as a separate category. Those can be good.
>I count throwing out a foreign oppressor, like the American revolution The revolutionaries were British citizens, just like the soldiers they faced. Sure, England shipped in more soldiers, but neither side was more foreign than the other.
Call it a war of independence, if you prefer.
I think the important part is that the overthrown regime was based outside the (new) country, and was no longer a factor in the internal politics.