Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation • Hacker News Board

Re: Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

#21

Post by jstx1 » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 9:33 AM UTC

stuaxo wrote: post #6

Lolaccount wrote: post #4

Elon Musk: "Get back to the office, we're going to prove we're badass by going through productivity hell!" Elon Musk: "Population rates are collapsing and it's a crisis we need to address!" EIG: https://eig.org/remote-work-family-formation/ Billionaires should be banned from speaking on anything other than their areas of expertise. They get an outsized platform to spout absolute nonsense on topics outside their core…

Just ban them full stop. Huge amounts of people don't have enough money to participate in the economy at the same time as billionaires show themselves to be useless or worse, ban them and have a decent basic income - let's say current min wage + some %

This is really naive. It's a very arbitrary threshold and since most of that wealth is in equity, you're essentially asking for the government to appropriate and run all large companies.

Maybe you actually think this should happen (I don't) but it's a much more disruptive change than it sounds like on the surface. You're flipping over the entire economic model to a different one, and this affects everyone not just the super rich. And even if hypothetically the government takes most of Musk's and Bezos' money, doesn't mean that you'll get the basic income you're asking for.

What you actually need is progressive taxation on extremely high incomes of any kind, and fewer loopholes to avoid that taxation.

Re: Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

#22

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 9:34 AM UTC

ideamotor wrote: post #14

drekipus wrote: post #5

I had my firstborn from my new fully WFH job, in the middle/tailend of the pandemic. It has totally been a blast having the little one around. I work in my living area which is open plan into my kitchen, so I get to see her learning how to eat out of the corner of my eyes when I'm in work meetings, etc. My personal suggestion: if you're working from home with children, don't try and seperate and go into the study; do…

What's funny is that when my wife became pregnant I had a near panic to find a place so I could have a dedicated area to focus. And we closed on that very house last week. Our baby is only one month old, but I can already feel what you are talking about. Where we are now is basically one giant room, and I actually like it so far. Whoops. Well, at least the "study" in the new house is a large converted garage that has…

[deleted]

Re: Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

#23

Post by agomez314 » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 9:34 AM UTC

Found my wife and got married during the pandemic, have a 4-month old now and working from home 3x a week gives me the chance to see her grow. I would not be as happy if I had to commute everyday to work, even though i'm more of an extrovert and like to hang out with others. Being at home more also means I get to do more house chores. But the joy of seeing my baby grow is incredible!

Yes, if you are at the office 24 hours a day like Elon it's likely you'll do incredible things, but to me it's worth sacrificing some of that success in exchange for a family life.

Re: Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

#24

Post by Thlom » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 9:34 AM UTC

christkv wrote: post #3

Besides remote work I think more flexibility for part time work would be helpful.

What about paid parental leave, cheap child care and more flexible work schedules? I manage fine to be involved in my kids life even though I'm working from the office most of the time. Only have 20 min commute though. If I need to follow the kids to the doctor or dentist or meeting with their teacher or whatever during the work day that is no problem (I work from home most of the times when that is needed though). I leave home 7:30 and I'm back home around 16:30, well in time to play with them or follow them to football practice or whatever. It seems to me like many Americans work-life balance is skewed work (combined with long commutes) in such a way that WFH is much more tempting than it is in many other parts of the world.

Re: Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

#25

Post by Simon_O_Rourke » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 9:34 AM UTC

jossclimb wrote: post #12

I have been remote for 11 years now and have two children 9 and 12. I can't imagine what it would have been like if I had spent the week out commuting between the hours of 7am to 7pm, we would have lost out on so much bonding time with their daddy being an integral part of their life. I managed to be highly productive, build a career, yet be there for bath times, tucking into bed, school plays / sports days, nursing…

Well said! Did you ever in that time get any pushback from an overzealous boss about going back to the office?

Re: Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

#26

Post by aaomidi » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 9:37 AM UTC

jstx1 wrote: post #21

stuaxo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just ban them full stop. Huge amounts of people don't have enough money to participate in the economy at the same time as billionaires show themselves to be useless or worse, ban them and have a decent basic income - let's say current min wage + some %

This is really naive. It's a very arbitrary threshold and since most of that wealth is in equity, you're essentially asking for the government to appropriate and run all large companies. Maybe you actually think this should happen (I don't) but it's a much more disruptive change than it sounds like on the surface. You're flipping over the entire economic model to a different one, and this affects everyone not just th…

We’re asking for that equity to be a thing owned by the workers rather than the investors.

You know what’s absurd? Money making more money.

Re: Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

#27

Post by louison11 » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 9:37 AM UTC

stuaxo wrote: post #6

Lolaccount wrote: post #4

Elon Musk: "Get back to the office, we're going to prove we're badass by going through productivity hell!" Elon Musk: "Population rates are collapsing and it's a crisis we need to address!" EIG: https://eig.org/remote-work-family-formation/ Billionaires should be banned from speaking on anything other than their areas of expertise. They get an outsized platform to spout absolute nonsense on topics outside their core…

Just ban them full stop. Huge amounts of people don't have enough money to participate in the economy at the same time as billionaires show themselves to be useless or worse, ban them and have a decent basic income - let's say current min wage + some %

And see all billionaires disappear to whichever country doesn't do that? The point of remote work, is that a lot of wealth is now very geographically volatile.

Re: Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

#28

Post by yosito » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 9:38 AM UTC

t344344 wrote: post #18

Nice paper. Now I can just point that return-to-office is sexist!

You're not wrong!

Re: Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

#29

Post by rsynnott » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 9:44 AM UTC

EastSmith wrote: post #13

Lolaccount wrote: post #4

Elon Musk: "Get back to the office, we're going to prove we're badass by going through productivity hell!" Elon Musk: "Population rates are collapsing and it's a crisis we need to address!" EIG: https://eig.org/remote-work-family-formation/ Billionaires should be banned from speaking on anything other than their areas of expertise. They get an outsized platform to spout absolute nonsense on topics outside their core…

It is weird that you mention Elon Musk, but not Apple and Google, for example. These last two also push their employees to come back to the office, especially Apple. Every two months there is an article about Apple trying to bring everyone back working from an office.

Apple, however, rarely makes alarmist claims about population demographics. Note the two lines in their post.

(I think people give Musk _far_ too much credit by imagining he would have any sort of coherent view on this stuff; he's just parroting stuff he was impressed by in both cases, and doesn't realise the conflict, because that's not how he works.)

Re: Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

#30

Post by yosito » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 9:44 AM UTC

I've been working remotely for 10 years. Don't have anything that looks remotely like a traditional family. But I have a nomadic extended family of friends and lovers who meet my social and intimacy needs far better than anything I was getting way back when I used to work in a cube. It would be interesting to see some research about the effect of remote work not just on families in a traditional sense, but also how it impacts societal organization and the concept of a "family" at all. Industrial society was pretty organized around the concept of a nuclear family, but that's not always been the norm in human societies, and from my perspective it looks like new societal norms are emerging.