“Don’t attribute to malice …”
“They” want us to return to the office because they are dumb.
The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity
331–340 of 371 posts
Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity
#332Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are large differences though. The US poverty rate is 2.5x higher than Denmark's (15% to 6%). Denmark's life expectancy is 6 years longer. The kinds of policies you'd need to close that gap in the US would be transformative. > When comparing two different economic systems, you tend to see differences on the order of "mass-famines" and "percentage of the population involved in subsistence farming". There are plen…
> The kinds of policies you'd need to close that gap in the US would be transformative. I disagree. When laid against things like the end of mercantilism, I don't think that qualifies as transformative. I think the effects would look pretty much like the existing US system, because Denmark looks pretty close to the current US system by the standards we're talking about. If you want to argue they'd be fundamentally di…
> I disagree. When laid against things like the end of mercantilism, I don't think that qualifies as transformative.
That may be your benchmark but it's not mine. I think permanently pulling 30m people out of poverty in the US would be a multi-trillion dollar multi-decade endeavor on the scale of combating climate change (you need housing reforms, education reforms, health care reforms, criminal justice reforms, etc). That may not qualify for you, but it definitely does for me.
> Do you have some examples? The areas I'm aware of that practice subsistence farming, don't have a long history of leaving the means of production alone in private hands for very long.
Besides being something of a no-true-scotsman, examples are India, Brazil, and Mexico.
Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity
#333Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know that is a great definition any more. A straightforward implication is that China is capitalist. Which isn't necessarily wrong , but rather demonstrates that it's focused on yesterday's arguments. Meanwhile I'd say most critics of "late stage capitalism" aren't bemoaning the private ownership aspect itself. Rather they're criticizing the wealth concentration, industry consolidation, and government corrupt…
> A straightforward implication is that China is capitalist. Which isn't necessarily wrong But it is wrong. The Chinese government has demonstrated repeatedly that they are the de facto owners of, effectively, all of the wealth in the country. Meaningful ownership isn't a legal status, it's the power to do... well... whatever you want with the thing in question. Which I suppose puts ownership (and thus also capitalis…
China hasn't had a famine since 1962, just after the great leap forward and not too long after the US dust bowl.
Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity
#334Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've been working on an app, with a small team, of [mostly] non-tech folks. Most of our interactions are messaging (Slack, IM, etc.), with occasional Zoom calls. I T . I S . V E R Y , V E R Y , S L O W . I have never worked this slowly in my life. I literally cannot rush ahead, at my usual pace, because I make assumptions that are often wrong. A few days ago, we had an in-person meeting, at a local diner, and talked…
> Please don't use uppercase for emphasis. If you want to emphasize a word or phrase, put asterisks around it and it will get italicized. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
It wasn’t for emphasis. It was an effect. I was actually considering using the “code listing” form for it. I think I’ve done that, before.
Otherwise, I always use italics.
Feel free to go through my postings (there’s a fair number of them), and point out all the places I violate the Ts and Cs.
Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity
#335Earlier quoted context omitted.
>taxation is Socialism Nonsensical strawman. Socialism has a real meaning and "taxation" isn't it.
Tell that to Republicans. If 50% of the population does believe that. Then I'm forced to make the point, to address it in that way. I know this, but there is 50/50 chance that whoever is posting on the internet does not know it.
America has taxation.
Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity
#336This is a very popular idea, but it doesn’t make a huge amount of _sense_. Most office-oriented employers don’t own much if any real estate; they lease it. And unless they’re really huge, what _they_ do has very little influence on the price of real estate generally; they’ve no individual incentive here. Arguably a mild counter—incentive; it’s generally to their benefit, as renters of real estate, if future real-esta…
People want to see “the elites” as one homogeneous cabal out to protect themselves at the expense of the little guy. In reality, it’s a bunch of self-interested individuals whose incentives don’t overlap here. The companies using office space have no reason to waste money helping out their landlords, and would much rather profit by screwing them over. As you say, this theory does not make much sense.
Makes sense because rich business owners helping other rich people is a thing. These are not landlords, they are big companies.
Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity
#337Earlier quoted context omitted.
Things like racism and sexism are very real problems, but not some key component of "capitalism".
Not key, but they synergize very well with capitalism. Having a class of people you can freely exploit drives down wages, makes many otherwise unviable jobs viable, is politically useful in a myriad of manners as wedge issues, cudgels, and distractions. Meanwhile, the invisible hand of the market can be used to legitimize any difference in standard of living, healthcare, and can even be used to practically deny legal…
How can that be, when the most "anti-racism" obsessed country in the world is the USA which is also the most capitalist, and China/North Korea strongly restrict immigration and China even runs concentration camps for the Uighur? It seems like the opposite. The most capitalist places are the ones who spend all day stressing about the right way to capitalize the word black.
Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity
#338Earlier quoted context omitted.
70-80% is incorrect, it's more like 40%. I made 22kUSD last year in Kiev. I think my colleague on same team in USA was making 65kUSD. Not SWE, just comparing numbers. I was also paid more than the average for my position/geography. I was a contractor, as was all of the UA team....don't know what coworkers arrangement was...
How much was the contract company getting paid? How much overhead did they have? I saw what the blended rates were grow our negotiations with one of the big players and it wasn’t what the people on the ground were getting paid. I’m guessing you were getting contracted out at minimum 45 USD an hour.
I contract through my own company. It's a common system in Ukraine to own your own company, because taxes are less if you do business through companies. -- sorry if i explained it poorly. I said that I was a contractor also to say that there are no other benefits that I am getting from employment.
Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity
#339Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh, we get lists, but they are much shorter. For example, I want to show them where a button needs to go, I simply hold up the phone, and point. With Zoom, we have a wrestling match over screen share.
I'm still not understanding, is the issue that people don't want to give up their own screenshare, or call attendees have technical issues? I understand that video calls aren't as "natural" or intuitive as in-person meets but having been at multiple companies that ship with remote teams, I remain unconvinced that video calls can't be as productive as in-person meetings. Video calls require more intention, purpose, an…
I'm sorry. It appears that my anecdote was perceived as an attack on remote work (it wasn't. I'm a big believer in it).
In any case, I don't think it will be productive for me to continue, here.
Carry on.
Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity
#340Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But there is direct evidence that politicians are influencing corporations to alter return to office policies: But no evidence that this is related to property values alone or even in large part. SF is desperate to ensure the downtown does not enter a full-on doom loop which would impact all businesses as well as anyone who lives there or visits regularly. [0] Other knock-on effects include BART facing severe finan…
p.s., Rather than downvoting it would be more productive to supply evidence of contrary views. I'm happy to be proven wrong. It happens constantly.
You were probably down-voted because your comment reads like you think that is okay to treat unwilling people like cash cows to prop SF's downtown and mass transit. That is doubly ironic coming from S-fucking-"we don't want you tech bros gentrifying our city"-F officials.