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Silicon Valley's "Pronatalists" Killed WFH. The Strait of Hormuz Brought It Back

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Re: Silicon Valley's "Pronatalists" Killed WFH. The Strait of Hormuz Brought It Back

#101

Post by ben_w »

graemep wrote: post #91
bhouston wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of flavors of "pro-natalist". For example Elon Musk is a "pro-natalist" but he seems to clear favor white Christian people and himself especially. Others are pro-natalist but have a general eugenics bent, rather than just white/Christian supremacy. And then others are pro-natalist in a more general sense, in that our culture in general should encourage at least rough replacement levels of fertility so…

Christian? Musk says he is not religious. He has said he is a "cultural christian" - a description also used of themselves by a lot of people ranging from Richard Dawkins to Anders Breivik. https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2024/1218/elon-musk-cu...

That would still match "[favouring] white Christian people". Or at least that part matches the "Christian" part, the other stuff Musk associates with seems to suggest at least some racial (and not simply cultural) biases in his thinking, e.g. how he regards DEI as being a promotion of undeserving people rather than a way to give equal opportunities to deserving people who are demonstrably under-represented given their qualifications.

Re: Silicon Valley's "Pronatalists" Killed WFH. The Strait of Hormuz Brought It Back

#102

Post by pc86 »

givemeethekeys wrote: post #71
cosmic_quanta wrote: post #52

I will die on this hill: tech firms that mandated 5 days in the office was about soft layoffs, rather than a principled stance on individual performance under WFH. My "evidence" is that trading firms that kept raking in the money, and that benefit from maximum productivity of their employees, still generally have a hybrid work culture.

There is also a whole cadre of Vice presidents that needed micro manager level oversight over their teams in order to feel fulfilled. You don’t spend many billions on the offices for nothing. I imagine there was some pressure from cities as well since many downtown businesses rely on foot traffic.

Maybe I'm just lucky but the worst micromanagement has always been from my direct supervisors, never VP-level. In my experience most at that level (especially when it's several layers removed from the ICs) do as little work as possible, and spend most of their time hanging out with other VPs and trying to move on to the next step.

Are the tech firms the ones spending billions on office buildings? It's certainly not the VPs.

What pressure are cities applying to companies to get them to move back into the offices, exactly?

Re: Silicon Valley's "Pronatalists" Killed WFH. The Strait of Hormuz Brought It Back

#103

Post by [deleted] »

largbae wrote: post #28

I love this new information about birth rates and WFH, and totally support following it to higher birth rates. But the article framing as if the pronatalists somehow knew of the birth rate benefit and maliciously used it to counter their stated goals is too heavy-handed. How about framing this as the new information that it is and getting the information out there in a positive way so that it can be used in both gove…

[deleted]

Re: Silicon Valley's "Pronatalists" Killed WFH. The Strait of Hormuz Brought It Back

#104

Post by cassianoleal »

softwaredoug wrote: post #51

If I could afford to live 15 minutes from the office I 100% would go to an office. But housing, transportation, daycare costs make that impractical. If they really want me in the office, companies need to engage on these issues in the metros they live in. They need to clear NIMBY barriers to urban housing, support transit, and good parental leave.

In this case you either live in the middle of an industrial hub or you can’t change jobs, so I’m not sure what it actually solves.

Hiring by catchment area does seem very appealing for anyone - neither the companies nor the candidates.

Re: Silicon Valley's "Pronatalists" Killed WFH. The Strait of Hormuz Brought It Back

#105

Post by mitthrowaway2 »

cosmic_quanta wrote: post #52

I will die on this hill: tech firms that mandated 5 days in the office was about soft layoffs, rather than a principled stance on individual performance under WFH. My "evidence" is that trading firms that kept raking in the money, and that benefit from maximum productivity of their employees, still generally have a hybrid work culture.

My guess is that it was a reaction to the pandemic-era trend of "over employment" where a small number of remote workers bragged about clocking in simultaneously to multiple jobs. Employers may have decided that their employees' physical body was the only unique identifier that couldn't be duplicated.

Re: Silicon Valley's "Pronatalists" Killed WFH. The Strait of Hormuz Brought It Back

#106

Post by watwut »

jmyeet wrote: post #78

This conversation is incomplete without bringing up transhumanism [1], which is basically just Silicon Valley themed eugenics [2]. It is the belief by SV billionaires that their genes are superior and their goal is to "gift" those genes to future humanity. It's why the likes of Elon Musk is the absent or no-contact father to so many children. It's just vanilla (pardon the pun) white supremacy combined with the myth o…

> And now it's OK to WFH again?

To be fair, the SV is not moving toward home office. Asian governments are moving to WFH because of high oil prices.

Re: Silicon Valley's "Pronatalists" Killed WFH. The Strait of Hormuz Brought It Back

#107

Post by vrganj »

alephnerd wrote: post #47
drooopy wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? Where do you get that from?

Mix of anecdotes and law of large numbers - for every 10 person startup founded by hipsters in Berlin you have a 500-1,000 person GCC opening up in Warsaw, such as Google.

Gulf Corporation Council? GNU Compiler Collection?

Re: Silicon Valley's "Pronatalists" Killed WFH. The Strait of Hormuz Brought It Back

#108

Post by malfist »

cosmic_quanta wrote: post #52

I will die on this hill: tech firms that mandated 5 days in the office was about soft layoffs, rather than a principled stance on individual performance under WFH. My "evidence" is that trading firms that kept raking in the money, and that benefit from maximum productivity of their employees, still generally have a hybrid work culture.

I don't think it was a soft layoff, I'm sure that might have been part of it, but I think the majority of it was about telling the working class that the owning class is back in power and they want you to know it.

After all, not a single CEO cited published metrics for the productivity reasons for ending WFH, and almost all went about other power grab type moves later to show the working class the power they were able to wield during COVID was over and we were returning back to the old ways.

Re: Silicon Valley's "Pronatalists" Killed WFH. The Strait of Hormuz Brought It Back

#109

Post by jeffreyrogers »

I don't think Musk and Andreesseen are who most people would associate with the concept of pronatalism. The headline was surprising to me because most of the people I know who could be described as "pronatalist" are strongly for WFH policies.

Re: Silicon Valley's "Pronatalists" Killed WFH. The Strait of Hormuz Brought It Back

#110

Post by michaelsbradley »

Macha wrote: post #86
darkwater wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because if both are at home working, well, you can have some couple time (also called "sex") during lunch break or at any given moment when there are no meetings etc. Ask me how I know it...

Deciding whether to have a child seems much less about finding the time for sex, than about thinking you have the time and resources for actually raising the child that you would have. The actual act is a rounding error in the time requirement.

And… that’s just not how the time factor actually works. If wife and husband are home during her most fertile time window in a cycle, she will instinctively “find him” for some magic moments that may not be particularly planned or even romantic, rather more characterized by a delightful and clumsy urgency.
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