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Is remote work bad for the economy?

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Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#211

Post by carlosjobim »

klodolph wrote: post #156
briga wrote: post #25

Bad for which economy? Countless programmers over the years have packed up their bags and moved away from their small towns to live in big expensive tech hubs. This has certainly been beneficial for the economy of large metros--they didn't pay to educate these workers and in many cases these workers (including myself) were raised and educated in completely different countries. So these metros have a huge pool of high…

The big metros are more efficient (dollar-wise) and have a lower environmental impact than small towns. Small towns, in the US, are already subsidized by big towns, at least economically.

Big cities are dependent on agriculture and raw materials from rural regions for their survival. The small town can exist without the big city, the reversal is not true.

As always through history, politicians and bankers plunder the country with taxes and interest. This wealth is then distributed by them, from the big cities, but that doesn't mean that the wealth originated there.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#212

Post by bryanrasmussen »

dgb23 wrote: post #128
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Otherwise, why not increase the GDP and economy, by periodically just breaking every window? The replacement is gonna cause huge growth! I believe by classical Keynesian theory that would indeed create economic growth?

Is there a model that incorporates utility outside of “people are willing to pay for it”?

I can't remember her name but there was an economist who IIRC was Australian and made a critique of classical Keynesian economics based on an accounting model that you need a debit column to be able to balance out loss of raw materials, environmental degradation etc.

For example if an oil tanker sinks you should be able to calculate the loss of value the environmental damage represents as well as the additional value that replacing that ship represents.

Can't remember much beyond that though.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#213

Post by carlosjobim »

watwut wrote: post #175
chii wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a sacrifice I have to make and you should never be making a sacrifice for someone else, without enough monetary compensation. The only sacrifice one should make is for enrolling in the armed services.

It heavily depends on which army you are joining and what cause they fight for. Joining army can be step towards supporting atrocities and it can be step towards preventing them. Just like with joining police - in some places it is good thing to do. In others, you are joining another criminal organization.

>Joining army can be step towards supporting atrocities and it can be step towards preventing them.

Joining a war will always be supporting atrocities committed by your side, while preventing atrocities committed by the enemy.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#214

Post by doublerabbit »

atraac wrote: post #191
doublerabbit wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll argue it's not and that the better alternative would be to have your own chosen days off. I've just started a new job for an enterprise company. It is proving insanely hard getting in contact with folk. Myself having to introduce myself every-time. Trying to find someone to give me basic mentoring, even trying to understand the hierarchy. Not only does communications break down over email, messenger, people get…

> better alternative would be to have your own chosen days off. Sure, I'll just let my dog sit for 10 hours straight on those other days. It might be a better alternative for YOU, but I doubt it's true for most peole who want fully remote work. > It is proving insanely hard getting in contact with folk. (...) Trying to find someone to give me basic mentoring, even trying to understand the hierarchy. Sounds like a com…

And there the typical 35 year aggressive attitude I have to deal with daily. Your joking right in thinking that no communication is loss via email? Team, zoom meetings take away facial expressions and as someone with social blindness it makes my job harder to engage. Why so hostile?

As from what I see the culture here, the prosperity that they give has been one of the I best fitted environments I've worked in. Very surprised especially for the industry. So no its not companies issue, its not a "ME" problem. Its a person issue, professional behaviour slips, people get sloppy.

I don't want to divide work with pleasure. Why should I, so you can stay home with your dog? I want to come home and know for certain there is no essence of work present. Sometimes I need that complete downtime just to recover. Let my guard down without having to create some divide.

At this point its moot. You have your view and I have mine. You won't consider from my perspective and I understand yours and the WFH perspective.

Its always "WFH is amazing" when no one takes in to account that it doesn't work for others. Its a change that needs to happen, it does give benefits and it sounds like it does for you. Good.

But my benefits are working in the office. Why is that hard to comprehend. I'm a SysAdmin and like being on premises of the hardware then a software developer like yourself (according to your profile).

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#215

Post by matwood »

tempestn wrote: post #38
sshine wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> middle managers fearing for their future and building owners afraid of losing out on rent money You forget the business owners who fear they'll lose direction of the work. It's not so much whether you put in the hours at home, but whether your work is directed towards a common goal. Remote work requires a higher degree of communication, and some business owners don't possess the skill or interest to maintain out-of…

I'm glad you included that last line. I agree with you that managing a remote team or running a remote business has challenges that an in-person one doesn't. (I've been running AutoTempest with an all-remote team for almost 14 years now.) Managers who rely on the 'butts in seats' heuristic will struggle a lot with managing remote employees. However, the opportunities are also massive. For one thing, the owners/manage…

You're spot on. One big ones you missed is the cost savings of not needing an office.

Years before covid, I pushed my company out of an office to full remote for many of the reasons you listed. It allowed us to keep a few great employees who wanted to live elsewhere, and save substantial money on office space (which matters a lot for a small company). At the time Slack had just become big and we embraced the async, transparent communication style fully.

Early on one of the other owners asked me, 'if no one is in the office how do we know they are working?', and I responded 'how do we know they are working now?' That's when he 'got' it. We had never relied butts in seats, but it can still be a little scary going into an unknown.

Remote/in-person both have unique challenges, they are just different. After years of remote, I think the advantages outweigh the challenges vs in-person.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#216

Post by teamonkey »

chii wrote: post #101
friendzis wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wellllll.... debatable. This argument of expense rerouting is a bit flawed. Suppose working from home saves one some money that they spend elsewhere. Working from the office they spend that money on fuel, indirectly spend on road maintenance, directly spend on vehicle maintenance where the shop in turn spends on parts and tools and so on. The money one spends circulates in the economy much longer and reaches more act…

> The money one spends circulates in the economy much longer and reaches more actors until it eventually falls back into original pocket. that's a total assumption being made. Who knows how the money from an office worker's commute gets dispersed. It's likely too difficult to track exactly. And it's irrelevant to the person how this dispersion happens or why. All they need to care about is that they've eliminated a s…

> All they need to care about is that they've eliminated a source of inefficiency, and thus have extra money for either investment or different consumption.

...or prices rise to balance out the extra money.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#217

Post by carlosjobim »

doublerabbit wrote: post #172
atraac wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Remote work is great for: - People who want more quality time with family I'd argue it's great for people. In general. I don't have family, I can spend more time with my dog, I can make morning or afternoon walk longer, I can get better at cooking cause I have more time, I have more time for hobbies, to deal with personal stuff, I can go to public institution or a doctor if I have to, without taking a day off since…

I'll argue it's not and that the better alternative would be to have your own chosen days off. I've just started a new job for an enterprise company. It is proving insanely hard getting in contact with folk. Myself having to introduce myself every-time. Trying to find someone to give me basic mentoring, even trying to understand the hierarchy. Not only does communications break down over email, messenger, people get…

>It is proving insanely hard getting in contact with folk.

Can you call them on the phone?

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#218

Post by natoliniak »

strken wrote: post #159
friendzis wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wellllll.... debatable. This argument of expense rerouting is a bit flawed. Suppose working from home saves one some money that they spend elsewhere. Working from the office they spend that money on fuel, indirectly spend on road maintenance, directly spend on vehicle maintenance where the shop in turn spends on parts and tools and so on. The money one spends circulates in the economy much longer and reaches more act…

This is close to the broken window fallacy. We tend to forget the flow of money is an indirect proxy for work performed. If 20% of construction workers are freed up from fixing roads because of lower traffic, they don't just sit around crying, they find other work to do. Same with tech workers, same with everyone. That's a net good because the work they'll move to will by definition be worth paying someone to do. Was…

> are freed up from fixing roads because of lower traffic, they don't just sit around crying, they find other work to do.

yes, this holds up when there is something else to do, which is not always the case. I remember during the great recession, building contractors in Florida were praying for a hurricane to put them back to work. There was absolutely no other work to be found.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#219

Post by Nihilartikel »

lelanthran wrote: post #201
geysersam wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The purpose of the economy is to fulfill human desires. The only question we have to ask to understand which situation resulted in higher economic output is: which situation resulted in satisfying more human desires. It's clear that the pointless burning of fossil fuels didn't satisfy any human need. Then the question becomes: is the distribution of currency caused by the buying and burning of the fuels preferable to…

> It's clear that the pointless burning of fossil fuels didn't satisfy any human need. Yeah, but ... how much of it was pointless? Who decides if a use-case is pointless? You? Me? The government?

The one true God, clearly.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#220

Post by teamonkey »

carlosjobim wrote: post #198
badpun wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's not, because the money that was otherwise spent (wasted) can now be deployed else where. Not neccessarily, people have less costs now, so some people can now just choose to work less - which would shrink the economy.

Working less is the purpose of the economy.

This is a scorching-hot take. Would you care to elaborate?
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