Newfie wrote:For the balance it is filling a psychological need to feel like you are contributing to the hive.
I agree that people (especially men) derive a lot of their sense of self-worth from their job. If they don't have a job, then they can feel purposeless. I should know since I went on two sabbaticals. I had to frame them as career shifts (even though I knew the shift might not happen) in order to navigate through social situations due to the stigma of not working, regardless of whether I had financial problems or not (which I didn't, due to my nestegg.)
I also agree that there is a social component of work. When you telecommute, you don't get to really socialize with your coworkers and it can feel isolating. Since people largely don't hang out with friends anymore and rely on Facebook likes, coworker time (like during lunchbreak) might be the only real face-time you have. It sure is for me.
But (and this is a big but) this is a side topic. I doubt the above issues factor prominently in managerial decisions regarding telecommuting.
And for all the benefits of workers driving in, there are just about as many downsides, like road-rage and lost productivity and personal gas bills from driving.
I mean, do people really love their coworkers enough that they would voluntarily put up with this bullshit just to shoot the shit with them around the water-cooler?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfipAgNRDx0
No. If they could opt-out, they would. I've become a fan of classical music in the last few years for purely functional purposes, to take the edge off the road-rage.
Newfie wrote:I don't think there is a grand conspiracy, but our consumptive economic system is ingrained into our thinking.
But this statement is vague to the point of uselessness.
It does nothing to better illustrate anything related to telecommuting and cultural inertia. It's just a rhetorical 2x4 swung at BAU. It really doesn't say anything.
Newfie wrote:Yea, jobs make us feel worthwhile. In that way they are needed. If we cut out all the nonsense jobs we would crash the economy.
And now you are falling back onto the royal "we", as if the entire system is one big hive-mind that has some sort of deliberate consciousness.
It doesn't.
There is no "we" who is deciding "yep, we need burger flippers downtown, so there shalt not be telecommuting".
Newfie wrote:Adapting a different wealth distribution system would help.
Newfie, the world is on the precipice of big changes, and you don't have to be a doomer to be a little anxious about where this is headed.
Things have already changed a great deal since hit-pieces like End of Suburbia framed anti-BAU sentiment among doomers.
Everything I told you about automation increasingly making more and more classes of work obsolete is part of that. The current report about the shrinking middle-class is part of it. There is a LOT of discussion about the endgame of all this.
But look at the larger tableau of history. The Communist manifesto was written only at the dawn of the industrial revolution. Think of how much manual labor was needed to sustain things during, let's say, the gilded age.
Sure, you can talk about China being the slave labor of the 21st century, but how long is that going to last?
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/54 ... th-robots/
We've already seen manufacturing collapse in the US. What will China do with its displaced workers?
More importantly, there's a philosophical question here. Is having "a job" more important than having a meaningful job? These workers about to be displaced are among those who burn out and commit suicide.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn_suicides
So if you're looking for something to bash, look a little deeper. Should we feel compassionate and try to make sure that high-school dropouts who never made anything of their life have some minimal job like a burger flipper or a grocery store bagger and decry automation? Or should we aspire to raise these people's game and give them something more meaningful to do with their life than say "do you want fries with that?"
Again, this goes way beyond telecommuting and into politics and social engineering.