unboxedvariable

Merry Christmas HN!

Hope everyone was able to slow down the pace a little, connect a little more with people we may have not caught up with recently and send/receive positive vibes. And happy new year.

Remote work could also be considered a significant cost cutting measure and one that, given to a startup, could result in a significant advantage. Startups don't hire juniors, so that's where I see this becoming more of a thing. All of those seniors out there that may never have considered remote work, why would they, they're paid great and live comfortably, now have a taste for remote work and are adjusting their spreadsheets to see how soon they could afford retirement etc etc.

Investors have a major say in how the money is spent. All of a sudden, remote is where that exciting startup experience is, where the kids want to go. Sure, fly everybody together once or twice a year, far cheaper than an office.

Started remote a few months before the pandemic. Also started out my career in tech working remotely. In my current situation, I don't imagine ever returning and feel grateful for the opportunity to wrest back more control over my life and circumstances that would usually have been dictated to suit my employer. For me, remote work gives me _far_ more time, energy etc to invest in myself and family which is why I work in the first place. Not only that, but the chance to work for an employer in a remote capacity greatly diminishes the urge I have felt to go the consultancy route etc.

There are a lot of habits and work processes instilled in us from having to report to hq every day but for a lot of people we are already emerging on the other side of replacing those arcane processes with modern internet native approaches. This will force a lot of change on people in terms of how we socialize and it is a major change, with major upside imo.

Yeah I think this strikes at at least one of the issues, which is time. Although I am less familiar with how availability of time has changed over the generations. I will say I am constantly struck by how some of my relatives from previous generations were able to have 10 kids in a 3 bed house (relatively poor) and survive, let alone be happy. Anyway that one could be relevant overall, but I am curious nonetheless.

I think one other reason could be the tendency to mistake having a question that could be looked up online for the desire for human interaction that the question maybe was supposed to lead to. That may sound like a small/isolated observation but I could be convinced that the behavior change has broader consequences for how we view people/interaction.

I think there are probably many other factors at play here.

This is interesting. I recently heard a similar example that pointed out that say for a simple query like "who won that game between so and so a few years ago", you could easily look it up online and get an answer in a few seconds. But you would be missing the back and forth of follow up questions and such that would arise if you asked a person. And that could be a whole conversation in itself. In that sense, the question of who won the game ceases to be what is interesting about the potential conversation. Like if I go look up that question and get an answer privately without sharing it with someone do I even care about the answer? Taking that further, it's almost like having the ability to look up answers completely misses that the point of asking it in the first place is to further human interaction and experience.

What is it about us and society that has moved us in a continually more isolating direction instead of getting better at forming connections. Aren't we more connected now by many orders of magnitude than all previous generations? Are we not able to handle these quick/cheap interactions and do they cause harm instead of satisfaction? Have we replaced meaningful, non-work human interaction with apps that seem to do the opposite of what we want?