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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday April 04 2017, @11:04PM   Printer-friendly
from the flock-that dept.

Politicians and economists lament that certain alpha regions — SF, LA, NYC, Boston, Toronto, London, Paris — attract all the best jobs while becoming repellently expensive, reducing economic mobility and contributing to further bifurcation between haves and have-nots. But why don't the best jobs move elsewhere?

Of course, many of them can't. The average financier in NYC or London (until Brexit annihilates London's banking industry, of course...) would be laughed out of the office, and not invited back, if they told their boss they wanted to henceforth work from Chiang Mai.

But this isn't true of (much of) the software field. The average web/app developer might have such a request declined; but they would not be laughed at, or fired. The demand for good developers greatly outstrips supply, and in this era of Skype and Slack, there's nothing about software development that requires meatspace interactions.

[...]Some people will tell you that remote teams are inherently less effective and productive than localized ones, or that "serendipitous collisions" are so important that every employee must be forced to the same physical location every day so that these collisions can be manufactured. These people are wrong, as long as the team in question is small — on the order of handfuls, dozens or scores, rather than hundreds or thousands — and flexible.

Because the feedlot isn't hiring for Ruby?


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04 2017, @11:27PM (13 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04 2017, @11:27PM (#488896)

    Its because humans are social animals. The more experts in near proximity the greater the opportunity for them to collaborate, formally and informally. Smart people rubbing shoulders with other smart people is the primordial soup of creativity. Its why cities are vastly more productive than rural areas. The friction of long-distance communication overwhelms the cheaper cost of living.

  • (Score: 2) by Uncle_Al on Tuesday April 04 2017, @11:33PM (11 children)

    by Uncle_Al (1108) on Tuesday April 04 2017, @11:33PM (#488899)

    because there are more people in cities.

    Rural areas are more productive at keeping your fscking food on the table.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04 2017, @11:53PM (9 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04 2017, @11:53PM (#488904)

      Rural areas are more productive at keeping your fscking food on the table.

      No they aren't. Not even close.
      Rural areas have been made vastly more productive because of technology developed by people in the cities.
      Crop yields have increased by over 400% over the last 60 years because of technology from the cities. [unl.edu]

      • (Score: 2) by Pino P on Wednesday April 05 2017, @01:08AM (8 children)

        by Pino P (4721) on Wednesday April 05 2017, @01:08AM (#488931) Journal

        Yet the technology from the cities still needs to go to the country because of zoning restrictions enacted by city governments. Some cities have even threatened jail time for victory gardeners such as Julie Bass (source [huffingtonpost.com]), though in her case the city of Oak Park later dismissed the charges without prejudice (source [naturalnews.com]; source [washingtonpost.com]).

        • (Score: 1, Troll) by kaszz on Wednesday April 05 2017, @01:33AM (5 children)

          by kaszz (4211) on Wednesday April 05 2017, @01:33AM (#488941) Journal

          Could the war against veggies be related to this? National Guard Whistleblower: “Doomsday Preppers Will Be Treated As Terrorists” [infowars.com] (2012). Rand Paul warns that having more than 7 days of food government considers having guns or storing more than 7 days of food a possible terrorist activity [offgridsurvival.com] (2011) and Terrorism Update: FBI Targets Preppers and Preparedness Supplies In Latest Bulletin [shtfplan.com] (2011).

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @02:11AM (4 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @02:11AM (#488961)

            from huffpo to naturalnews to infowars, this thread has really gone down the crazy drain
            its not a good look for anti-city folk

            • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday April 05 2017, @03:47AM (3 children)

              by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Wednesday April 05 2017, @03:47AM (#488993) Homepage

              There should be no reason for any authority to be fucking with peoples' gardens or willingness to collect rainwater for home use. That crosses the line from keeping the peace to jackboot thuggery and extortion, and sends the disturbing message that no, they don't want you to be self-sufficient even if you are helping the environment and reducing the city infrastructure burden in the process.

              There are entire non-affluent towns even in rural California where the codes are aggressive and the code-enforcement people do nothing but drive around all day looking to cite people for untrimmed grass and shrubbery.

              • (Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday April 05 2017, @06:46AM (2 children)

                by Bot (3902) on Wednesday April 05 2017, @06:46AM (#489045) Journal

                > no, they don't want you to be self-sufficient

                For the inherently satanic power system, which spans most, dare I say all nations, self-sufficiency IS subversion. Beyond the flags and the ideologies, the system works in the same way and does not need any other unifying/synchronizing factor than greed (or the actual satan whose existence I wouldn't discard on principle).

                --
                Account abandoned.
                • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @06:32PM (1 child)

                  by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @06:32PM (#489270)

                  The SYSTEM totally wants to stop you growing carrots, dude. That's what the the alien hieroglyphs were warning us about in the pyramids.

                  • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday April 07 2017, @11:15PM

                    by kaszz (4211) on Friday April 07 2017, @11:15PM (#490595) Journal

                    The system want you to need their fiat currency either through work or by aid. It's the same, it keeps you dependent.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @02:09AM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @02:09AM (#488958)

          (a) naturalnews is a nutjob website, if they get something right its like a broken clock between right twice a day
          (b) don't assume a couple of isolated stupid cases is representative of anything, especially when the example is one where sanity ultimately prevailed

          • (Score: 2) by Pino P on Wednesday April 05 2017, @12:57PM

            by Pino P (4721) on Wednesday April 05 2017, @12:57PM (#489105) Journal

            (a) That's why I linked three sources: to make sure the story remains readable even if one of the sources gets paywall-happy or the link otherwise rots.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 06 2017, @06:41PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 06 2017, @06:41PM (#489786)

      Rural areas are more productive at keeping your fscking food on the table.

      Yeah and other raw materials but that's about it.

      Cities are more efficient for most other stuff. If you put a hospital in a city it can serve far more people more easily than if you put a hospital in a rural area. Same for many other stuff (that's why many city states like Singapore, Hong Kong etc do so well in many metrics).

      And per capita they are better for the environment too. They are not good for the environment but they are the lesser evil. Better to have millions of pesky humans living in cities with a relatively small footprint than have millions of pesky humans spread out with 3 acres each. 900 million acres = 6 times the area of Texas, more than the entire land area of India. Where will the wildlife and wild-plants live?

      http://www.citylab.com/work/2012/04/why-bigger-cities-are-greener/863/ [citylab.com]

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by kaszz on Wednesday April 05 2017, @02:11AM

    by kaszz (4211) on Wednesday April 05 2017, @02:11AM (#488960) Journal

    Some humans have the need to coach their employees into their open office disruption range at a fixed time where they can impose their monkey needs of body language. And wreck concentration with chatter, pen drops and interruptions. Not something that is good for rewriting vm-core allocation scheme.

    Sometimes one can question if the meaning of employees is to keep the management company and show off, or it it's to make kickass products.