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Comment by PraetorianGourd | Hacker News Reader

Personally this just isn't the hill I'd die on. We've seen decades of wage stagnation, reductions in benefits, the gutting of retirement plans, hours-worked manipulation and so on and the thing we collectively rise to defend is... remote/hybrid work?

I guess it might be because all the items in the list generally impact the poor and working class, while we bourgeoisie don't really face _those_ problems. So we tilt at windmills.

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In some ways it’s very radical that people are trying to overturn such a fundamental part of being an adult as you have to go to work.

On the other hand the housing and transportation planning in this country are extremely dysfunctional. People live far from where they work and the commutes are brutal. I was hoping for a revolt against car-centric suburban planning orthodoxy, but I guess a revolt against ever having to go places also works.

I think we've seen the opposite of the desired impact. People are moving _out_ of dense urban neighborhoods to suburban and exurban enclaves as the primary motivator for living close-in (it reduces commute/offers public transit) is becoming a non-issue.

Yes that's what I mean: the transportation-sucks problem can be solved either by improving transportation or avoiding it. I would have preferred improvement, but getting a giant house in the exurbs and never leaving it also technically works.

But people still go places. All the time. Shopping, dinner, appointments, friends, gym etc and now a lot of _those_ activities are further away

Where are you going to go to dinner? Olive Garden? I think any reasonable version of this lifestyle involves being mostly self-sufficient at home. Especially in an Amazon Prime, UberEats, Peloton world. The stroads and strip malls that are the commercial centers and gathering places of exurbia are really unpleasant. People only go there because they have to. Increasingly they don't have to anymore.

I've not eaten at an Olive Garden in years. No idea where to live, but in the suburb I live in there are countless family-owned restaurants with cuisine from all corners of the world.

Btw, having Uber Eats bring you your food does fuck all for your emissions. In fact, it could increase them (depending on where the driver started at their destination afterwards).

The counterpoint here could be, "You've stagnated my wages, gutted my retirement plan, and reduced my benefits. I refuse to budge one inch more."

I mean working from the office is a huge pay decrease. You add 10 hours of commute + lunch/break time in an unpleasant environment. Easily 15 hours a week that can be better utilized that’s worth real money. For a jpm employee working 60+ hours that’s the difference between leasure time and just work/sleep

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