>There's something surreal about this discussion. There's allegedly a
>crisis so severe that humanity is in dire trouble. But the solution is
>... homeworking!
>
>Owen said:
>
>
Well I don't think the solution is throwing your hands in the air and
saying "Ohmigod its a Crisis". Its probably looking
at all aspects of society and reducing useage in fossil fuels in many
small ways. Homeworking is (I think) a significant part of that. The
political question of how to accomplish that (or any other solutions)
is another question.
I think that while it is a problem, it is not a crisis. In the seventies all we ever heard about was the population crisis - something had to be done NOW before the world filled up with people. Well guess what - the world adjusted.
>>IMHO - home-working/telecommuting on a much greater scale would greatly >reduce oil consumption.
>>
>>
>
>No doubt, but it would cut people off from the social contact of the
>work place and confine us to out homes. Also, home working is not the
>same as outsourcing. It's actually very difficult to manage people so
>remotely. In my job I have responsibility for a number of remote
>offices in several continents, and I have to spend a large part of my
>time travelling between them. It's the only way to know what's going on
>and to share effective working practices. This will reduce oil use,
>but it is also a miserable idea.
>
>
Well arguably it would actually promote more social contact - instead of
spending hours in our cars alone - and creating
societies consisting of "donut" cities and "bedroom" suburbs, it could
revitalize the local neighborhood. Pre-industrial society
centered around the village - not the workplace - and had a heck of a
lot more social contact and interaction.
And the part about "very difficult to manage" - that is what I meant in
the original post about massaging the bosses' egos.
Decentralization means loss of control - but invariably leads to
increases in productivity, because individual initiative generally
turns out to be much better at innovation than sharing "effective
working practices."
Owen