Now some think the advent of Zoom, Slack, etc. might reverse this trend.
https://t.co/nQVCJrKvrB
1/Lots of tech companies and workers are making noises about leaving San Francisco, LA, NYC, and other "superstar" cities.
Some are predicting a shift to remote work and distributed companies.
Let's take a hard look at what that would actually
Now some think the advent of Zoom, Slack, etc. might reverse this trend.
https://t.co/nQVCJrKvrB
The forces keeping tech companies in places like SF are so strong that these regions have essentially become prisons for these companies.
1. In-person office productivity
2. Thick market effects
3. Knowledge spillovers
4. City life amenities
Studies show that working from home *some* of the time actually tends to raise productivity.
https://t.co/HK9DW99qAl
It's not clear yet. But remember, in order to shift out of top cities, tech companies only need to shift PART of their workforce to 100% remote.
That seems very doable.
Lose your engineering job in SF, and it's easy to find another nearby.
Lose your engineering job in Tulsa and you're in trouble.
Same goes for companies who need to find new employees.
That seems like a difficult but doable shift.
In fact, this was a shift that needed to happen long ago, because VCs' cultural preference for in-person investing means that a lot of cities unfairly lose out.
Companies will look for solutions, and they will find solutions.
But a harder challenge will be replacing the good things about cities that companies DON'T generate.
Many economists believe that when knowledge workers (like engineers) live in close proximity, they exchange ideas that boost their productivity.
https://t.co/hROA2pMOsw
So companies can't really replace this benefit of cities.
Maybe the internet will naturally replace knowledge spillovers. Maybe Stack Overflow is all we really need.
...Maybe??
Anyway, this going to be a taller order than switching companies over to Zoom/Slack.
Cities are great places to meet people and do fun stuff.
If distributed remote work means that tech workers just move to DIFFERENT SUPERSTAR CITIES, you haven't really changed anything!
You need to get knowledge workers to work in Tulsa, Oklahoma and Cleveland, Ohio.
But social discovery -- meeting whole groups of friends online -- is a problem that no social media company seems to have solved yet.
Maybe there is a way, but it'll take some creative supply chaining and matching!!
It's a tall order. We'll see if they can do it!
(end)
https://t.co/3XYIftJAHd
https://t.co/FGppA1M8W6
More from Noah Smith 🐇
1/Politics thread time.
To me, the most important aspect of the 2018 midterms wasn't even about partisan control, but about democracy and voting rights. That's the real battle.
2/The good news: It's now an issue that everyone's talking about, and that everyone cares about.
3/More good news: Florida's proposition to give felons voting rights won. But it didn't just win - it won with substantial support from Republican voters.
That suggests there is still SOME grassroots support for democracy that transcends
4/Yet more good news: Michigan made it easier to vote. Again, by plebiscite, showing broad support for voting rights as an
5/OK, now the bad news.
We seem to have accepted electoral dysfunction in Florida as a permanent thing. The 2000 election has never really
To me, the most important aspect of the 2018 midterms wasn't even about partisan control, but about democracy and voting rights. That's the real battle.
2/The good news: It's now an issue that everyone's talking about, and that everyone cares about.
3/More good news: Florida's proposition to give felons voting rights won. But it didn't just win - it won with substantial support from Republican voters.
That suggests there is still SOME grassroots support for democracy that transcends
4/Yet more good news: Michigan made it easier to vote. Again, by plebiscite, showing broad support for voting rights as an
5/OK, now the bad news.
We seem to have accepted electoral dysfunction in Florida as a permanent thing. The 2000 election has never really
Bad ballot design led to a lot of undervotes for Bill Nelson in Broward Co., possibly even enough to cost him his Senate seat. They do appear to be real undervotes, though, instead of tabulation errors. He doesn't really seem to have a path to victory. https://t.co/utUhY2KTaR
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) November 16, 2018
1/I'm thinking about the end of Apu in the context of the national debates on immigration and diversity.
2/Apu's presence in Springfield represented a basic reality of America in the late 20th and early 21st century: the presence of nonwhite immigrants.
3/As Tomas Jimenez writes in "The Other Side of Assimilation", for my generation, immigrants from India, China, Mexico, and many other countries aren't strange or foreign. On the contrary, they're a
4/But that America I grew up with is fundamentally ephemeral. The kids of immigrants don't retain their parents' culture. They merge into the local culture (and, as Jimenez documents, the local culture changes to reflect their influence).
5/Simpsons character don't change. But real people, and real communities, do. So a character who once represented the diversity that immigrants brought to American towns now represents a stereotype of Indian-Americans as "permanent foreigners".
\u2018The Simpsons\u2019 producer confirms Apu is being written out of show following controversy https://t.co/lKzFCe1wFa pic.twitter.com/s34IUDUtqs
— NME (@NME) October 26, 2018
2/Apu's presence in Springfield represented a basic reality of America in the late 20th and early 21st century: the presence of nonwhite immigrants.
3/As Tomas Jimenez writes in "The Other Side of Assimilation", for my generation, immigrants from India, China, Mexico, and many other countries aren't strange or foreign. On the contrary, they're a
4/But that America I grew up with is fundamentally ephemeral. The kids of immigrants don't retain their parents' culture. They merge into the local culture (and, as Jimenez documents, the local culture changes to reflect their influence).
5/Simpsons character don't change. But real people, and real communities, do. So a character who once represented the diversity that immigrants brought to American towns now represents a stereotype of Indian-Americans as "permanent foreigners".
To be honest, I think this is just the effect of Twitter.
If you're on Twitter all the time - as every political commentator now is - it's easy to think that whiny, big-talking Twitter slacktivists are "the Dems".
But what's happening out there on the ground?
This is another reason I think Twitter is so bad for society.
It convinces intellectuals and commentators that practically everyone who's on their side is an extremist.
Which makes them tolerate extremism out of a (false) feeling of necessity.
If you stay on Twitter too much (which we all do now), you start to think that the typical left-of-center person is some British wanker who quote-tweets "Imagine thinking this" to anyone who doesn't like the idea of "ending capitalism".
But he is not typical.
A majority of Americans are not on Twitter.
But *every* journalist, commentator, and intellectual *has* to be on Twitter.
So every journalist, commentator, and intellectual comes face to face with big-talking slacktivist faux-extremists day in and day out.
It's a problem!!
Online bubbles full of shouty faux-extremists are, in general, fine.
The difference is that every journalist, commentator, and intellectual is essentially forced to exist in THIS bubble, because their jobs require it.
Twitter is a dystopian technology.
(end)
If you're on Twitter all the time - as every political commentator now is - it's easy to think that whiny, big-talking Twitter slacktivists are "the Dems".
But what's happening out there on the ground?
— VeryHiddenGeniusHat (@Popehat) October 18, 2018
This is another reason I think Twitter is so bad for society.
It convinces intellectuals and commentators that practically everyone who's on their side is an extremist.
Which makes them tolerate extremism out of a (false) feeling of necessity.
If you stay on Twitter too much (which we all do now), you start to think that the typical left-of-center person is some British wanker who quote-tweets "Imagine thinking this" to anyone who doesn't like the idea of "ending capitalism".
But he is not typical.
A majority of Americans are not on Twitter.
But *every* journalist, commentator, and intellectual *has* to be on Twitter.
So every journalist, commentator, and intellectual comes face to face with big-talking slacktivist faux-extremists day in and day out.
It's a problem!!
Online bubbles full of shouty faux-extremists are, in general, fine.
The difference is that every journalist, commentator, and intellectual is essentially forced to exist in THIS bubble, because their jobs require it.
Twitter is a dystopian technology.
(end)
More from Society
A long thread on how an obsessive & violent antisemite & Holocaust denier has been embraced by the international “community of the good.”
Sarah Wilkinson has a history of Holocaust denial & anti-Jewish hatred dating back (in documented examples) to around 2015.
She is a self-proclaimed British activist for “Palestinian rights” but is more accurately a far Left neo-Nazi. Her son shares the same characteristics of violence, racism & Holocaust denial.
I first documented Sarah Wilkinson’s Holocaust denial back in July 2016. I believe I was the 1st person to do so.
Since then she has produced a long trail of written hate and abuse. See here for a good summary.
Wilkinson has recently been publicly celebrated by @XRebellionUK over her latest violent action against a Jewish owned business. Despite many people calling XR’s attention to her history, XR have chosen to remain in alliance with this neo-Nazi.
Former Labour Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell MP is among those who also chose to stand with Wilkinson via a tweet.
But McDonnell is not alone.
Neo-Nazi Sarah Wilkinson is supported and encouraged by thousands of those on the Left who consider themselves “anti-racists”.
Sarah Wilkinson has a history of Holocaust denial & anti-Jewish hatred dating back (in documented examples) to around 2015.
She is a self-proclaimed British activist for “Palestinian rights” but is more accurately a far Left neo-Nazi. Her son shares the same characteristics of violence, racism & Holocaust denial.
I first documented Sarah Wilkinson’s Holocaust denial back in July 2016. I believe I was the 1st person to do so.
Since then she has produced a long trail of written hate and abuse. See here for a good summary.
The internet is forever. https://t.co/zxBV7rjskB
— Heidi Bachram (@HeidiBachram) February 2, 2021
Wilkinson has recently been publicly celebrated by @XRebellionUK over her latest violent action against a Jewish owned business. Despite many people calling XR’s attention to her history, XR have chosen to remain in alliance with this neo-Nazi.
Former Labour Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell MP is among those who also chose to stand with Wilkinson via a tweet.
But McDonnell is not alone.
Neo-Nazi Sarah Wilkinson is supported and encouraged by thousands of those on the Left who consider themselves “anti-racists”.
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1/OK, data mystery time.
This New York Times feature shows China with a Gini Index of less than 30, which would make it more equal than Canada, France, or the Netherlands. https://t.co/g3Sv6DZTDE
That's weird. Income inequality in China is legendary.
Let's check this number.
2/The New York Times cites the World Bank's recent report, "Fair Progress? Economic Mobility across Generations Around the World".
The report is available here:
3/The World Bank report has a graph in which it appears to show the same value for China's Gini - under 0.3.
The graph cites the World Development Indicators as its source for the income inequality data.
4/The World Development Indicators are available at the World Bank's website.
Here's the Gini index: https://t.co/MvylQzpX6A
It looks as if the latest estimate for China's Gini is 42.2.
That estimate is from 2012.
5/A Gini of 42.2 would put China in the same neighborhood as the U.S., whose Gini was estimated at 41 in 2013.
I can't find the <30 number anywhere. The only other estimate in the tables for China is from 2008, when it was estimated at 42.8.
This New York Times feature shows China with a Gini Index of less than 30, which would make it more equal than Canada, France, or the Netherlands. https://t.co/g3Sv6DZTDE
That's weird. Income inequality in China is legendary.
Let's check this number.
2/The New York Times cites the World Bank's recent report, "Fair Progress? Economic Mobility across Generations Around the World".
The report is available here:
3/The World Bank report has a graph in which it appears to show the same value for China's Gini - under 0.3.
The graph cites the World Development Indicators as its source for the income inequality data.
4/The World Development Indicators are available at the World Bank's website.
Here's the Gini index: https://t.co/MvylQzpX6A
It looks as if the latest estimate for China's Gini is 42.2.
That estimate is from 2012.
5/A Gini of 42.2 would put China in the same neighborhood as the U.S., whose Gini was estimated at 41 in 2013.
I can't find the <30 number anywhere. The only other estimate in the tables for China is from 2008, when it was estimated at 42.8.
