Hi! I'm Fads, and over here we talk about the intersection of psychology, society and online culture! My goal is to hopefully provide some insightful commentary on the 'big questions' and spark open discussion.
I'm a neuroscience grad (MA from Cambridge University) but my interests span across psychology, maths, personal finance and (as of recently) macroeconomics!
If your office is empty, you need a smaller office (to reduce your costs) not more people commuting to the office (to feed your ego). Waiting for the people to run companies to grow up and realize that the ideal office size is none at all. If all you need is some servers in a data center, and a ton of bandwidth people can use to connect in, you're spending so much less money on facilities. Why do you actually need a physical location at all? If you have specialized equipment or a warehouse, sure, a physical locale is needed. But so many of us spending our day sitting at a computer.
The point about some people replaced by automation in the past simply never finding a new job and turning to drug addiction is sobering...Imagine what a mass displacement of jobs would do to our already growing inequality and the impact that would have on drug addiction and crime
If growing profits is the main job of CEOs, why aren't boards firing them? They are clearly doing the opposite. It will be intetesting to see which CEOs follow their own mind and which just do what the crowd does.
Near to our office building was a good restaurant that hung on during the Covid years, despite the restrictions. Before that it had relied mainly on lunch time business. When the restrictions were dropped, it stayed open for three weeks, then, realising that things were never going to be the same, they closed their doors. I felt really sorry for the proprietors, who had shown a lot of courage in saying open in difficult times, and probably burned through a lot of their own money doing so.
Far less about ego than keeping people demoralized, lacking options and competition, and reducing mobility and independence. What they lose in savings they more than make up for in depressing wages by preventing collective negotiation or competition.
I WORK 5+ DAYS IN THE OFFICE. I was the sole person in an office of 350 people who came in during the Pandemic (I'm I.T.). Somebody had to keep the company running. I remember being in the empty office and blasting a Boom Box I brought with me. I prefer to work in the office. I get way more done. I have been promoted twice since then and my wages were also increased over 50% for my efforts.
People don't realize that disabled people have been begging for these accommodations and have been refused employment. Pandemic hits and companies immediately changed to remote. The point is, they didn't want disabled people or the hindrance of setting up remote. NOW they are taking it away and with it, disabled people are becoming unemployed again. As the number grows of people with long COVID, the need for remote flexible work does. But companies want to control you instead and again don't want to bother with it. I'm disabled, unemployed, looking for remote for five years now. 😢
Remote work is weird to me. I've always worked a blue collar job and dont know how people are so excited about sitting on their ass for 8 hours a day. Especially at home, I would feel like a prisoner.
It’s not even just about the fact I couldn’t afford it. But I genuinely can’t comprehend why anyone would want to have a kid. Its so far beyond my understanding I don’t see the appeal at all
It’s beyond this. People who want children are having very difficult times conceiving. Sperm counts are dropping. It’s not just the economy or society, it’s pollution. Our bodies are filled with microplastics. IMO plastics are today’s Asbestos.
Not really I want to see why people believe the powers that be will allow more time for the minions. It’s a classic of authoritarianism. Do as we say. We can do the remote option you get in the cages. It’s a way to purge the people so they can control more of the “game”.
After seeing family “work from home” while they’re out shopping and not actually working. Nope. If I was a business owner I would allow zero work from home. The comments here prove it.
They want people to feel connected to the employer through emotional bonds with their coworkers. It’s shocking how many people hesitate to leave a toxic workplace because either they don’t want to leave work relationships or they don’t want to leave coworkers in a bad situation.
"It's Not Just You. No One Wants Kids Anymore." Surely you meant "It's not just you. No-one wants children anymore.". No, it's not me! I do want children. As many/soon as possible/feasible.
Dude, I'm 25 and am still living with my parents. I'm not trying to push my luck here by bringing a whole baby into the equation. I mean, when houses are 300k+ for a 2 bedroom home, yea the economic crisis is a huge factor on my decision to not have children.
The real reason is women’s obsession with Chad. If she has a baby with a normy it will ruin her future chances to nab a Chad. If she does get a Chad then she also doesn’t want to get pregnant because she is afraid of losing her looks and Chad leaving.
I want have children with women I will really love and now I prefer be single knowing what problem they can bring to live... Almost 0 happiness only believing that sex is the price....
If they are so concerned with downtown retail suffering they could, gosh idk, convert those empty office building to residential spaces, so people could actually afford to live there and spend money?
My office switched to hybrid work a couple years ago. I am supposed to come in 3 days a week. I usually only go in one or two days. They don't enforce it
Great video commentary. Once upon a time, dating sites were a great option for busy introverts who couldn’t afford a matchmaker. While there were still scammers and scum buckets on those sites, the majority of the people were looking for something meaningful. Now, the apps feature the bottom of the barrel in the dating pool: - married people pretending to be single - people looking for an easy “smash and dash” - psychos - catfishes who use clever angles and filters to appear slimmer or taller - scammers - broke dusty bums looking for a sugar mama or sugar daddy - secks workers looking for new customers - fake bot accounts made by the app to keep you hooked
Ngl i focus better at home, and more willing to work longer hours. At office i just want to yap and too many distractions Can’t get rid of the actual office so workers have to play the real estate investors game
I think my question is, why didn't people just give up in Europe during the plague when 1/3 of Europe died and no one had any idea why? Or did they, and we just don't have any records of it?
For what it’s worth, I’m now married to one of the first few matches I ever had on hinge when it first came out and deleted a week or so later. At least back when it came out they delivered on their promise 😅
It all comes down to TAXES and the cost of living. At a certain point, the government takes so much of people’s time (hours for money much of which is taxed heavily which requires more and more hours of work to make enough to get by).
It doesn't matter if the money is still flowing in these people mostly of all care about having power over the people that work in their companies that's it it's just a power trip is all it is they want to be able to command people they want to be able to command people's time they want people to tell people what they can do and how they can live their life.
Think about it. If everyone works from home globally, there is no need for cities like New York, London and Singapore. This will cause real estate prices to plummet which will cause a domino effect on other assets (including our pension pots). So, in order for the economy to not completely collapse, since all assets are intertwined, something needs to keep the asset prices stable. And that 'thing' is coming back to the office.