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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 11th, 2023

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  • You’re mixing up the Fermi paradox and the Drake equation.

    Assuming you meant the Drake equation, more than half of the variables we have absolutely no statistical basis to decide on a fraction. Obviously they are non-zero, but they could be extremely improbable. We only have one example of intelligent life developing radio communications. Any estimate of a statistical likelihood of that using Earth as an example is meaningless without other examples.

    Some pessimistic estimates give solutions as small 9.1 x 10^-13 which indicates we would be alone.

    The Fermi Paradox riffs on the optimistic answer to Drake’s Equation. If other intelligent life is a certainty, why haven’t we found them yet?



  • Honestly, I’m playing devil’s advocate here. I love working from home and feel that the benefits outweigh the drawbacks in almost all ways. I agree with your sentiment, but without a good understanding of what companies are giving away and whether they can afford it is a big part of why back to office was hurried along.

    HR has to basically rewrite the book on everything after such a big shake-up in the culture of employment. New calculations for salaries, new requirements for liability, new hurdles for IT, infrastructure, and security. These are all costs to companies because the culture shifted. Working from home was mandatory for a short time, but it wasn’t obvious that companies could make it all work without time to sort out how to best do it.



  • Working from home is a benefit that is worth money. People are willing to get paid less for the benefit of working from home all else equal. Effectively, if you got to work from home, you got a raise. Forcing people to come back to the office after allowing working from home is like giving a raise and then taking it back. I agree that this is shitty and sucks.

    However, when you negotiated your pay it was for a particular job with certain benefits. Complaining about your company not giving you a benefit that wasn’t initially part of your hiring negotiation is basically asking for a raise that they aren’t obligated to provide.

    Edit: I guess this isn’t a popular opinion. I felt I was contributing to a conversation that seemed a little one sided by offering an alternative look at it. From an economic perspective there’s nothing wrong about what I’ve said. I don’t agree that it’s a nice or even ethical thing to do, but the backlash (against companies that push for RTO) seems overly dramatic to me.